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1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
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5=head1 NAME
6
cb8c159f 7INSTALL - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
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8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
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12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
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15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
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25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
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29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
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31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
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34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
668cbedd 39Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C compiler.
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40A minimum of C89 is required. Some features available in C99 will
41be probed for and used when found. The perl build process does not
42rely on anything more than C89.
43
ff52061e 44These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 45
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46If you're building perl from a git repository, you should also consult
47the documentation in pod/perlgit.pod for information on that special
48circumstance.
49
8d74ce1c 50If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 51L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 52
7beaa944 53For information on what's new in this release, see the
37ee6528 54pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 55specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 56
1ec51d55 57=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 58
c3edaffb 59This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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61read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
63
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
65 C<code> literal code
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 67 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 68
c42e3e15 69Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 70you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 71proceeding.
c3edaffb 72
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73In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
74your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
75instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
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76system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
77for even more information.
c42e3e15 78
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79For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
80L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
81directory.
d56c5707 82
ce80d64e 83=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 84
ce80d64e 85=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 86
37ee6528 87Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
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88potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
89the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
37ee6528 90to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 91
fdd3cf50 92B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 93If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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94using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
95those extensions.
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96
97Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 98without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 99L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
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100
101The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
102
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103On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
104in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
37ee6528 105pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 106installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
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107list of locally installed modules. Also see the L<CPAN> module's
108C<autobundle> function for one way to make a "bundle" of your currently
109installed modules.
16dc217a 110
aa689395 111=head1 Run Configure
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112
113Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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115you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
116almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
117since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
118the same function.
119
ce80d64e 120At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 121defaults from then on.
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122
123After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 124*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 125
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126The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
127files.
128
ce80d64e 129=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 130
ce80d64e 131Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 132
ce80d64e 133 Configure -h
d6baa268 134
ce80d64e 135to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
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138=over 4
139
08854360 140=item C compiler
d6baa268 141
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142To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
143system, you should run
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144
145 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
146
08854360 147This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
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148compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
149
d6baa268 150=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 151
8e07c86e 152By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 153/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 154and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
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155further details.)
156
157You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 158directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 159line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 160
25f94b33 161 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 162
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163If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
164directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
165prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
166/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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167for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
168or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 169
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170NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
171as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
172attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 173
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174=item /usr/bin/perl
175
176It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
177find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 178/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 179careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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180vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
181on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
182configured may be found with
183
184 perl -V:config_args
185
186(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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187spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
188at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 189
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190By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
191version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 192
7d56c962 193 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 194
7d56c962 195or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 196
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197In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
198(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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199into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
200obvious and convenient place.
201
71c4561b 202=item Building a development release
04d420f9 203
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204For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
205use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
206because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
207Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
208sanity check.
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209
210=back
8e07c86e 211
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212If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
213output, you can run
214
215 sh Configure -des
216
dd3196cd 217=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 218
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219For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
220be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
221have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
222after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
223For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
224invocations:
46bb10fb 225
08854360 226 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 227
5247441a 228To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
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229Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
230variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
231But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 232
ce80d64e 233For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 234
ce80d64e 235 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 236
ce80d64e 237=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 238
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239There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
240system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
241Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
242some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 243
ce80d64e 244=head3 Threads
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246On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
247enable this, run
4633a7c4 248
ce80d64e 249 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 250
ce80d64e 251The default is to compile without thread support.
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253Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
254model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
255called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
256thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 257(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 258
ce80d64e 259The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
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260'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
261ithreads model.
d6baa268 262
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263When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
264the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
265This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
266fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
267PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
268way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 269C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 270
08854360 271=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 272
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273Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2742 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
275support is on by default.
d6baa268 276
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277This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
278seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
279using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
280be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
281parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 282will happen.
d6baa268 283
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284There's also one known limitation with the current large files
285implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
286section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
287like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 288
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289If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
290
291 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
292
08854360 293=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 294
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295If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
296them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 297you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 298
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299There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
300using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
301-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
302the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 303
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304The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
30564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
306longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
307your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
308does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
309might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
310you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 311
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312The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
313integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
314create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
315resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
316have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
317aware.
d6baa268 318
08854360 319Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
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320On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
321is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
322Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 323options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 324
ce80d64e 325=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 326
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327In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
328range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
329(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
330this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 331
ce80d64e 332=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 333
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334You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
335and the long double support.
b367e8b0 336
ce80d64e 337=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1 338
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339Perl 5.18 reworked the measures used to secure its hash function
340from algorithmic complexity attacks. By default it will build with
341all of these measures enabled along with support for controlling and
342disabling them via environment variables.
343
344You can override various aspects of this feature by defining various
345symbols during configure. An example might be:
346
347 Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
348
349B<Unless stated otherwise these options are considered experimental or
350insecure and are not recommended for production use.>
351
352Perl 5.18 includes support for multiple hash functions, and changed
353the default (to ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD), you can choose a different
354algorithm by defining one of the following symbols. Note that as of
355Perl 5.18 we can only recommend use of the default or SIPHASH. All
356the others are known to have security issues and are for research
357purposes only.
358
359 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
360 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SDBM
361 PERL_HASH_FUNC_DJB2
362 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SUPERFAST
363 PERL_HASH_FUNC_MURMUR3
364 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME
365 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD
366 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_OLD
367
368Perl 5.18 randomizes the order returned by keys(), values(), and each(),
369and allows controlling this behavior by using of the PERL_PERTURB_KEYS
370option. You can disable this option entirely with the define:
371
372 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DISABLED
373
374You can disable the environment variable checks and specify the type of
375key traversal randomization to be used by defining one of these:
376
377 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_RANDOM
378 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DETERMINISTIC
379
380In Perl 5.18 the seed used for the hash function is randomly selected
eb717850 381at process start which can be overridden by specifying a seed by setting
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382the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable.
