This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Regularize the call-back units (and fix a bug in #5330).
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
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1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
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7First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9<URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/>.
10
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11The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12with all the defaults are:
8e07c86e 13
dc45a647 14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 15 sh Configure -de
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16 make
17 make test
18 make install
36477c24 19
aa689395 20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 22 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
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24
25Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26
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27The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
28on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
29
30 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
31 sh Configure
32 make
33 make test
34 make install
35
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36For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
37L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 38
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39If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
41
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42For information on what's new in this release, see the
43pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
44changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 45
1ec51d55 46=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 47
c3edaffb 48This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
49structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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50read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
51by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
52
53 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
54 C<code> literal code
55 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
56
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57Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
58you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
1ec51d55 59proceeding.
c3edaffb 60
eed2e782 61If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
62the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
63provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
64
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65If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
66should also read that hint file for specific information for your
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67system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
68there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
69that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
203c3eec 70
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71=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
72
735.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
74global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
75extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
76with:
77
78 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
79
80Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
81building perl itself with:
82
83 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
84
85pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
86
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87=head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
88
89Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
90a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
693762b4 91
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92However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
93-Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
94the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
95circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
96built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
97those extensions to use them with 5.6.
98
99Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
100without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
101L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
102L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
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103
104The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
105
1b1c1ae2 106On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
693762b4 107changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
e02fdbd2 108pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
c42e3e15 109what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
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110file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
111Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
112currently installed modules.
693762b4 113
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114=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
115
116If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
117GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
d6baa268 118Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
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119sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
120you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
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121in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
122available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
123unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
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124run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
125the sources back to the platform without GCC.
126
127If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
128form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
129followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
130
aa689395 131=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 132
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133The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
134After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 135total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
c42e3e15 136directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 137value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 138
aa689395 139=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 140
edb1cbcb 141If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
142with the command
143
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144 make distclean
145
146or
147
edb1cbcb 148 make realclean
c3edaffb 149
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150The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
151your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
152
153The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
154files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
155change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
156you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 157not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 158
d6baa268 159 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 160
e57fd563 161If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
162version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
163the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
164includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
165name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
166Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
167probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
168Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
169numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
170
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171Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
172Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
173it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
174might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
175compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
176the architecture name.
e57fd563 177
178In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
179Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 180
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181If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
182installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
183using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
184settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
185also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
186
187 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 188
aa689395 189=head1 Run Configure
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190
191Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
192things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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193you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
194almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
195since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
196the same function.
197
198At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
199defaults from then on.
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200
201After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 202*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 203
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204=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
205
206For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
207also has several convenient options which are all described below.
208However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
209you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
210run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
211a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
212
213 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
214
215For more help on Configure switches, run:
216
217 sh Configure -h
218
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219=head2 Common Configure options
220
fb73857a 221Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
222get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
223Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
224
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225=over 4
226
227=item gcc
228
229To compile with gcc you should run
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230
231 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
232
233This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
234compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
235
d6baa268 236=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 237
8e07c86e 238By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
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239/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
240and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
241further details.)
242
243You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
244directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
245line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 246
25f94b33 247 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 248
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249If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
250directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
251prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
252/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
253for more details.
8e07c86e 254
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255NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
256as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
257attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 258
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259=item /usr/bin/perl
260
261It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
262find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 263/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
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264careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
265vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
266
267By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
268the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
269
270 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
271
272or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
273
274In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
dd64f1c3 275put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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276into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
277obvious and convenient place.
278
d6baa268 279=item Overriding an old config.sh
04d420f9 280
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281If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
282with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
283
284=back
8e07c86e 285
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286If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
287output, you can run
288
289 sh Configure -des
290
291For my Solaris system, I usually use
292
293 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
294
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295=head2 GNU-style configure
296
1ec51d55 297If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 298use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 299
693762b4 300 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 301
dc45a647 302The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
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303options. Try
304
693762b4 305 ./configure.gnu --help
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306
307for a listing.
308
d6baa268 309Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
46bb10fb 310
dc45a647 311(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 312that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 313
aa689395 314=head2 Installation Directories
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315
316The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
317appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
318installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
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319Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
320directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
321be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
4633a7c4 322
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323I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
324everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
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325process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
326the defaults from then on.
327
328The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
329people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
330distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
331need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
332you can safely skip the next section.
