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1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9<URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/>.
10
11The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12with all the defaults are:
13
14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
15 sh Configure -de
16 make
17 make test
18 make install
19
20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
22 (installhtml --help)
23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
24
25Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26
27The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
28on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
29
30 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
31 sh Configure
32 make
33 make test
34 make install
35
36For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
37L<"Porting information"> below.
38
39If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
41
42For information on what's new in this release, see the
43pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
44changes, see the Changes file.
45
46=head1 DESCRIPTION
47
48This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
49structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
50read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
51by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
52
53 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
54 C<code> literal code
55 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
56
57Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
58you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
59proceeding.
60
61If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
62the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
63provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
64
65If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
66should also read that hint file for specific information for your
67system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
68there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
69that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
70
71=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
72
735.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
74global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
75extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
76with:
77
78 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
79
80Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
81building perl itself with:
82
83 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
84
85pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
86
87=head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
88
89Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
90a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
91
92However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
93-Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
94the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
95circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
96built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
97those extensions to use them with 5.6.
98
99Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
100without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
101L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
102L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
103
104The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
105
106On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
107changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
108pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
109what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
110file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
111Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
112currently installed modules.
113
114=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
115
116If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
117GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
118Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
119sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
120you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
121in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
122available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
123unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
124run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
125the sources back to the platform without GCC.
126
127If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
128form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
129followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
130
131=head1 Space Requirements
132
133The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
134After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
135total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
136directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
137value is system-dependent.
138
139=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
140
141If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
142with the command
143
144 make distclean
145
146or
147
148 make realclean
149
150The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
151your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
152
153The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
154files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
155change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
156you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
157not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
158
159 rm -f config.sh
160
161If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
162version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
163the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
164includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
165name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
166Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
167probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
168Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
169numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
170
171Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
172Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
173it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
174might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
175compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
176the architecture name.
177
178In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
179Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
180
181If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
182installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
183using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
184settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
185also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
186
187 rm -f Policy.sh
188
189=head1 Run Configure
190
191Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
192things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
193you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
194almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
195since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
196the same function.
197
198At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
199defaults from then on.
200
201After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
202*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
203
204=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
205
206For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
207also has several convenient options which are all described below.
208However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
209you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
210run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
211a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
212
213 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
214
215For more help on Configure switches, run:
216
217 sh Configure -h
218
219=head2 Common Configure options
220
221Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
222get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
223Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
224
225=over 4
226
227=item gcc
228
229To compile with gcc you should run
230
231 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
232
233This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
234compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
235
236=item Installation prefix
237
238By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
239/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
240and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
241further details.)
242
243You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
244directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
245line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
246
247 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
248
249If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
250directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
251prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
252/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
253for more details.
254
255NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
256as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
257attempt infinite recursion.
258
259=item /usr/bin/perl
260
261It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
262find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
263/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
264careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
265vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
266
267By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
268the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
269
270 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
271
272or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
273
274In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
275put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
276into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
277obvious and convenient place.
278
279=item Overriding an old config.sh
280
281If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
282with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
283
284=back
285
286If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
287output, you can run
288
289 sh Configure -des
290
291For my Solaris system, I usually use
292
293 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
294
295=head2 GNU-style configure
296
297If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
298use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
299
300 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
301
302The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
303options. Try
304
305 ./configure.gnu --help
306
307for a listing.
308
309Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
310
311(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
312that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
313
314=head2 Installation Directories
315
316The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
317appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
318installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
319Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
320directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
321be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
322
323I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
324everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
325process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
326the defaults from then on.
327
328The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
329people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
330distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
331need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
332you can safely skip the next section.
333
334The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
335
336=over 4
337
338=item Directories for the perl distribution
339
340By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
341$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
3425.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
343determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
344variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
345
346 Configure variable Default value
347 $prefix /usr/local
348 $bin $prefix/bin
349 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
350 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
351 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
352 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
353 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
354 $html1dir (none)
355 $html3dir (none)
356
357Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
358/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
359instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
360directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
361the common style is shown here.