383
384You can change this behavior by building perl with the
385
386 USE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT
387
388define, in which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED
389environment variable to enable the security feature or by adding
390
391 NO_HASH_SEED
392
393to the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
394Note these modes are poorly tested, insecure and not recommended.
504f80c1 395
3debabd9 396B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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397ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3985. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 399be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 400randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 401between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
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402hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
403recommended.
504f80c1 404
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405See L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED> and L<perlrun/PERL_PERTURB_KEYS> for details on
406the environment variables, and L<perlsec/Algorithmic Complexity Attacks> for
407further security details.
408
ce80d64e 409=head3 SOCKS
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410
411Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
412TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
413access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
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414Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
415You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
416L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 417
ce80d64e 418=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 419
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420By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
421If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
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422statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
423you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
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424With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
425(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 426
ce80d64e 427=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 428
429Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
430linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 431extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 432
08854360 433On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 434replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 435several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
436different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 437you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 438can share the same library.
439
440The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 441penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 442mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 443and upgrades.
444
445In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 446test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 447Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
448results.
449
450The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 451libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 452libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 453based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
454version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
455isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
456
c3edaffb 457You can elect to build a shared libperl by
458
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459 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
460
461To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
462library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
b6c36746 463NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
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464for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
465the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
466be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
467library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
468variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
469
470 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
471
472However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
473shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
474something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
475./perl:
476
04bd6448 477 ./perl -MTestInit t/misc/failing_test.t
08854360 478
ce80d64e 479or
08854360 480
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481 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
482
483then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
484You can do this with
485
486 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
487
488for Bourne-style shells, or
489
490 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
491
492for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
493unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
494again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
495
496You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
497messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
498for example:
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499
500 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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501
502There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
503want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
504with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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505install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
506try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
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507the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
508ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
509libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
510that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
511in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
512equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
513with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
514LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
515Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
516_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
517
518In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
519with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
520previous build.
521
522A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
523architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
524You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
525point to your new architecture-dependent library.
526
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527=head3 Environment access
528
529Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
530is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
531leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
532to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
533whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
534but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
535embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
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536by compiling with C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section
537L</"Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.">.
538You can force an embedded perl to use direct manipulation by setting
539C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the C<perl_construct()> call.
575e1338 540
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541=head2 Installation Directories
542
543The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
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544appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
545questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
546slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
547you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
548from then on. Alternatively, you can
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549
550 grep '^install' config.sh
551
552after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
553
554The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
555people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
556distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
557need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
558you can safely skip the next section.
559
560The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
561
562=over 4
563
564=item Directories for the perl distribution
565
6f25e196 566By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.19.12.
ce80d64e 567$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
8891dd8d 5685.12.3, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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569determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
570variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
571
572 Configure variable Default value
573 $prefixexp /usr/local
574 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
575 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
576 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
577 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
578 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
579 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
580 $html1direxp (none)
581 $html3direxp (none)
582
583$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
584directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
585file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
586variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
587
588Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
589/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
590instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
591directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
592the common style is shown here.
593
594=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
595
596After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
597CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
598be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
599
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600 Configure Default
601 variable value
602 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
603 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
604 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
605 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
606 $sitearchexp
607 $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
608 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
609 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
610 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
611 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
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612
613By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
614modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
615
616=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
617
618Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
619distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
620for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
621
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622 Configure Default
623 variable value
624 $vendorprefixexp (none)
625
626 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
627
628 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
629 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
630 $vendorlibexp $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
631 $vendorarchexp
632 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
633 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
634 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
635 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
636 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
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637
638These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
639a vendor might choose the following settings:
640
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641 $prefix /usr
642 $siteprefix /usr/local
643 $vendorprefix /usr
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644
645This would have the effect of setting the following:
646
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647 $binexp /usr/bin
648 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
649 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
650 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
651 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
652 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
653
654 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
655 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
656 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
657 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
658 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
659 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
660
661 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
662 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
663 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
664 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
665 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
666 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
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667
668Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
668cbedd 669/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end user are in
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670the /usr/local hierarchy.
671
672The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
673version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
674However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
675installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 676See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
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677on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
678
679Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
680example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
681are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
682site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
683network. One way to do that would be something like
684
979b4168 685 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
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686
687=item otherlibdirs
688
689As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
690variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
691directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
692Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
693version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
694
695For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
696installation, perhaps in a strange place:
697
698 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
699
700=item APPLLIB_EXP
701
702There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
703that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
704separated list of directories, like this
705
706 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
707
708The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
709ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
710modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
711touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
712version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
713present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
714directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
715run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
716
785aa5e3 717=item usesitecustomize
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718
719Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
720
36de116d 721 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 722
785aa5e3
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723which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
724When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
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725anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
726entries to @INC.
727
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728=item Man Pages
729
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730By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
731are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
732want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
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733
734 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
735
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736=item HTML pages
737
738Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
739HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
740add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
741variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
742documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
743eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
744
745=back
746
747Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
748to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
749architectures.
750
751Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
752directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
753filesystem.
c3edaffb 754
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755Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
756development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 757discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 758
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759If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
760library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
761suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 762
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763Thus, for example, if you Configure with
764-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 765
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766 Configure variable Default value
767 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
768 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
769 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
770 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 771
ce80d64e 772=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 773
ce80d64e 774Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 775associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
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776will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
777sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
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778However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
779dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
780wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
781to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
782
783=over 4
784
785=item installprefix
c3edaffb 786
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787To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
788command line:
c3edaffb 789
7df75831 790 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 791
ce80d64e 792(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 793
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794Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
795modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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796follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
797as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 798
7df75831 799=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 800
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801If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
802to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
803multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
804archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
805using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
806automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
807simply do:
830717a7 808
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809 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
810 make
811 make test
812 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
813 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
814 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 815
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816=back
817
32878f30
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818=head2 Relocatable @INC
819
820To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
821
822 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
823
824Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
825optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
826
827That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
828path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
829can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
830"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
831install is done to the original configured prefix.
