| 1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. |
| 2 | It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially |
| 3 | designed to be readable as is. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 NAME |
| 6 | |
| 7 | README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems |
| 8 | |
| 9 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 10 | |
| 11 | This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating |
| 12 | system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) |
| 13 | is compiled and/or runs. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX |
| 16 | |
| 17 | When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship |
| 18 | an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of |
| 19 | gcc for AIX are widely available. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers, |
| 22 | for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either |
| 23 | of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to |
| 24 | upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently: |
| 25 | |
| 26 | xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3 |
| 27 | vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1 |
| 28 | |
| 29 | note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so |
| 30 | you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package |
| 31 | |
| 32 | xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3 |
| 33 | |
| 34 | subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example, |
| 35 | the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. |
| 38 | The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no |
| 39 | difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that |
| 40 | require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler |
| 43 | optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c, |
| 44 | respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch |
| 45 | levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files. |
| 46 | Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended. |
| 47 | |
| 48 | If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and |
| 49 | complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific |
| 50 | details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development |
| 51 | team. |
| 52 | |
| 53 | =head2 OS level |
| 54 | |
| 55 | Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the |
| 56 | level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will |
| 57 | show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows |
| 58 | 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE): |
| 59 | |
| 60 | # oslevel |
| 61 | 4.3.0.0 |
| 62 | # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte ' |
| 63 | bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime |
| 64 | bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime |
| 65 | # |
| 66 | |
| 67 | The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl |
| 68 | cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed |
| 69 | |
| 70 | # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm" |
| 71 | bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development |
| 72 | bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application |
| 73 | # |
| 74 | |
| 75 | =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX |
| 76 | |
| 77 | AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries. |
| 78 | Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit |
| 79 | misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members. |
| 80 | For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on |
| 81 | many other platforms. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3 |
| 84 | or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so |
| 85 | called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was |
| 86 | used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and |
| 87 | earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled |
| 88 | modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl |
| 89 | more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are |
| 90 | using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++ |
| 91 | code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which |
| 92 | was not possible using the emulated interface. |
| 93 | |
| 94 | =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler |
| 95 | |
| 96 | All defaults for Configure can be used. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions |
| 99 | will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0, |
| 100 | but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has |
| 101 | removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these |
| 102 | versions should be considered obsolete. |
| 103 | |
| 104 | Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest |
| 105 | level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade |
| 106 | versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups |
| 107 | are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches |
| 108 | in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the |
| 109 | "base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are |
| 110 | cumulative. |
| 111 | |
| 112 | vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed) |
| 113 | xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available) |
| 114 | |
| 115 | # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com |
| 116 | Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com. |
| 117 | : welcome message ... |
| 118 | Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous |
| 119 | 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password. |
| 120 | Password: |
| 121 | ... accepted login stuff |
| 122 | ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/ |
| 123 | ftp> dir other other.ll |
| 124 | output to local-file: other.ll? y |
| 125 | 200 PORT command successful. |
| 126 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. |
| 127 | 226 Transfer complete. |
| 128 | ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll |
| 129 | output to local-file: xlc.ll? y |
| 130 | 200 PORT command successful. |
| 131 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. |
| 132 | 226 Transfer complete. |
| 133 | ftp> bye |
| 134 | ... goodbye messages |
| 135 | # ls -l *.ll |
| 136 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll |
| 137 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll |
| 138 | |
| 139 | On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue: |
| 140 | |
| 141 | # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C ' |
| 142 | xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 143 | xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 144 | # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll |
| 145 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff |
| 146 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff |
| 147 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff |
| 148 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff |
| 149 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff |
| 150 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff |
| 151 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff |
| 152 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff |
| 153 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff |
| 154 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff |
| 155 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff |
| 156 | # |
| 157 | |
| 158 | On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue: |
| 159 | |
| 160 | # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C ' |
| 161 | vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 162 | vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 163 | # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll |
| 164 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff |
| 165 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff |
| 166 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff |
| 167 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff |
| 168 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff |
| 169 | # |
| 170 | |
| 171 | Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and |
| 172 | fill in its choices |
| 173 | |
| 174 | # smit install_update |
| 175 | -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software |
| 176 | * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ] |
| 177 | [ OK ] |
| 178 | [ OK ] |
| 179 | |
| 180 | Follow the messages ... and you're done. |
| 181 | |
| 182 | If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be |
| 183 | http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click |
| 184 | "C for AIX", and follow the instructions. |
| 185 | |
| 186 | =head2 The usenm option |
| 187 | |
| 188 | If linking miniperl |
| 189 | |
| 190 | cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ... |
| 191 | |
| 192 | causes error like this |
| 193 | |
| 194 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl |
| 195 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl |
| 196 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall |
| 197 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess |
| 198 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid |
| 199 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid |
| 200 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle |
| 201 | ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information. |
| 202 | |
| 203 | you could retry with |
| 204 | |
| 205 | make realclean |
| 206 | rm config.sh |
| 207 | ./Configure -Dusenm ... |
| 208 | |
| 209 | which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library |
| 210 | symbols, which usually is not done in AIX. |
| 211 | |
| 212 | Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of |
| 213 | Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl |
| 216 | |
| 217 | Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box, |
| 218 | as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their |
| 219 | Linux compatibility packages, available here: |
| 220 | |
| 221 | http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/ |
| 222 | |
| 223 | =head2 Using Large Files with Perl |
| 224 | |
| 225 | Should yield no problems. |
| 226 | |
| 227 | =head2 Threaded Perl |
| 228 | |
| 229 | Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when |
| 230 | threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | You may get a warning when doing a threaded build: |
| 233 | |
| 234 | "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed. |
| 235 | |
| 236 | The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line |
| 237 | line this |
| 238 | |
| 239 | hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype); |
| 240 | |
| 241 | in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning |
| 242 | is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly |
| 243 | different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference |
| 244 | is not really significant here. |
| 245 | |
| 246 | =head2 64-bit Perl |
| 247 | |
| 248 | If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit |
| 249 | configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might |
| 250 | still fail. |
| 251 | |
| 252 | =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics |
| 253 | |
| 254 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
| 255 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. |
| 256 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with |
| 257 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library |
| 258 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time |
| 259 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and |
| 260 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. |
| 261 | |
| 262 | =head1 AUTHOR |
| 263 | |
| 264 | H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl> |
| 265 | |
| 266 | =head1 DATE |
| 267 | |
| 268 | Version 0.0.6: 23 Dec 2002 |
| 269 | |
| 270 | =cut |