362
363=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
364
365After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
366CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
367be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
368
369 Configure variable Default value
370 $siteprefix $prefix
371 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
372 $sitescriptdir $siteprefix/bin
373 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
374 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
375 $siteman1dir $siteprefix/man/man1
376 $siteman3dir $siteprefix/man/man3
377 $sitehtml1dir (none)
378 $sitehtml3dir (none)
379
380By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
381modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
382
383=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
384
385Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
386distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
387for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
388
389 Configure variable Default value
390 $vendorprefix (none)
391 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
392 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
393 $vendorscriptdir $vendorprefix/bin
394 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
395 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
396 $vendorman1dir $vendorprefix/man/man1
397 $vendorman3dir $vendorprefix/man/man3
398 $vendorhtml1dir (none)
399 $vendorhtml3dir (none)
400
401These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
402a vendor might choose the following settings:
403
404 $prefix /usr/bin
405 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
406 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
407
408This would have the effect of setting the following:
409
410 $bin /usr/bin
411 $scriptdir /usr/bin
412 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
413 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
414 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
415 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
416
417 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
418 $sitescriptdir /usr/local/bin
419 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
420 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
421 $siteman1dir /usr/local/man/man1
422 $siteman3dir /usr/local/man/man3
423
424 $vendorbin /usr/bin
425 $vendorscriptdir /usr/bin
426 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
427 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
428 $vendorman1dir /usr/man/man1
429 $vendorman3dir /usr/man/man3
430
431Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
432/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
433the /usr/local hierarchy.
434
435The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
436version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
437However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
438installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
439See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
440on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
441
442Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
443example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
444are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
445site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
446network. One way to do that would be something like
447
448 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
449
450=item otherlibdirs
451
452As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
453variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
454directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
455$prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
456installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
457
458=item Man Pages
459
460In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
461pages in a version-specific directory, such as
462/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
463after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
464without resetting MANPATH.
465
466You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
467
468 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
469
470Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
471
472 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
473
474Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
475Configure.
476
477=item HTML pages
478
479As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
480anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
481Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
482html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
483specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
484but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
485feedback.
486
487=back
488
489Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
490to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
491architectures.
492
493Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
494directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
495filesystem.
496
497Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
498development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
499discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
500
501If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
502library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
503suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
504
505Thus, for example, if you Configure with
506-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
507
508 Configure variable Default value
509 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
510 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
511 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
512 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
513
514=head2 Changing the installation directory
515
516Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
517associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
518will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
519sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
520However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
521packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
522wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
523management software to move perl to its final destination. This
524section describes how to do that.
525
526Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
527could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
528/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
529following command line:
530
531 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
532
533(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
534
535Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
536modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
537follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
538that problem.
539
540=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
541
542If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
543convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
544installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
545create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
546Here's one way to do that:
547
548 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
549 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
550 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
551 make
552 make test
553 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
554 cd /tmp/perl5
555 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
556 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
557 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
558 # everywhere in those files.)
559 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
560 # #!/wherever/perl line.
561 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
562 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
563 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
564 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
565
566=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
567
568After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
569answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
570person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
571system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
572to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
573hint file for your system.
574
575Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
576answers, you should
577
578 rm -f Policy.sh
579
580to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
581
582Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
583
584If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
585to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
586platform-specific hints files.
587
588Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
589new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
590set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
591interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
592
593=head2 Configure-time Options
594
595There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
596system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
597Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
598some of the main things you can change.
599
600=head2 Threads
601
602On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
603experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
604README.threads, and then try:
605
606 sh Configure -Dusethreads
607
608Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
609line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
610
611The default is to compile without thread support.
612
613As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
614The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
615(ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
616ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
6175005threads behavior instead by either
618
619 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
620
621or by
622 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
623
624Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
625and these options may disappear as well.