832
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833This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
834("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
835rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
836
ce80d64e 837=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 838
ce80d64e 839After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
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840answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
841If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
842defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
843directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 844generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 845different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
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846you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
847example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
848as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 849
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850Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
851answers, you should
c3edaffb 852
ce80d64e 853 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 854
ce80d64e 855to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 856
ce80d64e 857Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 858
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859If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
860to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
861platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 862
ce80d64e 863=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 864
ce80d64e 865Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
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866installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
867and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
868being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
869variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 870
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871To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
872modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 873
ce80d64e 874 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 875
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876If you do want to use modules from some previous perl versions, the variable
877must contain a space separated list of directories under the site_perl
878directory, and has to include architecture-dependent directories separately,
879eg.
880
4683a5d7 881 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list="5.16.0/x86_64-linux 5.16.0" ...
274ca399 882
ce80d64e 883When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
668cbedd 884PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 885
ce80d64e 886=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 887
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888Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
889where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
890read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
891architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
892links) by
06c896bb 893
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894 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
895 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
896 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 897
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898This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
899pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
900unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 901
ce80d64e 902 make
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903 make test
904 make install
06c896bb 905
ce80d64e 906as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 907
3bf462b8
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908=head2 Building a debugging perl
909
910You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 911B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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912you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
913(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
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914system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
915use the parameter:
eaf812ae 916
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917 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
918
919or
920
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921 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
922
923For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
924for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
925to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
926
7df75831 927Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 928
7df75831 929=over 4
3bf462b8 930
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931=item -DDEBUGGING
932
933=item -DEBUGGING
934
935=item -DEBUGGING=both
936
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937Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
938
939You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
940but usually it's convenient to have both.
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941
942=item -DEBUGGING=-g
943
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944=item -Doptimize=-g
945
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946Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
947
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948(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
949Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
950
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951=item -DEBUGGING=none
952
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953=item -UDEBUGGING
954
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955Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
956
957=back
958
3bf462b8 959If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 960versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 961
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962Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be much bigger and will run
963much, much more slowly than a standard perl.
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964
965=head2 DTrace support
966
979b4168 967On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
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968using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
969subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
970simple D script that uses them:
971
972 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
973 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
974 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
975 }
976
977
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978=head2 Extensions
979
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980Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
981in the ext/ subdirectory.
982
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983By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
984to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 985only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
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986
987To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
988-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
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989a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
990listed in
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991C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
992the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
993extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
994certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
995examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
996these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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997
998Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
999the extensions you want.
1000
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1001If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1002running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1003extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1004it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1005has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1006extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1007convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1008you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1009dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1010Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
1011L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 1012
dd3196cd 1013If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
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1014adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1015for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1016you.
1017
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1018=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1019
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1020Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
1021dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 1022Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
7df75831 1023automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
27021420 1024to be specified explicitly (see L</Threads>).
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1025
1026Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
1027for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
1028compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
1029option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
1030directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
1031need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
1032by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1033
ce80d64e 1034=head3 Examples
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1035
1036=over 4
1037
1038=item gdbm in /usr/local
1039
1040Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1041GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1042installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1043/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1044necessary steps out automatically.
1045
1046Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
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1047your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1048not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1049you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
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1050
1051If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1052linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1053-L/usr/local/lib.
1054
d6baa268
JH
1055Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1056you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1057/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1058
e8b9ce60
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1059=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1060
668cbedd 1061The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by Oracle installs in a
e8b9ce60
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1062version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1063/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1064-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1065and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1066Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1067add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1068add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1069BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1070
1071It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
8d74ce1c
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1072line):
1073
979b4168
KW
1074 sh Configure -de \
1075 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include \
1076 /usr/local/include' \
1077 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1078 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
8d74ce1c
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1079
1080locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1081Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1082
1083loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1084Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1085
e8b9ce60
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1086The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1087the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1088Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1089system.
8d74ce1c
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1090
1091=back
1092
b76ca5cc
BF
1093=head2 Specifying a logical root directory
1094
1095If you are cross-compiling, or are using a compiler which has it's own
1096headers and libraries in a nonstandard location, and your compiler
1097understands the C<--sysroot> option, you can use the C<-Dsysroot> option to
1098specify the logical root directory under which all libraries and headers
1099are searched for. This patch adjusts Configure to search under $sysroot, instead of /.
1100
1101--sysroot is added to ccflags and friends so that make in
1102ExtUtils::MakeMaker, and other extensions, will use it.
1103
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1104=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1105
dd3196cd
RGS
1106If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1107Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1108need to use B<Configure -O>.
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1109
1110=head2 GNU-style configure
1111
1112If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1113use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1114
1115 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1116
1117The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1118options. Try
1119
1120 ./configure.gnu --help
1121
1122for a listing.
1123
1124(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1125that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1126
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1127=head2 Malloc Issues
1128
1129Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1130so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1131the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1132version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1133perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1134than your system malloc.
1135
1136However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1137experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1138that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1139(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1140
1141=over 4
1142
1143=item Using the system malloc
1144
1145To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1146
1147 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1148
1149or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1150
73d6d1b0
RGS
1151Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1152depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1153systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1154See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1155default is set.
1156
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1157=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1158
1159NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1160run Configure to accept all the defaults.
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1161
1162Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1163Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1164These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1165
1166If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1167will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1168sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1169been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1170
1171Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1172from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1173does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1174versions.
1175
1176=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1177
1178This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1179Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1180using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1181
7df75831 1182 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
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1183
1184to enable this option.
1185
1186=back
1187
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1188=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1189
8d74ce1c 1190If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1191If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1192
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1193=over 4
1194
25f94b33
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1195=item Running Configure Interactively
1196
1197If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1198Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1199guesses.
1200
1201All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1202have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1203flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1204will use the defaults from then on.
1205
1206If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1207config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1208instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1209
aa689395 1210=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1211
a0a8d9d3
DD
1212Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1213
1214=over 4
1215
1216=item o
1217
1218The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1219library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1220and so on.
1221
1222=item o
1223
1224The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1225although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1226resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1227
1228=item o
1229
1230How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1231speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1232implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1233often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1234
1235=back
1236
1237The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1238in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1239will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1240not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
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1241
1242Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
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1243If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1244for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1245More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1246file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1247
1248Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1249Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1250
73d6d1b0 1251=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1252
82c11e95
RGS
1253If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1254different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1255always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1256on your system.
edb1cbcb 1257
1258For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1259and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1260Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a
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1261Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1262issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1263
1264 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1265 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1266 Keep the previous value? [y]
1267
1ec51d55 1268In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1269should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1270the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1271
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1272=item Changing Compilers
1273
1274If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1275probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1276rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1277
c3edaffb 1278=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1279
1ec51d55
CS
1280If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1281them to all the .SH files by running
1282
1283 sh Configure -S
1284
1285You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1286
1287 make depend
1288 make
8e07c86e 1289
48370efc
JH
1290=item config.over and config.arch
1291
668cbedd 1292You can also supply a shell script config.over to override
48370efc
JH
1293Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1294before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1295however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1296This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1297
1298There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1299config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1300architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1301hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1302
1303=item config.h
1304
1ec51d55
CS
1305Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1306Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1307The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1308
1ec51d55
CS
1309If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1310though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1311lost.
1312
1313=item cflags
1314
1315If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1316line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
5729ffdd
NC
1317optimizer on toke.c, find the switch structure marked 'or customize here',
1318and add a line for toke.c ahead of the catch-all *) so that it now reads:
1319
1320 : or customize here
1321
1322 case "$file" in
1323 toke) optimize='-g' ;;
1324 *) ;;
1325
1326You should not edit the generated file cflags directly, as your changes will
65c512c3 1327be lost the next time you run Configure, or if you edit config.sh.
8e07c86e 1328
f5b3b617
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1329To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1330see the file hints/README.hints.
1331
1332To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1333$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1334
1335 sh Configure -S
1336 make depend
8e07c86e 1337
aa689395 1338=item No sh
8e07c86e 1339
c42e3e15
GS
1340If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1341Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1342system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1343You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1344mechanism.
1345
c3edaffb 1346=item Porting information
1347
e6f03d26 1348Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1349corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1350including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1351subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1352
7f678428 1353Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1354http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1355various other operating systems.
1356
ce80d64e 1357If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1358section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
c222ef46 1359in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlgit.pod.
491517e0
JA
1360Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1361
8e07c86e
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1362=back
1363
ce80d64e 1364=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1365
1366You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1367CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1368command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1369
d3df0cfd 1370 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1371
1372or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1373then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1374The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
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1375This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1376extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1377extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1378
1379Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1380modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1381or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1382do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1383
1384Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1385dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1386For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1387headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1388process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1389
ce80d64e 1390=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1391
172dd959
JV
1392suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1393longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1394changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1395
8e07c86e
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1396=head1 make depend
1397
bfb7748a
AD
1398This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1399The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1400the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1401makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
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1402(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1403Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
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1404
1405Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1406explicitly above.
1407
1408=head1 make
1409
1410This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1411
8d410bc4
YST
1412=head2 Expected errors
1413
f5b5f377 1414These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1415
1416 ...
1417 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1418 ...
1419 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1420
8d74ce1c
AD
1421=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1422
8e07c86e 1423If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1424If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1425the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1426then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e
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1427
1428=over 4
1429
1ec51d55 1430=item hints
8e07c86e
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1431
1432If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1433for further tips and information.
1434
1ec51d55 1435=item extensions
8e07c86e 1436
1ec51d55 1437If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1438during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1439
3a6175e1 1440 make minitest
c3edaffb 1441
1442to test your version of miniperl.
1443
e57fd563 1444=item locale
1445
bfb7748a
AD
1446If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1447them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1448running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1449See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1450whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1451The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1452
1453 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1454 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1455 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1456 LANG = (unset)
1457 are supported and installed on your system.
1458 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1459
1460at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1461
06aa495b
DM
1462=item other environment variables
1463
1464Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1465have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1466OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1467their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1468behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1469executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1470PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1471So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1472retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1473
7f678428 1474=item varargs
c3edaffb 1475
1476If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
AD
1477correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1478gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1479in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1480correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1481your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1482See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1483
bfb7748a 1484=item util.c
c3edaffb 1485
1486If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1487numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1488
19f4563d 1489 util.c: In function 'Perl_form':
bfb7748a
AD
1490 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1491 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1492
1493it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1494previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1495
1ec51d55 1496=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1497
1498If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1499the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1500Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1501fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
668cbedd 1502of your local setup.
c3edaffb 1503
aa689395 1504=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1505
1506If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1507try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1508with
1509
1510 sh Configure -Uusenm
1511
1512or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1513If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1514config.sh.
1515
bfb7748a
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1516=item umask not found
1517
1518If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1519is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1520Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1521this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1522try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1523
7f678428 1524=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1525
1526If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1527problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1528version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1529(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1530d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1531
1532 d_vprintf='define'
1533
1534If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1535on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1536the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1537
3fe9a6f1 1538=item do_aspawn
1539
1540If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1541problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1542fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1543on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1544
84902520
TB
1545=item __inet_* errors
1546
1547If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1548referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1549installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1550these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1551in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1552newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1553If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1554with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1555test process to avoid the problem.
1556
73d6d1b0 1557=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1558
1559On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
668cbedd 1560reentrant functions -- specifically networking-related ones -- being present
6d240721
JH
1561but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1562other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1563header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1564another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1565Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1566header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1567normally /usr/include).
84902520 1568
d6baa268
JH
1569=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1570
1571This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1572gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1573changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1574rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1575update your gcc installation.
1576
aa689395 1577=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1578
9d67150a 1579If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1580optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1581
1582 optimize='-O'
1583
bfb7748a 1584to
9d67150a 1585
1586 optimize=' '
1587
1588then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1589with B<make depend; make>.
1590
4bbc1586 1591=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1592
4bbc1586
AD
1593If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1594undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1595should look something like
1596
1597 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1598
1599The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1600need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1601will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1602need to start all over again. Run
1603
1604 make distclean
1605
1606and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1607what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1608Configure.
1609
0ff780f4
MB
1610If the libs variable is missing -lm, there is a chance that libm.so.1
1611is available, but the required (symbolic) link to libm.so is missing.
1612(same could be the case for other libraries like libcrypt.so). You
1613should check your installation for packages that create that link, and
1614if no package is installed that supplies that link or you cannot install
1615them, make the symbolic link yourself e.g.:
1616
c7121961
FC
1617 $ rpm -qf /usr/lib64/libm.so
1618 glibc-devel-2.15-22.17.1.x86_64
1619 $ ls -lgo /usr/lib64/libm.so
1620 lrwxrwxrwx 1 16 Jan 7 2013 /usr/lib64/libm.so -> /lib64/libm.so.6
0ff780f4 1621
c7121961 1622 or
0ff780f4 1623
c7121961 1624 $ sudo ln -s /lib64/libm.so.6 /lib64/libm.so
0ff780f4 1625
4bbc1586
AD
1626If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1627L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1628
668cbedd 1629If you still have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
0ff780f4
MB
1630need to add some library or other, make a symbolic link like described
1631above, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1632there but is defective or incomplete. If you used a hint file, see if
1633it has any relevant advice. You can also look through through config.h
1634for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1635
1ec51d55 1636=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1637
1ec51d55
CS
1638Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1639toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1640allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
668cbedd 1641each file in cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1ec51d55 1642makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1643specific rule.
1644
7f678428 1645=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1646
c3edaffb 1647SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1648that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1649
1bb125e2
MB
1650=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1651
1652Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1653error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1654
1655 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1656
1657 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1658
1659 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1660
1661 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1662 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1663 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1664
1665 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1666
1667 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1668 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1669
f3d9a6ba 1670=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1671
1672If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1673the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1674then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1675Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1676systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
AD
1677Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1678phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1679unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1680
1681On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1682message
1683
f3d9a6ba 1684 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1685
1686then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1687the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1688extension without the -lgdbm library.
1689
1690It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1691this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1692quite that tightly coordinated.
1693
aa689395 1694=item sh: ar: not found
1695
1696This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1697was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1698make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1699is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1700directory.
1701
1702=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1703
1704Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1705with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1706bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1707
6087ac44
JH
1708=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1709
11906ba0 1710If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1711V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1712also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1713to include the System V semaphores.
1714
11906ba0 1715=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1716
1717Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1718both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1719ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1720with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1721system.
1722
d6baa268
JH
1723=item GNU binutils
1724
1725If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1726tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1727with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1728may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1729under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1730to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1731vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1732Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1733
16dc217a
GS
1734=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1735
1736The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1737make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1738archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1739C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1740archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1741incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1742official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1743that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1744archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1745
16dc217a
GS
1746=item invalid token: ##
1747
ce80d64e
AD
1748You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1749need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1750file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1751options.
16dc217a 1752
1ec51d55 1753=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1754
7df75831 1755Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1756
1757Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1758
1759NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1760
668cbedd 1761UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and #undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1762
11906ba0 1763FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1764configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1765you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1766
6c8d78fb
HS
1767Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1768installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1769and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1770the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1771view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1772to avoid the BIND.
1773
8e07c86e
AD
1774=back
1775
58a21a9b
JH
1776=head2 Cross-compilation
1777
e7a3c61b 1778Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
30bba555 1779rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for several platforms: as of
f36edc68 1780January 2014, these include Android, Blackberry 10, PocketPC aka
30bba555
BF
1781WinCE, ARM Linux, and Solaris. Previous versions of
1782Perl also provided support for Open Zaurus, Symbian, and
1783the IBM OS/400, but it's unknown if those ports are still functional.
1784These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms, while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host> platforms.
e7a3c61b
JH
1785
1786What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1787cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1788up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1789(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1790awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
30bba555
BF
1791version 5.18.0, the Configure script also knows two ways of supporting
1792cross-compilation, so please keep reading.
e7a3c61b
JH
1793
1794See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1795the particular platforms:
1796
1797=over 4
1798
1799=item WinCE/PocketPC
1800
30bba555 1801L<README.ce or perlce|perlce>
e7a3c61b 1802
30bba555 1803=item Android
e7a3c61b 1804
30bba555 1805L<"Cross-compilation" in README.android or perlandroid|perlandroid/Cross-compilation>
e7a3c61b 1806
30bba555 1807=item Blackberry
e7a3c61b 1808
30bba555 1809L<"Cross-compilation" in README.qnx or perlqnx|perlqnx/Cross-compilation>
e7a3c61b 1810
30bba555 1811=item Solaris
e7a3c61b 1812
30bba555
BF
1813L<"CROSS-COMPILATION" in README.solaris or perlsolaris|perlsolaris/CROSS-COMPILATION>
1814
1815=item Linux
1816
1817This document; See below.
e7a3c61b
JH
1818
1819=back
1820
1821Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1822modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1823cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1824platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1825L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1826of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1827
1828For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1829C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1830directory>.
1831
30bba555
BF
1832About the cross-compilation support of Configure: There's two forms.
1833The more common one requires some way of transferring and running executables
1834in the target system, such as an ssh connection; this is the
1835C<./Configure -Dusecrosscompile -Dtargethost=...> route. The second method
1836doesn't need access to the target system, but requires you to provide
1837a config.sh, and and a canned Makefile; the rest of this section describes
1838the former.
e7a3c61b 1839
30bba555
BF
1840This cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1841a wide variety of setups, such as a 64-bit OS X host for an Android ARM target, or
1842an amd64 Linux host targeting x86 Solaris, or even Windows.
e7a3c61b
JH
1843
1844To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
30bba555 1845has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>:
58a21a9b
JH
1846
1847 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1848
1849This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
30bba555 1850symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
58a21a9b
JH
1851
1852During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1853into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1854cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1855target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1856transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1857the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1858methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1859F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1860
1861To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1862the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1863happens), supply Configure with
1864
1865 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1866
1867The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1868must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1869You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1870
1871 -Dtargetuser=luser
1872
30bba555
BF
1873but in case you don't, "root" will be used. Similarly, you can specify
1874a non-standard (i.e. not 22) port for the connection, if applicable, through
1875
1876 -Dtargetport=2222
58a21a9b 1877
30bba555
BF
1878If the name of C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1879compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the target architecture (C<targetarch>),
1880plus names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and C<ranlib> will also be automatically
1881chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
1882(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1883as appropriate). This will also aid in guessing the proper
1884operating system name for the target, which has other repercussions, like
1885better defaults and possibly critical fixes for the platform. If Configure
1886isn't guessing the OS name properly, you may need to either add a hint file
1887redirecting Configure's guess, or modify Configure to make the correct choice.
1888
1889If your compiler doesn't follow that convention, you will also need to
1890specify which target environment to use, as well as C<ar> and friends:
58a21a9b
JH
1891
1892 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
30bba555
BF
1893 -Dcc=mycrossgcc
1894 -Dar=...
1895
1896Additionally, a cross-compilation toolchain will usually install it's own
1897logical system root somewhere -- that is, it'll create a directory somewhere
1898which includes subdirectories like 'include' or 'lib'. For example, you
1899may end up with C</skiff/local/arm-linux>, where
1900C</skiff/local/arm-linux/bin> holds the binaries for cross-compilation,
1901C</skiff/local/arm-linux/include> has the headers, and
1902C</skiff/local/arm-linux/lib> has the library files.
1903If this is the case, and you are using a compiler that understands
1904C<--sysroot>, like gcc or clang, you'll want to specify the
1905C<-Dsysroot> option for Configure:
1906
1907 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux
1908
1909However, if your don't have a suitable directory to pass to C<-Dsysroot>,
1910you will also need to specify which target environment to use:
1911
58a21a9b
JH
1912 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1913 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1914 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1915
58a21a9b
JH
1916In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1917choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1918for example:
1919
1920 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1921
1922Putting it all together:
1923
1924 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 1925 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
30bba555 1926 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1927 -Dtargetuser=root \
1928 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1929 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
30bba555 1930 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux \
58a21a9b
JH
1931 -D...
1932
e7a3c61b 1933or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1934
1935 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1936 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1937 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1938 -D...
1939
e7a3c61b
JH
1940Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1941F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1942
1943 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1944 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1945 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
30bba555
BF
1946 -Dsysroot=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5
1947
1948There is also a C<targetenv> option for Configure which can be used
1949to modify the environment of the target just before testing begins
1950during 'make test'. For example, if the target system has a nonstandard
1951/tmp location, you could do this:
1952
1953 -Dtargetenv="export TMPDIR=/other/tmp;"
1954
1955If you are planning on cross-compiling to several platforms, or some other
1956thing that would involve running Configure several times, there are two
1957options that can be used to speed things up considerably.
1958As a bit of background, when you
1959call Configure with C<-Dusecrosscompile>, it begins by actually partially
1960building a miniperl on the host machine, as well as the generate_uudmap
1961binary, and we end up using that during the build.
1962So instead of building that new perl every single time, you can build it just
1963once in a separate directory, and then pass the resulting binaries to
1964Configure like this:
1965
1966 -Dhostperl=/path/to/second/build/dir/miniperl
1967 -Dhostgenerate=/path/to/second/build/dir/generate_uudmap
1968
1969Much less commonly, if you are cross-compiling from an ASCII host to an
1970EBCDIC target, or vise versa, you'll have to pass C<-Uhostgenerate> to
1971Configure, to signify that you want to build a generate_uudmap binary
1972that, during make, will be run on the target system.
e7a3c61b 1973
8e07c86e
AD
1974=head1 make test
1975
d6baa268
JH
1976This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1977'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
36bded94 1978wrong.
84902520 1979
84902520 1980Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1981opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1982a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1983
c4f23d77
AD
1984=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1985
1ec51d55 1986If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
36bded94 1987by hand to see if it makes any difference.
8e07c86e 1988
36bded94
AD
1989One way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1990individual subtests is to run the harness from the t directory:
aa689395 1991
785aa5e3 1992 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1993
fb73857a 1994(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1995complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1996will run all tests.
10c7e831 1997
36bded94
AD
1998If individual tests fail, you can often run them by hand (from the main
1999perl directory), e.g.,
2000
2001 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
2002
fb73857a 2003You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
2004comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2005shared library path if you get errors like:
2006
2007 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2008
36bded94
AD
2009The file t/README in the t subdirectory contains more information about
2010running and modifying tests.
2011
10c7e831 2012See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2013
c4f23d77
AD
2014=over 4
2015
2016=item locale
2017
1ec51d55 2018Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2019may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 2020'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2021one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2022LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2023are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2024
2025If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2026
2027 setenv LC_ALL C
2028
2029(for C shell) or
2030
2031 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2032
1ec51d55
CS
2033for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2034make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2035is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2036shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2037things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2038open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2039external program.
eed2e782 2040
0740bb5b
AD
2041=item Timing problems
2042
c29923ff
JH
2043Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2044sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2045If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2046these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2047with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2048and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
2049F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
2050F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 2051F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2052
f89caa8d
RGS
2053You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
2054perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
2055different.
2056
c4f23d77
AD
2057=item Out of memory
2058
2059On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2060of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2061For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2062test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
2063
2064Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2065
04bd6448 2066 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
2067
2068to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2069test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2070tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2071and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2072
a55bb48b
AD
2073=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
2074
2075This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
2076a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
2077(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
2078shared library should fix the problem.
2079
4f76e5ba
AD
2080=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2081
2082First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2083real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2084
2085Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2086directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2087systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2088run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2089test').
2090
2091The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2092
2093(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2094other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2095
2096This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
668cbedd 2097unpacked in such a way that the user IDs in the distribution package
4f76e5ba
AD
2098are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2099
2100(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2101by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2102UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2103add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2104used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2105set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2106file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2107others.)
2108
2109This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2110permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2111also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2112is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2113should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2114supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2115used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
211611.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2117on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2118local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2119
b2b23189
JH
2120(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2121any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2122directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
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2123(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2124building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2125module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2126
2127See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2128about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2129
c4f23d77
AD
2130=back
2131
5ee651a9
NC
2132The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2133Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2134your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2135C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2136
2137 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2138
2139An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2140L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2141scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2142interact with their job schedulers.
2143
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2144=head1 make install
2145
2146This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2147Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2148to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2149pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
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2150are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2151in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2152
19f4563d 2153If "make install" just says "'install' is up to date" or something
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2154similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2155and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2156by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2157
dd64f1c3
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2158=head2 Installing perl under different names
2159
2160If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2161when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2162indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2163
2164 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2165
beb13193 2166You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2167"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2168
2169 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2170
5cda700b
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2171This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2172avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2173Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2174
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2175=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2176
2177You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2178the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2179
2180 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2181
2182DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2183the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2184
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2185=head2 Installed files
2186
8e07c86e
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2187If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2188anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2189
8e07c86e
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2190 ./perl installperl -n
2191 ./perl installman -n
2192
1ec51d55 2193make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2194
d56c5707
JH
2195 binaries
2196
8e07c86e 2197 perl,
be8498a1 2198 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2199 will be a link to perl.
668cbedd 2200 a2p awk-to-perl translator.
d56c5707
JH
2201
2202 scripts
2203
979b4168
KW
2204 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P,
2205 if your cc -E can't read from stdin.
2206 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header
2207 files.
668cbedd 2208 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration.
979b4168
KW
2209 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with
2210 different
668cbedd
KW
2211 versions of perl.
2212 cpan The CPAN shell.
668cbedd
KW
2213 enc2xs Encoding module generator.
2214 find2perl find-to-perl translator.
979b4168
KW
2215 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C
2216 headers.
8e07c86e 2217 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2218 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2219 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2220 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2221 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
668cbedd 2222 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure.
73d6d1b0 2223 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
668cbedd
KW
2224 utility iconv.
2225 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules.
8e07c86e 2226 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
d56c5707
JH
2227 pod2man,
2228 pod2text,
d56c5707 2229 pod2usage
668cbedd
KW
2230 podchecker POD syntax checker.
2231 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation.
2232 prove A command-line tool for running tests.
2233 psed A Perl implementation of sed.
2234 ptar A Perl implementation of tar.
2235 ptardiff A diff for tar archives.
2236 ptargrep A grep for tar archives.
2237 s2p sed-to-perl translator.
2238 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums.
2239 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors.
2240 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
979b4168 2241 zipdetails display the internal structure of zip files
8e07c86e 2242
d56c5707
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2243 library files
2244
2245 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2246 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
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2247
2248 documentation
2249
d6baa268
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2250 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2251 module man
2252 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
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2253 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2254
33cceb07 2255installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2256in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2257
d56c5707 2258Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2259under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2260optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2261program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2262
33cceb07
RGS
2263=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2264
d56c5707
JH
2265Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2266installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2267perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2268disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2269To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2270
2271 Configure -Dversiononly
2272
2273or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2274you can just manually run
2275
2276 ./perl installperl -v
2277
2278and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2279
d56c5707
JH
2280See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2281approach.
2282
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2283=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2284
2285Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2286system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2287header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2288by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2289library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2290
668cbedd 2291Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2292of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2293hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2294For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2295structures.
2296
2297=head1 installhtml --help
2298
2299Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2300format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2301documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2302
2303Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2304html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2305
2306The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2307perl documentation:
2308
2309 ./installhtml \
2310 --podroot=. \
2311 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2312 --recurse \
2313 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2314 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2315 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2316 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2317 --verbose
2318
2319See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2320many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2321see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2322resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2323(and would welcome patches for them).
2324
2325You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2326the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2327
2328=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2329
2330Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2331available in TeX format. Type
2332
2333 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2334
2335=head1 Starting all over again
2336
668cbedd 2337If you wish to rebuild perl from the same build directory, you should
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2338clean it out with the command
2339
2340 make distclean
2341
2342or
2343
2344 make realclean
2345
2346The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
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2347your old config.sh and Policy.sh files. (A plain 'make clean' will not
2348delete the makefiles used for rebuilding perl, and will also not delete
2349a number of library and utility files extracted during the build process.)
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2350
2351If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2352change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
668cbedd 2353you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not reuse
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2354your old config.sh.
2355
2356If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2357installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2358using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2359settings"> above.
2360
ff52061e
RGS
2361=head1 Reporting Problems
2362
2363Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2364to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2365information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2366more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2367carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2368on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2369you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2370message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2371get advice.
2372
2373The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2374completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2375C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2376C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2377run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2378directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2379
2380If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2381B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2382an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2383
2384If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2385(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2386description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
668cbedd 2387-- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
ff52061e
RGS
2388
2389Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2390reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
668cbedd 2391written English is not great -- what matters is how well you describe
ff52061e
RGS
2392the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2393not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2394
2395Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2396config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2397necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2398session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2399messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
668cbedd 2400appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient -- fancy
ff52061e
RGS
2401attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2402read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2403subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2404
5acb7768
NC
2405If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2406inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2407it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2408unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2409to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2410co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2411platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2412issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2413
ff52061e
RGS
2414If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2415report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2416http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2417
7df75831 2418=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2419
6f25e196 2420Perl 5.19.12 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2421In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2422
693762b4 2423In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
24245.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2425re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2426version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2427
be8498a1
RGS
2428Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2429used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2430(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2431
33cceb07
RGS
2432Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2433searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2434
33cceb07
RGS
2435 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2436 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2437 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2438 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2439
33cceb07
RGS
2440Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2441searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2442
33cceb07
RGS
2443 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2444 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2445 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2446 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2447
33cceb07
RGS
2448 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2449 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2450 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2451
c42e3e15 2452Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2453of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2454directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2455to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2456suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2457present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2458/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2459but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2460
c42e3e15 2461The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 24625.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2463
33cceb07
RGS
2464Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2465with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2466Configure defaults) will be:
2467
33cceb07
RGS
2468 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2469 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2470 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2471 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2472
33cceb07 2473 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2474
33cceb07 2475 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2476
d6baa268 2477 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2478
cc65bb49
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2479Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2480modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2481
0a08c020
GS
2482This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2483to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2484versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
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2485
2486=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2487
1ec51d55 2488Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2489separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2490won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2491libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2492way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2493
6f25e196 2494 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.19.12
d52d4e46 2495
6f25e196 2496and adding /opt/perl5.19.12/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2497may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2498scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2499
693762b4 2500Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2501(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
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2502each major version.
2503
6877a1cf
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2504If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2505seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2506subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2507yet.
2508
2136887a 2509=head2 Upgrading from 5.19.0 or earlier
693762b4 2510
6f25e196 2511B<Perl 5.19.12 may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.19.11 or
4683a5d7 2512earlier Perl releases.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2513(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
6f25e196
SH
2514used with 5.19.12. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
25155.19.12, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2516installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2517above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2518
2519See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2520incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2521perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2522
8ebf57cf
JH
2523=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2524
2525The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2526Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2527operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2528
c8214fdf 2529Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
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2530Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2531space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2532Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2533programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2534depends on what do you need to do.
2535
8ebf57cf
JH
2536In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2537recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2538depends on what you need.
2539
2540Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2541
2542 use strict;
2543 use warnings;
2544 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2545 print("$f\n");
2546 }
2547
6f25e196 2548in Linux with perl-5.19.12 is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2549
2550 ./bin/perl
6f25e196
SH
2551 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/strict.pm
2552 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/warnings.pm
2553 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2554 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/feature.pm
2555 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/XSLoader.pm
2556 ./lib/perl5/5.19.12/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2557
00930d57
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2558Secondly, for perl-5.10.1, the Debian perl-base package contains 591 files,
2559(of which 510 are for lib/unicore) totaling about 3.5MB in its i386 version.
2560Omitting the lib/unicore/* files for brevity, the remaining files are:
8ebf57cf 2561
bfe08c74 2562 /usr/bin/perl
00930d57
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2563 /usr/bin/perl5.10.1
2564 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config.pm
2565 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_git.pl
2566 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_heavy.pl
2567 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Cwd.pm
2568 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/DynaLoader.pm
2569 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Errno.pm
2570 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Fcntl.pm
2571 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/File/Glob.pm
2572 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Hash/Util.pm
2573 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO.pm
2574 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/File.pm
2575 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Handle.pm
2576 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2577 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2578 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Select.pm
2579 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket.pm
2580 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2581 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2582 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/List/Util.pm
2583 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/POSIX.pm
2584 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Scalar/Util.pm
2585 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Socket.pm
2586 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/XSLoader.pm
2587 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2588 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2589 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2590 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2591 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2592 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2593 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2594 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Hash/Util/Util.so
2595 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2596 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/List/Util/Util.so
2597 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2598 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2599 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2600 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2601 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/lib.pm
2602 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/re.pm
8ebf57cf 2603 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2604 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
00930d57 2605 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
8ebf57cf 2606 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2607 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
00930d57 2608 /usr/share/lintian/overrides/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2609 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
00930d57
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2610 /usr/share/man/man1/perl5.10.1.1.gz
2611 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/AutoLoader.pm
2612 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp.pm
2613 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2614 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter.pm
2615 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2616 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec.pm
2617 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2618 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/FileHandle.pm
2619 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2620 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2621 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2622 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/SelectSaver.pm
2623 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Symbol.pm
2624 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/ParseWords.pm
2625 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2626 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2627 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Tie/Hash.pm
2628 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/attributes.pm
2629 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/base.pm
2630 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes.pm
2631 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes_heavy.pl
2632 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/constant.pm
2633 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/fields.pm
2634 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/integer.pm
2635 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/locale.pm
2636 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/overload.pm
2637 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/strict.pm
2638 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/unicore/*
2639 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8.pm
2640 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8_heavy.pl
2641 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/vars.pm
2642 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings.pm
2643 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2644
e7a3c61b
JH
2645A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2646need to run a Perl program is
2647
a0a8d9d3 2648 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2649
2650(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2651it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2652use something like the below
2653
979b4168
KW
2654 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 \
2655 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
e7a3c61b
JH
2656
2657(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2658and 'ktrace'.)
2659
c19ccd8c
RGS
2660=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2661
2662If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2663F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2664by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2665completely removed.
2666
8e07c86e
AD
2667=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2668
bfb7748a
AD
2669Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2670is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2671build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2672can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2673sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e
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2674
2675=head1 AUTHOR
2676
bfb7748a
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2677Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2678heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2679feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2680
f5b3b617
AD
2681If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2682L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2683
2684=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2685
2686This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2687the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2688If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2689a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2690and the contact information to match your distribution.