333
334The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
335
336=over 4
337
338=item Directories for the perl distribution
339
c42e3e15 340By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
d6baa268 341$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
0a08c020 3425.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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343determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
344variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
345
346 Configure variable Default value
347 $prefix /usr/local
348 $bin $prefix/bin
349 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
350 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
351 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
352 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
353 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
354 $html1dir (none)
355 $html3dir (none)
356
357Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
358/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
359instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
360directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
361the common style is shown here.
362
363=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
364
365After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
366CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
c42e3e15 367be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
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368
369 Configure variable Default value
370 $siteprefix $prefix
371 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
49c10eea 372 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
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373 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
374 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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375 $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
376 $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
377 $sitehtml1 (none)
378 $sitehtml3 (none)
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379
380By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
273cf8d1 381modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
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382
383=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
384
385Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
386distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
387for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
388
389 Configure variable Default value
390 $vendorprefix (none)
391 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
392 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
49c10eea 393 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
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394 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
395 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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396 $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
397 $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
398 $vendorhtml1 (none)
399 $vendorhtml3 (none)
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400
401These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
402a vendor might choose the following settings:
403
404 $prefix /usr/bin
405 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
406 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
407
408This would have the effect of setting the following:
409
410 $bin /usr/bin
411 $scriptdir /usr/bin
412 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
413 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
414 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
415 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
416
417 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
49c10eea 418 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
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419 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
420 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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421 $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
422 $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
d6baa268 423
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424 $vendorbin /usr/bin
425 $vendorscript /usr/bin
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426 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
427 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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428 $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
429 $vendorman3 /usr/man/man3
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430
431Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
432/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
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433the /usr/local hierarchy.
434
435The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
436version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
437However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
438installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
439See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
440on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
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441
442Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
443example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
444are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
445site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
446network. One way to do that would be something like
447
448 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
449
450=item otherlibdirs
451
452As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
453variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
454directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
455$prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
456installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
457
458=item Man Pages
1ec51d55 459
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460In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
461pages in a version-specific directory, such as
462/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
463after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
464without resetting MANPATH.
4633a7c4 465
d6baa268 466You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
4633a7c4 467
0a08c020 468 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
8d74ce1c 469
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470Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
471
472 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
473
474Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
475Configure.
476
477=item HTML pages
478
479As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
480anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
481Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
482html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
483specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
484but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
485feedback.
8d74ce1c 486
d6baa268 487=back
8d74ce1c 488
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489Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
490to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
491architectures.
4633a7c4 492
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493Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
494directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
495filesystem.
496
497Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
498development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
499discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
500
501If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
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502library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
503suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
8d74ce1c 504
d6baa268 505Thus, for example, if you Configure with
0a08c020 506-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
3a6175e1 507
d6baa268 508 Configure variable Default value
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509 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
510 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
511 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
512 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
4633a7c4 513
aa689395 514=head2 Changing the installation directory
515
516Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
517associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
518will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
519sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 520However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
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521packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
522wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
523management software to move perl to its final destination. This
524section describes how to do that.
aa689395 525
0dcb58f4 526Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
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527could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
528/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
529following command line:
530
531 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
532
533(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
aa689395 534
693762b4 535Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
d6baa268 536modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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537follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
538that problem.
539
aa689395 540=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
541
542If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
543convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
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544installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
545create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
546Here's one way to do that:
aa689395 547
d6baa268 548 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
aa689395 549 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
d6baa268 550 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
aa689395 551 make
552 make test
d6c1b5d3 553 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
aa689395 554 cd /tmp/perl5
d6c1b5d3 555 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
fb73857a 556 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
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557 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
558 # everywhere in those files.)
559 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
bfb7748a 560 # #!/wherever/perl line.
aa689395 561 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
562 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
d6c1b5d3 563 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
aa689395 564 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
565
dc45a647 566=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
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567
568After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
569answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
570person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
571system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
572to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
573hint file for your system.
574
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575Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
576answers, you should
577
578 rm -f Policy.sh
579
580to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
581
582Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
583
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584If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
585to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
586platform-specific hints files.
587
c42e3e15 588Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
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589new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
590set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
591interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
592
aa689395 593=head2 Configure-time Options
594
595There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
596system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
597Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
598some of the main things you can change.
599
693762b4 600=head2 Threads
aa689395 601
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602On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
603experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
604README.threads, and then try:
f7542a9d 605
693762b4 606 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 607
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608Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
609line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
610
611The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 612
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613As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
614The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
615(ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
616ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
6175005threads behavior instead by either
618
619 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
620
621or by
622 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
623
624Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
625and these options may disappear as well.
626
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627=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
628
629Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 630stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
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631mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
632the default and is the only supported mechanism.