626
627=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
628
629Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
630stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
631mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
632the default and is the only supported mechanism.
633
634This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
635line with
636
637 sh Configure -Duseperlio
638
639or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
640
641If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
642(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
643tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
644everywhere.
645
646=over 4
647
648=item 1.
649
650AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
651cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
652currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
653Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
654extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
655configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
656
657This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
658A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
659
660You select this option by
661
662 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
663
664If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
665that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
666Configure.
667
668Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
669detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
670this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
671Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
672_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
673your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
674
675There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
676problem.
677
678=item 2.
679
680Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
681abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
682extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
683abstraction.
684
685This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
686
687You select this option via:
688
689 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
690
691If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
692detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
693
694=back
695
696=head2 Dynamic Loading
697
698By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
699your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
700statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
701you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
702
703=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
704
705Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
706linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
707extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
708such as -lm.
709
710On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
711replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
712several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
713different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
714you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
715can share the same library.
716
717The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
718penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
719mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
720and upgrades.
721
722In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
723test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
724Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
725results.
726
727The default name for the shared library is typically something like
728libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
729libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
730based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
731version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
732isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
733
734For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
735for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
736
737You can elect to build a shared libperl by
738
739 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
740
741To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
742library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
743NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
744HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
745the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
746be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
747library search settings.
748
749However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
750shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
751something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
752./perl:
753
754 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
755or
756 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
757
758then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
759You can do this with
760
761 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
762
763for Bourne-style shells, or
764
765 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
766
767for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
768unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
769
770You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
771messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
772for example:
77318126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
774
775There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
776want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
777with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
778install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
779try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
780the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
781ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
782libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
783that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
784in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
785equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
786with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
787override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
788to point to the perl build directory.
789
790The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
791directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
792version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
793variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
794
795=head2 Malloc Issues
796
797Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
798so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
799the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
800version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
801perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
802than your system malloc.
803
804However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
805experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
806that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
807(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
808
809=over 4
810
811=item Using the system malloc
812
813To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
814
815 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
816
817or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
818
819=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
820
821NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
822asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
823run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
824can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
825running:
826
827 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
828
829or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
830
831Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
832Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
833not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
834these functions.
835
836If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
837names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
838have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
839by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
840
841Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
842from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
843does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
844versions.
845
846=back
847
848=head2 Building a debugging perl
849
850You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
851B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
852you probably want to do
853
854 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
855
856This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
857to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
858executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
859cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
860your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
861variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
862internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
863if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
864old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
865ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
866L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
867
868You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
869it's convenient to have both.
870
871If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
872versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
873
874=head2 Extensions
875
876By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
877to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
878only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
879B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
880Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
881is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
882set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
883the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
884built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
885useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
886
887If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
888running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
889extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
890it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
891has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
892extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
893convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
894you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
895dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
896
897You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
898documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
899ext/ subdirectory.
900
901Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
902DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
903version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
904
905In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
906to turn off each extension:
907
908 B (Always included by default)
909 DB_File i_db
910 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
911 Fcntl (Always included by default)
912 GDBM_File i_gdbm
913 IO (Always included by default)
914 NDBM_File i_ndbm
915 ODBM_File i_dbm
916 POSIX useposix
917 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
918 Opcode useopcode
919 Socket d_socket
920 Threads use5005threads
921 attrs (Always included by default)
922
923Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
924
925 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
926
927Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
928library.
929
930Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
931the extensions you want.
932
933Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
934DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
935this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
936releases of version 2.
937
938If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
939adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
940for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
941you.
942
943Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
944remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
945executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
946well build all the ones that will work on your system.
947
948=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
949
950Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
951dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
952Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
953automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
954are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
955how to obtain the libraries.
956
957If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
958searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
959appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
960your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
961searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
962the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
963See the examples below.
964
965=head2 Examples
966
967=over 4
968
969=item gdbm in /usr/local
970
971Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
972GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
973installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
974/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
975necessary steps out automatically.
976
977Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
978your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
979
980When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
981-L/usr/local/lib.
982
983If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
984linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
985-L/usr/local/lib.
986
987Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
988you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
989/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
990
991=item gdbm in /usr/you
992
993Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
994but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
995have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
996still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
997an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
998Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
999/usr/you/lib to the list.
1000
1001It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1002line):
1003
1004 sh Configure -de \
1005 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1006 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1007
1008locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1009Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1010
1011loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1012Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1013you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1014/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1015
1016 sh Configure -de \
1017 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1018 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1019
1020=back
1021
1022=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1023
1024If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1025If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1026
1027=over 4
1028
1029=item Running Configure Interactively
1030
1031If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1032Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1033guesses.
1034
1035All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1036have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1037flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1038will use the defaults from then on.
1039
1040If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1041config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1042instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1043
1044=item Hint files
1045
1046The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1047in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1048will offer to use that hint file.
1049
1050Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1051If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1052for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1053More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1054file.
1055
1056=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1057
1058Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
10594.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1060standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1061will see a message:
1062
1063 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1064 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1065 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1066
1067You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1068relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1069overriding it.
1070
1071If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1072used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1073to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1074system.
1075
1076For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1077and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1078Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1079Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1080issue a message:
1081
1082 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1083 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1084 Keep the previous value? [y]
1085
1086In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1087should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1088the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1089
1090=item Changing Compilers
1091
1092If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1093probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1094rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1095with the options you want to use.
1096
1097This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1098gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1099
1100=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1101
1102If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1103them to all the .SH files by running
1104
1105 sh Configure -S
1106
1107You will then have to rebuild by running
1108
1109 make depend
1110 make
1111
1112=item config.over
1113
1114You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1115guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1116is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1117does no checking that your changes make sense.
1118
1119=item config.h
1120
1121Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1122Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1123The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1124
1125If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1126though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1127lost.
1128
1129=item cflags
1130
1131If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1132line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1133optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1134toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1135can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1136lost the next time you run Configure.
1137
1138To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1139see the file hints/README.hints.
1140
1141To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1142$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1143
1144 sh Configure -S
1145 make depend
1146
1147=item No sh
1148
1149If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1150Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1151system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1152You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1153mechanism.
1154
1155=item Environment variable clashes
1156
1157Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1158ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1159unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1160be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1161
1162=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1163
1164In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1165
1166Build a threading Perl? [n]
1167Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1168
1169This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1170(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1171"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1172to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1173being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1174'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1175(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1176
1177=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1178
1179If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1180that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1181HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1182fail
1183
1184Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1185Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1186sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1187
1188and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1189libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1190
1191=item Porting information
1192
1193Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1194corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1195including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1196subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1197
1198Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1199http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1200various other operating systems.
1201
1202If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1203section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1204in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1205Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1206
1207=back
1208
1209=head1 make depend
1210
1211This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1212The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1213the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1214makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1215(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1216Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1217
1218Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1219explicitly above.
1220
1221=head1 make
1222
1223This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1224
1225=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1226
1227If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1228If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1229the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1230then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1231
1232=over 4
1233
1234=item hints
1235
1236If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1237for further tips and information.
1238
1239=item extensions
1240
1241If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1242during the building of extensions, you should run
1243
1244 make minitest
1245
1246to test your version of miniperl.
1247
1248=item locale
1249
1250If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1251them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1252running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1253See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1254whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1255The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1256
1257 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1258 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1259 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1260 LANG = (unset)
1261 are supported and installed on your system.
1262 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1263
1264at Perl startup.
1265
1266=item varargs
1267
1268If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1269correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1270gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1271in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1272correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1273your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1274See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1275
1276=item util.c
1277
1278If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1279numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1280
1281 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1282 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1283 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1284
1285it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1286previous L<"varargs"> item.
1287
1288=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1289
1290If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1291Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1292-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1293$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1294and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1295Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1296environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1297your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1298the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1299
1300One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1301invoke Configure with
1302
1303 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1304
1305for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1306instead.
1307
1308Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1309include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1310config.sh.
1311
1312=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1313
1314If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1315it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1316L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1317
1318=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1319
1320If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1321the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1322Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1323fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1324of your local set-up.
1325
1326=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1327
1328The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1329that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1330which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1331
1332The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1333actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1334failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1335"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1336functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1337
1338=item nm extraction
1339
1340If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1341try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1342with
1343
1344 sh Configure -Uusenm
1345
1346or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1347If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1348config.sh.
1349
1350=item umask not found
1351
1352If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1353is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1354Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1355this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1356try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1357
1358=item vsprintf
1359
1360If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1361problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1362version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1363(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1364d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1365
1366 d_vprintf='define'
1367
1368If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1369on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1370the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1371
1372=item do_aspawn
1373
1374If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1375problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1376fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1377on L<"nm extraction">.
1378
1379=item __inet_* errors
1380
1381If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1382referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1383installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1384these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1385in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1386newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1387updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1388/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1389avoid the problem.
1390
1391=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1392
1393This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1394gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1395changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1396rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1397update your gcc installation.
1398
1399=item Optimizer
1400
1401If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1402optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1403
1404 optimize='-O'
1405
1406to
1407
1408 optimize=' '
1409
1410then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1411with B<make depend; make>.
1412
1413=item CRIPPLED_CC
1414
1415If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1416
1417 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1418
1419This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1420indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1421compiled right!)
1422
1423=item Missing functions
1424
1425If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1426other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1427there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1428likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1429you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1430
1431=item toke.c
1432
1433Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1434toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1435allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1436each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1437makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1438specific rule.
1439
1440=item Missing dbmclose
1441
1442SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1443that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1444
1445=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1446
1447If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1448the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1449then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1450Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1451systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1452For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1453unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1454they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1455reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1456process is continuing.
1457
1458On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1459message
1460
1461 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1462
1463then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1464the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1465extension without the -lgdbm library.
1466
1467It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1468this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1469quite that tightly coordinated.
1470
1471=item sh: ar: not found
1472
1473This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1474was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1475make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1476is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1477directory.
1478
1479=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1480
1481Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1482with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1483bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1484
1485=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1486
1487If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1488V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1489also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1490to include the System V semaphores.
1491
1492=item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1493
1494Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1495both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1496ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1497with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1498system.
1499
1500=item GNU binutils
1501
1502If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1503tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1504with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1505may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1506under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1507to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1508vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1509Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1510
1511=item Miscellaneous
1512
1513Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1514
1515Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1516
1517NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1518
1519UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1520
1521FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1522configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1523you will get a message telling what to do.
1524
1525If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1526
1527Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1528
1529HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1530Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1531tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1532break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1533(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1534
1535=back
1536
1537=head1 make test
1538
1539This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1540'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1541wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1542
1543Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1544opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1545a few tty tests will be skipped.
1546
1547=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1548
1549If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1550by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1551bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1552
1553 ./perl op/groups.t
1554
1555Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1556individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1557
1558 ./perl harness
1559
1560(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1561complicated constructs).
1562
1563You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1564comments that apply to your system.
1565
1566=over 4
1567
1568=item locale
1569
1570Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1571may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1572B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1573one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1574LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1575are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1576
1577If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1578
1579 setenv LC_ALL C
1580
1581(for C shell) or
1582
1583 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1584
1585for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1586make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1587is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1588shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1589things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1590open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1591external program.
1592
1593=item Out of memory
1594
1595On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1596of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1597Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1598fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1599will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1600same time.
1601
1602Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1603
1604 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1605
1606to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1607test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1608tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1609and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1610
1611=back
1612
1613=head1 make install
1614
1615This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1616Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1617to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1618pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1619are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1620ignore any messages about chown not working.
1621
1622=head2 Installing perl under different names
1623
1624If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1625when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1626indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1627
1628 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1629
1630You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1631"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1632
1633 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1634
1635This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1636ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1637the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1638
1639=head2 Installed files
1640
1641If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1642anything, you can run
1643
1644 ./perl installperl -n
1645 ./perl installman -n
1646
1647make install will install the following:
1648
1649 perl,
1650 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1651 will be a link to perl.
1652 suidperl,
1653 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1654 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1655 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1656 read from stdin.
1657 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1658 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1659 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1660 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1661 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1662 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1663 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1664 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1665 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1666 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1667 pod2man, and
1668 pod2text
1669 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1670 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
1671
1672 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1673 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1674 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1675 module man
1676 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
1677 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1678
1679Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1680in L<"Installation Directories">.
1681
1682Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1683under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
1684optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1685program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1686
1687=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1688
1689In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
16905.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1691all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1692around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1693For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1694with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1695top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1696#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1697
1698Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1699with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1700(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1701
1702Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1703searched by 5.005_03 are
1704
1705 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1706 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1707 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1708 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1709
1710Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
1711fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
1712searched by version 5.6.0 will be
1713
1714 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
1715 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
1716 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1717 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1718
1719 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1720 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1721 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1722
1723Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
1724of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1725directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
1726to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
1727suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
1728present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
1729/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
1730but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
1731
1732The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
17335.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
1734
1735Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
1736binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
1737by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
1738
1739 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1740 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
1741 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
1742 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
1743
1744 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1745 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1746
1747 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1748 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1749 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1750
1751Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
17525.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
1753extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
1754of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
1755versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
1756the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
1757will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
1758same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
1759version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
1760
1761This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
1762to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
1763versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
1764
1765=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1766
1767Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1768separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
1769won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
1770libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
1771way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1772
1773 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1774
1775and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1776may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1777scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1778
1779Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1780(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1781each major version.
1782
1783If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1784seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1785subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1786yet.
1787
1788=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
1789
1790Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
1791prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
17925.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
1793you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
1794(See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
1795
1796See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
1797incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
1798perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
1799
1800=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1801
1802You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1803
1804By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1805they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1806
1807In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1808perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1809process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1810However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1811the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1812whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1813possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1814
1815=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1816
1817Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1818system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1819header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1820by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1821library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1822
1823Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1824of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1825hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1826For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1827structures.
1828
1829=head1 installhtml --help
1830
1831Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1832format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1833documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1834
1835Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1836html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1837
1838The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1839perl documentation:
1840
1841 ./installhtml \
1842 --podroot=. \
1843 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1844 --recurse \
1845 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1846 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1847 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1848 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1849 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1850 --verbose
1851
1852See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1853many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1854see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1855resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1856(and would welcome patches for them).
1857
1858You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1859the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1860
1861=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1862
1863Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1864available in TeX format. Type
1865
1866 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1867
1868=head1 Reporting Problems
1869
1870If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1871helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1872pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1873to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1874an accurate description of your problem.
1875
1876Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1877the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1878comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1879before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1880run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1881
1882Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1883information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1884Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1885complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
1886commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
1887are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1888usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1889reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1890will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1891try to keep it brief but clear.
1892
1893=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1894
1895Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1896is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1897build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1898can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1899sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1900
1901Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1902along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1903running (either):
1904
1905 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1906 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1907
1908This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1909(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1910set-up.)
1911
1912Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1913the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1914the documentation.
1915
1916=head1 AUTHOR
1917
1918Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1919heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1920feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1921
1922If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1923L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1924
1925=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1926
1927This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1928the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
1929If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1930a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1931and the contact information to match your distribution.
1932
1933=head1 LAST MODIFIED
1934
1935$Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $