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[perl5.git] / README.os390

This is a fully ported perl for OS/390 Release 3.  It may work on
other versions, but that's the one we've tested it on.

If you've downloaded the binary distribution, it needs to be
installed below /usr/local.  Source code distributions have an
automated `make install` step that means you do not need to extract
the source code below /usr/local (though that is where it will be
installed by default).  You may need to worry about the networking
configuration files discussed in the last bullet below.

Gunzip/gzip for OS/390 is discussed at:

   http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/bpxqp1.html

to extract an ASCII tar archive on OS/390, try this:

   pax -o to=IBM-1047,from=ISO8859-1 -r < latest.tar

GNU make for OS/390, which may be required for the build of perl, 
is available from:

  http://www.mks.com/s390/gnu/index.htm

Once you've unpacked the distribution, run Configure (see INSTALL for
full discussion of the Configure options), and then run make, then
"make test" then "make install" (this last step may require UID=0
privileges)

There is a "hints" file for os390 that specifies the correct values
for most things.  Some things to watch out for are

	- this port doesn't support dynamic loading.  Although
	  OS/390 has support for DLLs, there are some differences
	  that cause problems for perl.

        - You may see a "WHOA THERE!!!" message for $d_shmatprototype
          it is OK to keep the recommended "define".

	- Don't turn on the compiler optimization flag "-O".  There's
	  a bug in either the optimizer or perl that causes perl to
	  not work correctly when the optimizer is on.

	- Some of the configuration files in /etc used by the
	  networking APIs are either missing or have the wrong
	  names.  In particular, make sure that there's either
	  an /etc/resolv.conf or and /etc/hosts, so that
	  gethostbyname() works, and make sure that the file
	  /etc/proto has been renamed to /etc/protocol (NOT
	  /etc/protocols, as used by other Unix systems).

	- Some of the parser default files in /sample are needed in /etc.
	  In particular be sure that you at least copy /sample/yy* to /etc
	  before running perl's Configure.

When using perl on OS/390 please keep in mind that the EBCDIC and ASCII
character sets are different.  Perl builtin functions that may behave
differently under EBCDIC are mentioned in the perlport.pod document.

OpenEdition (UNIX System Services) does not (yet) support the #! means 
of script invokation.
See:

    head `whence perldoc`

for an example of how to use the "eval exec" trick to ask the shell to
have perl run your scripts for you.

perl-mvs mailing list: The Perl Institute (http://www.perl.org/)
maintains a mailing list of interest to all folks building and/or
using perl on EBCDIC platforms.  To subscibe, send a message of:

    subscribe perl-mvs

to majordomo@perl.org.

Regression tests: as the 5.005 kit was was being assembled
the following "failures" were known to appear on some machines
during `make test` (mostly due to ASCII vs. EBCDIC conflicts),
your results may differ:

comp/cpp..........FAILED at test 0
op/pack...........FAILED at test 58
op/stat...........Out of memory!
op/taint..........FAILED at test 73
lib/errno.........FAILED at test 1
lib/posix.........FAILED at test 19