633
634This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
635line with
636
637 sh Configure -Duseperlio
638
639or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
640
641If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
642(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
643tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
644everywhere.
645
646=over 4
647
648=item 1.
649
1ec51d55 650AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 651cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
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652currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
653Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
654extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
655configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
656
657This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
bfb7748a 658A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
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659
660You select this option by
661
662 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
663
664If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
665that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
666Configure.
667
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668Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
669detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
670this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
671Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
672_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
673your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
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674
675There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
676problem.
677
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678=item 2.
679
680Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
681abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
682extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
683abstraction.
684
685This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
686
aa689395 687You select this option via:
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688
689 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
690
691If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
692detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
693
694=back
695
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696=head2 Dynamic Loading
697
698By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
699your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
700statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
701you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
702
aa689395 703=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 704
705Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
706linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
707extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
708such as -lm.
709
9d67150a 710On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
711replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 712several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
713different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 714you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 715can share the same library.
716
717The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 718penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 719mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 720and upgrades.
721
722In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 723test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 724Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
725results.
726
727The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 728libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 729libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 730based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
731version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
732isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
733
734For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
735for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
736
737You can elect to build a shared libperl by
738
739 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
740
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741To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
742library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
f556e5b9 743NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
4fabb596 744HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
2bf2710f 745the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
d6baa268 746be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
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747library search settings.
748
749However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
750shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
751something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
752./perl:
753
754 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
755or
756 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
757
758then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
759You can do this with
c3edaffb 760
761 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
762
763for Bourne-style shells, or
764
765 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
766
2bf2710f 767for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
d6baa268 768unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
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769
770You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
771messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
772for example:
77318126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
c3edaffb 774
9d67150a 775There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
776want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
777with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 778install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
779try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 780the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
781ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 782libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 783that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
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784in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
785equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 786with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 787override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 788to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 789
790The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
791directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 792version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
d6baa268 793variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
9d67150a 794
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795=head2 Malloc Issues
796
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797Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
798so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
799the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
800version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
801perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
802than your system malloc.
55479bb6 803
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804However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
805experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
806that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
807(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
c3edaffb 808
aa689395 809=over 4
810
d6baa268 811=item Using the system malloc
2ae324a7 812
d6baa268 813To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
aa689395 814
d6baa268 815 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
aa689395 816
d6baa268 817or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
aa689395 818
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819=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
820
b2a6d19e
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821NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
822asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
823run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
824can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
825running:
826
827 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
828
829or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
830
d6baa268 831Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
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832Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
833not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
834these functions.
d6baa268 835
b2a6d19e 836If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
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837names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
838have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
839by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
86058a2d 840
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841Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
842from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
843does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
844versions.
86058a2d 845
aa689395 846=back
847
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848=head2 Building a debugging perl
849
850You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 851B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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852you probably want to do
853
854 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
855
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856This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
857to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
858executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
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859cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
860your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
861variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
862internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
863if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
864old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
865ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
866L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
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867
868You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
869it's convenient to have both.
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870
871If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
872versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
873
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874=head2 Extensions
875
876By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
877to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
878only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
879B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
880Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
881is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
882set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
883the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
884built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
885useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
886
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887If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
888running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
889extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
890it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
891has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
892extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
893convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
894you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
895dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
896
897You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
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898documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
899ext/ subdirectory.
900
901Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
902DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
903version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
904
905In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
906to turn off each extension:
907
908 B (Always included by default)
909 DB_File i_db
910 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
911 Fcntl (Always included by default)
912 GDBM_File i_gdbm
913 IO (Always included by default)
914 NDBM_File i_ndbm
915 ODBM_File i_dbm
916 POSIX useposix
917 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
918 Opcode useopcode
919 Socket d_socket
a2dab6bc 920 Threads use5005threads
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921 attrs (Always included by default)
922
923Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
924
925 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
926
927Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
928library.
929
930Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
931the extensions you want.
932
933Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
934DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
935this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
936releases of version 2.
937
938If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
939adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
940for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
941you.
942
943Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
944remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
945executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
946well build all the ones that will work on your system.
947
948=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
949
950Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
951dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
952Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
953automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
954are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
955how to obtain the libraries.
956
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957If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
958searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
959appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
960your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
961searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
962the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
963See the examples below.
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964
965=head2 Examples
966
967=over 4
968
969=item gdbm in /usr/local
970
971Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 972GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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973installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
974/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
975necessary steps out automatically.
976
977Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
978your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
979
980When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
981-L/usr/local/lib.
982
983If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
984linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
985-L/usr/local/lib.
986
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987Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
988you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
989/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
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990
991=item gdbm in /usr/you
992
993Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
994but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
995have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
996still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
997an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
998Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
999/usr/you/lib to the list.
1000
1001It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1002line):
1003
d6baa268 1004 sh Configure -de \
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1005 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1006 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1007
1008locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1009Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1010
1011loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1012Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1013you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1014/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1015
d6baa268 1016 sh Configure -de \
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1017 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1018 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1019
1020=back
1021
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1022=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1023
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1024If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1025If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1026
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1027=over 4
1028
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1029=item Running Configure Interactively
1030
1031If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1032Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1033guesses.
1034
1035All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1036have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1037flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1038will use the defaults from then on.
1039
1040If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1041config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1042instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1043
aa689395 1044=item Hint files
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1045
1046The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1047in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1048will offer to use that hint file.
1049
1050Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
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1051If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1052for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1053More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1054file.
8e07c86e 1055
edb1cbcb 1056=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1057
1058Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
10594.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1060standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1061will see a message:
1062
1063 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1064 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1065 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1066
1067You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1068relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1069overriding it.
1070
1071If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1072used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1073to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1074system.
1075
1076For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1077and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1078Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1079Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1080issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1081
1082 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1083 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1084 Keep the previous value? [y]
1085
1ec51d55 1086In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1087should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1088the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1089
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1090=item Changing Compilers
1091
1092If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1093probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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1094rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1095with the options you want to use.
1096
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1097This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1098gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1099
c3edaffb 1100=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1101
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1102If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1103them to all the .SH files by running
1104
1105 sh Configure -S
1106
1107You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1108
1109 make depend
1110 make
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1111
1112=item config.over
1113
1114You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1115guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1116is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d6baa268 1117does no checking that your changes make sense.
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1118
1119=item config.h
1120
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1121Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1122Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1123The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1124
1ec51d55
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1125If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1126though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1127lost.
1128
1129=item cflags
1130
1131If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
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1132line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1133optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1134toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1135can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1136lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1137
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1138To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1139see the file hints/README.hints.
1140
1141To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1142$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
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1143
1144 sh Configure -S
1145 make depend
8e07c86e 1146
aa689395 1147=item No sh
8e07c86e 1148
c42e3e15
GS
1149If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1150Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1151system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
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1152You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1153mechanism.
1154
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1155=item Environment variable clashes
1156
1157Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1158ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1159unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1160be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1161
1162=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1163
1164In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1165
1166Build a threading Perl? [n]
1167Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1168
1169This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1170(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1171"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1172to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1173being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1174'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1175(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1176
1177=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1178
1179If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1180that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1181HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1182fail
1183
1184Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1185Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1186sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1187
1188and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1189libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1190
c3edaffb 1191=item Porting information
1192
2ae324a7 1193Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
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1194corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1195including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c42e3e15 1196subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
c3edaffb 1197
7f678428 1198Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 1199http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1200various other operating systems.
1201
491517e0
JA
1202If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1203section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1204in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1205Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1206
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1207=back
1208
1209=head1 make depend
1210
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1211This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1212The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1213the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1214makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1215(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1216Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
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1217
1218Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1219explicitly above.
1220
1221=head1 make
1222
1223This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1224
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1225=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1226
8e07c86e 1227If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1228If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
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1229the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1230then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1231
1232=over 4
1233
1ec51d55 1234=item hints
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1235
1236If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1237for further tips and information.
1238
1ec51d55 1239=item extensions
8e07c86e 1240
1ec51d55 1241If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 1242during the building of extensions, you should run
1243
3a6175e1 1244 make minitest
c3edaffb 1245
1246to test your version of miniperl.
1247
e57fd563 1248=item locale
1249
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1250If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1251them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1252running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1253See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1254whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1255The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1256
1257 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1258 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1259 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1260 LANG = (unset)
1261 are supported and installed on your system.
1262 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1263
1264at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1265
7f678428 1266=item varargs
c3edaffb 1267
1268If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
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1269correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1270gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1271in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1272correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1273your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1274See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1275
bfb7748a 1276=item util.c
c3edaffb 1277
1278If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1279numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1280
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1281 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1282 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1283 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1284
1285it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1286previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1287
9d67150a 1288=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 1289
1290If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1291Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 1292-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 1293$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
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1294and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1295Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 1296environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 1297your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1298the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1299
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1300One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1301invoke Configure with
1302
1303 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1304
1305for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1306instead.
1307
84902520
TB
1308Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1309include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1310config.sh.
1311
9d67150a 1312=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1313
1314If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1315it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1316L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1317
1ec51d55 1318=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1319
1320If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1321the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1322Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1323fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1324of your local set-up.
1325
1326=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1327
1328The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1329that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1330which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1331
aa689395 1332The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1333actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1334failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1335"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1336functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1337
aa689395 1338=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1339
1340If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1341try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1342with
1343
1344 sh Configure -Uusenm
1345
1346or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1347If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1348config.sh.
1349
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1350=item umask not found
1351
1352If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1353is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1354Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1355this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1356try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1357
7f678428 1358=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1359
1360If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1361problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1362version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1363(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1364d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1365
1366 d_vprintf='define'
1367
1368If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1369on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1370the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1371
3fe9a6f1 1372=item do_aspawn
1373
1374If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1375problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
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1376fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1377on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1378
84902520
TB
1379=item __inet_* errors
1380
1381If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1382referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1383installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1384these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1385in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1386newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1387updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1388/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1389avoid the problem.
1390
d6baa268
JH
1391=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1392
1393This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1394gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1395changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1396rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1397update your gcc installation.
1398
aa689395 1399=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1400
9d67150a 1401If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1402optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1403
1404 optimize='-O'
1405
bfb7748a 1406to
9d67150a 1407
1408 optimize=' '
1409
1410then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1411with B<make depend; make>.
1412
1ec51d55 1413=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1414
1b1c1ae2
GS
1415If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1416
1417 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1418
1419This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1420indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1421compiled right!)
9d67150a 1422
1423=item Missing functions
1424
1425If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1426other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1427there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
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1428likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1429you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
8e07c86e 1430
1ec51d55 1431=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1432
1ec51d55
CS
1433Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1434toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1435allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1436each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1437makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
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1438specific rule.
1439
7f678428 1440=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1441
c3edaffb 1442SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1443that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1444
f3d9a6ba 1445=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1446
1447If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1448the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1449then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1450Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1451systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1452For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1453unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1454they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1455reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1456process is continuing.
7f678428 1457
1458On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1459message
1460
f3d9a6ba 1461 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1462
1463then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1464the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1465extension without the -lgdbm library.
1466
1467It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1468this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1469quite that tightly coordinated.
1470
aa689395 1471=item sh: ar: not found
1472
1473This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1474was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1475make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1476is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1477directory.
1478
1479=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1480
1481Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1482with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1483bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1484
6087ac44
JH
1485=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1486
1487If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1488V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1489also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1490to include the System V semaphores.
1491
220f3621
GS
1492=item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1493
1494Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1495both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1496ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1497with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1498system.
1499
d6baa268
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1500=item GNU binutils
1501
1502If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1503tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1504with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1505may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1506under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1507to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1508vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1509Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1510
1ec51d55 1511=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e
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1512
1513Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1514
1515Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1516
1517NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1518
1ec51d55 1519UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1520
220f3621
GS
1521FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1522configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1523you will get a message telling what to do.
6087ac44 1524
8e07c86e
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1525If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1526
1527Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1528
d6baa268
JH
1529HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1530Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1531tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1532break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1533(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1534
8e07c86e
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1535=back
1536
1537=head1 make test
1538
d6baa268
JH
1539This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1540'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1541wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1542
84902520 1543Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1544opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1545a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1546
c4f23d77
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1547=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1548
1ec51d55
CS
1549If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1550by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1551bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
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1552
1553 ./perl op/groups.t
1554
aa689395 1555Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1556individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1557
1558 ./perl harness
1559
fb73857a 1560(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1561complicated constructs).
1562
fb73857a 1563You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1564comments that apply to your system.
1565
c4f23d77
AD
1566=over 4
1567
1568=item locale
1569
1ec51d55 1570Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1571may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1572B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1573one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1574LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1575are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1576
1577If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1578
1579 setenv LC_ALL C
1580
1581(for C shell) or
1582
1583 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1584
1ec51d55
CS
1585for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1586make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1587is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1588shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1589things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1590open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1591external program.
eed2e782 1592
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1593=item Out of memory
1594
1595On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1596of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1597Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1598fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1599will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1600same time.
1601
1602Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1603
1604 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1605
1606to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1607test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1608tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1609and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1610
c4f23d77
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1611=back
1612
8e07c86e
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1613=head1 make install
1614
1615This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1616Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1617to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1618pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e
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1619are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1620ignore any messages about chown not working.
1621
dd64f1c3
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1622=head2 Installing perl under different names
1623
1624If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1625when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1626indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1627
1628 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1629
beb13193
RS
1630You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1631"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1632
1633 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1634
1635This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1636ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1637the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1638
dd64f1c3
AD
1639=head2 Installed files
1640
8e07c86e
AD
1641If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1642anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1643
8e07c86e
AD
1644 ./perl installperl -n
1645 ./perl installman -n
1646
1ec51d55 1647make install will install the following:
8e07c86e
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1648
1649 perl,
1650 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1651 will be a link to perl.
1652 suidperl,
1653 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1654 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1655 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1656 read from stdin.
1657 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1658 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1659 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1660 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1661 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1662 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1663 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1664 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1665 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1666 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1667 pod2man, and
1668 pod2text
1669 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 1670 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
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1671
1672 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1673 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
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1674 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1675 module man
1676 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
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1677 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1678
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1679Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1680in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 1681
56c6f531 1682Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
d6baa268 1683under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
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1684optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1685program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1686
aa689395 1687=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1688
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1689In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
16905.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1691all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1692around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1693For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 1694with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
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1695top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1696#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1697
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1698Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1699with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1700(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1701
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1702Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1703searched by 5.005_03 are
1704
1705 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1706 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1707 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1708 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1709
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1710Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
1711fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
1712searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 1713
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1714 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
1715 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
1716 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1717 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
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1718
1719 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1720 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 1721 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 1722
c42e3e15 1723Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
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1724of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1725directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 1726to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 1727suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
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1728present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
1729/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 1730but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 1731
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1732The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
17335.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 1734
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1735Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
1736binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
1737by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
d6baa268 1738
265f5c4a
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1739 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1740 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
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1741 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
1742 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
1743
1744 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1745 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
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1746
1747 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1748 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1749 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 1750
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1751Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
17525.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
1753extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
1754of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
1755versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
1756the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
1757will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
1758same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
1759version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
1760
1761This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
1762to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
1763versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
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1764
1765=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1766
1ec51d55 1767Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 1768separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
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1769won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
1770libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
1771way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 1772
46bb10fb 1773 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1774
46bb10fb 1775and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1776may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1777scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1778
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1779Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1780(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1781each major version.
1782
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1783If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1784seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1785subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1786yet.
1787
0a08c020 1788=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
693762b4 1789
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1790Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
1791prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
17925.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
1793you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
1794(See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
1795
1796See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
1797incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
1798perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
693762b4 1799
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1800=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1801
1802You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1803
1ec51d55
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1804By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1805they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
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1806
1807In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1808perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
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1809process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1810However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
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1811the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1812whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1813possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1814
aa689395 1815=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1816
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1817Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1818system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1819header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
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1820by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1821library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 1822
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1823Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1824of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1825hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1826For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1827structures.
aa689395 1828
fb73857a 1829=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1830
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1831Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1832format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1833documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1834
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1835Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1836html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1837
fb73857a 1838The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1839perl documentation:
aa689395 1840
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1841 ./installhtml \
1842 --podroot=. \
1843 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1844 --recurse \
1845 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1846 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1847 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1848 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1849 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1850 --verbose
1851
1852See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1853many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1854see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1855resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1856(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1857
fb73857a 1858You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1859the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1860
aa689395 1861=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1862
1863Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1864available in TeX format. Type
1865
1866 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1867
1868=head1 Reporting Problems
1869
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1870If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1871helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1872pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1873to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1874an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 1875
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1876Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1877the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1878comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1879before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
f5b3b617 1880run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
aa689395 1881
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1882Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1883information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1884Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1885complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
d6baa268 1886commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
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1887are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1888usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1889reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1890will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1891try to keep it brief but clear.
aa689395 1892
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1893=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1894
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1895Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1896is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 1897build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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1898can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1899sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 1900
1ec51d55 1901Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
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1902along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1903running (either):
34a2a22e
RM
1904
1905 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1906 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
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RM
1907
1908This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1909(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1910set-up.)
34a2a22e 1911
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1912Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1913the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1914the documentation.
34a2a22e 1915
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1916=head1 AUTHOR
1917
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1918Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1919heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1920feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 1921
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1922If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1923L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1924
1925=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1926
1927This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 1928the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 1929If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
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1930a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1931and the contact information to match your distribution.
8e07c86e 1932
a5f75d66 1933=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1934
d6baa268 1935$Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $