| 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 | perlaix - Perl version 5 on IBM AIX (UNIX) 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 | For information on compilers on older versions of AIX, see L<Compiling |
| 18 | Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3>. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship |
| 21 | an ANSI compliant C compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of |
| 22 | gcc for AIX are widely available. A version of gcc is also included in |
| 23 | the AIX Toolbox which is shipped with AIX. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | =head2 Supported Compilers |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Currently all versions of IBM's "xlc", "xlc_r", "cc", "cc_r" or |
| 28 | "vac" ANSI/C compiler will work for building Perl if that compiler |
| 29 | works on your system. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | If you plan to link Perl to any module that requires thread-support, |
| 32 | like DBD::Oracle, it is better to use the _r version of the compiler. |
| 33 | This will not build a threaded Perl, but a thread-enabled Perl. See |
| 34 | also L<Threaded Perl> later on. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | As of writing (2010-09) only the I<IBM XL C for AIX> or I<IBM XL C/C++ |
| 37 | for AIX> compiler is supported by IBM on AIX 5L/6.1/7.1. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | The following compiler versions are currently supported by IBM: |
| 40 | |
| 41 | IBM XL C and IBM XL C/C++ V8, V9, V10, V11 |
| 42 | |
| 43 | The XL C for AIX is integrated in the XL C/C++ for AIX compiler and |
| 44 | therefore also supported. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | If you choose XL C/C++ V9 you need APAR IZ35785 installed |
| 47 | otherwise the integrated SDBM_File do not compile correctly due |
| 48 | to an optimization bug. You can circumvent this problem by |
| 49 | adding -qipa to the optimization flags (-Doptimize='-O -qipa'). |
| 50 | The PTF for APAR IZ35785 which solves this problem is available |
| 51 | from IBM (April 2009 PTF for XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition for AIX, V9.0). |
| 52 | |
| 53 | If you choose XL C/C++ V11 you need the April 2010 PTF (or newer) |
| 54 | installed otherwise you will not get a working Perl version. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. |
| 57 | The former is recommended, as not only it can compile Perl with no |
| 58 | difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later |
| 59 | that require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and |
| 62 | complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific |
| 63 | details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the |
| 64 | development team. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | =head2 Incompatibility with AIX Toolbox lib gdbm |
| 67 | |
| 68 | If the AIX Toolbox version of lib gdbm < 1.8.3-5 is installed on your |
| 69 | system then Perl will not work. This library contains the header files |
| 70 | /opt/freeware/include/gdbm/dbm.h|ndbm.h which conflict with the AIX |
| 71 | system versions. The lib gdbm will be automatically removed from the |
| 72 | wanted libraries if the presence of one of these two header files is |
| 73 | detected. If you want to build Perl with GDBM support then please install |
| 74 | at least gdbm-devel-1.8.3-5 (or higher). |
| 75 | |
| 76 | =head2 Perl 5 was successfully compiled and tested on: |
| 77 | |
| 78 | Perl | AIX Level | Compiler Level | w th | w/o th |
| 79 | -------+---------------------+-------------------------+------+------- |
| 80 | 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 32 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK |
| 81 | 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 64 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK |
| 82 | 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK |
| 83 | 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | gcc 3.2.2 | OK | OK |
| 84 | 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK |
| 85 | 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK |
| 86 | 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | gcc 4.2.4 | OK | OK |
| 87 | 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK |
| 88 | 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK |
| 89 | 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK |
| 90 | 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 32 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK |
| 91 | 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 64 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK |
| 92 | 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK |
| 93 | 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK |
| 94 | |
| 95 | w th = with thread support |
| 96 | w/o th = without thread support |
| 97 | OK = tested |
| 98 | |
| 99 | Successfully tested means that all "make test" runs finish with a |
| 100 | result of 100% OK. All tests were conducted with -Duseshrplib set. |
| 101 | |
| 102 | All tests were conducted on the oldest supported AIX technology level |
| 103 | with the latest support package applied. If the tested AIX version is |
| 104 | out of support (AIX 4.3.3, 5.1, 5.2) then the last available support |
| 105 | level was used. |
| 106 | |
| 107 | =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX |
| 108 | |
| 109 | Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x / 5.12.x) |
| 110 | and AIX 4.3 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface |
| 111 | in the so called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface |
| 112 | that was used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases |
| 113 | 4.2 and earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with |
| 114 | compiled modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make |
| 115 | Perl more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are |
| 116 | using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of |
| 117 | C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, |
| 118 | which was not possible using the emulated interface. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | It is highly recommended to use the new interface. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | =head2 Using Large Files with Perl |
| 123 | |
| 124 | Should yield no problems. |
| 125 | |
| 126 | =head2 Threaded Perl |
| 127 | |
| 128 | Should yield no problems with AIX 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.3 / 6.1 / 7.1. |
| 129 | |
| 130 | IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.6.0 on AIX 5.1 and V5.8.2 on |
| 131 | AIX 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1; V5.8.8 on AIX 5.3 TL11 and AIX 6.1 TL4; V5.10.1 |
| 132 | on AIX 7.1) for some AIX system scripts. If you switch the links in |
| 133 | /usr/bin from the AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build |
| 134 | Perl then you get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if |
| 135 | the threaded options are used. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | The threaded Perl build works also on AIX 5.1 but the IBM Perl |
| 138 | build (Perl v5.6.0) is not threaded on AIX 5.1. |
| 139 | |
| 140 | Perl 5.12 an newer is not compatible with the IBM fileset perl.libext. |
| 141 | |
| 142 | =head2 64-bit Perl |
| 143 | |
| 144 | If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit |
| 145 | configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX 6.1 |
| 146 | you need an APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX functions. |
| 147 | The APAR number for this problem is IZ39077. |
| 148 | |
| 149 | If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs you |
| 150 | can set: |
| 151 | |
| 152 | /etc/security/limits |
| 153 | default: (or your user) |
| 154 | data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte) |
| 155 | |
| 156 | With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB. |
| 157 | The -1 removes this limit. If the "make test" fails please change |
| 158 | your /etc/security/limits as stated above. |
| 159 | |
| 160 | =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/32-bit) |
| 161 | |
| 162 | With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which |
| 163 | passes all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default |
| 164 | configuration for the Perl builds that AIX ships with. |
| 165 | |
| 166 | rm config.sh |
| 167 | ./Configure \ |
| 168 | -d \ |
| 169 | -Dcc=cc_r \ |
| 170 | -Duseshrplib \ |
| 171 | -Dusethreads \ |
| 172 | -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32 |
| 173 | |
| 174 | The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the |
| 175 | IBM AIX system Perl installation. |
| 176 | |
| 177 | =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (32-bit) |
| 178 | |
| 179 | With the following options you get a Perl version which passes |
| 180 | all make tests in 32-bit mode. |
| 181 | |
| 182 | rm config.sh |
| 183 | ./Configure \ |
| 184 | -d \ |
| 185 | -Dcc=cc_r \ |
| 186 | -Duseshrplib \ |
| 187 | -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32 |
| 188 | |
| 189 | The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the |
| 190 | IBM AIX system Perl installation. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/64-bit) |
| 193 | |
| 194 | With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which |
| 195 | passes all make tests in 64-bit mode. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell) |
| 198 | |
| 199 | rm config.sh |
| 200 | ./Configure \ |
| 201 | -d \ |
| 202 | -Dcc=cc_r \ |
| 203 | -Duseshrplib \ |
| 204 | -Dusethreads \ |
| 205 | -Duse64bitall \ |
| 206 | -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64 |
| 207 | |
| 208 | =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (64-bit) |
| 209 | |
| 210 | With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all |
| 211 | make tests in 64-bit mode. |
| 212 | |
| 213 | export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell) |
| 214 | |
| 215 | rm config.sh |
| 216 | ./Configure \ |
| 217 | -d \ |
| 218 | -Dcc=cc_r \ |
| 219 | -Duseshrplib \ |
| 220 | -Duse64bitall \ |
| 221 | -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64 |
| 222 | |
| 223 | The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the |
| 224 | IBM AIX system Perl installation. |
| 225 | |
| 226 | If you choose gcc to compile 64-bit Perl then you need to add the |
| 227 | following option: |
| 228 | |
| 229 | -Dcc='gcc -maix64' |
| 230 | |
| 231 | |
| 232 | =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3 |
| 233 | |
| 234 | Due to the fact that AIX 4.3.3 reached end-of-service in December 31, |
| 235 | 2003 this information is provided as is. The Perl versions prior to |
| 236 | Perl 5.8.9 could be compiled on AIX up to 4.3.3 with the following |
| 237 | settings (your mileage may vary): |
| 238 | |
| 239 | When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship |
| 240 | an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of |
| 241 | gcc for AIX are widely available. |
| 242 | |
| 243 | At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers, |
| 244 | for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either |
| 245 | of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to |
| 246 | upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently: |
| 247 | |
| 248 | 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 |
| 249 | vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1 |
| 250 | |
| 251 | note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so |
| 252 | you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package |
| 253 | |
| 254 | xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3 |
| 255 | |
| 256 | subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example, |
| 257 | the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7. |
| 258 | |
| 259 | Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. |
| 260 | The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no |
| 261 | difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that |
| 262 | require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags. |
| 263 | |
| 264 | The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler |
| 265 | optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c, |
| 266 | respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch |
| 267 | levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files. |
| 268 | Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended. |
| 269 | |
| 270 | If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and |
| 271 | complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific |
| 272 | details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development |
| 273 | team. |
| 274 | |
| 275 | =head2 OS level |
| 276 | |
| 277 | Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the |
| 278 | level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will |
| 279 | show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows |
| 280 | 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE): |
| 281 | |
| 282 | # oslevel |
| 283 | 4.3.0.0 |
| 284 | # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte ' |
| 285 | bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime |
| 286 | bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime |
| 287 | # |
| 288 | |
| 289 | The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, Perl |
| 290 | cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed |
| 291 | |
| 292 | # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm" |
| 293 | bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development |
| 294 | bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application |
| 295 | # |
| 296 | |
| 297 | =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX E<lt> 5L |
| 298 | |
| 299 | AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries. |
| 300 | Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit |
| 301 | misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members. |
| 302 | For Perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on |
| 303 | many other platforms. |
| 304 | |
| 305 | Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3 |
| 306 | or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so |
| 307 | called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was |
| 308 | used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and |
| 309 | earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled |
| 310 | modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl |
| 311 | more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are |
| 312 | using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++ |
| 313 | code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, which |
| 314 | was not possible using the emulated interface. |
| 315 | |
| 316 | =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler |
| 317 | |
| 318 | All defaults for Configure can be used. |
| 319 | |
| 320 | If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions |
| 321 | will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0, |
| 322 | but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has |
| 323 | removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these |
| 324 | versions should be considered obsolete. |
| 325 | |
| 326 | Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest |
| 327 | level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade |
| 328 | versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups |
| 329 | are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches |
| 330 | in the developer snapshots of Perl), or to one version up where the |
| 331 | "base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are |
| 332 | cumulative. |
| 333 | |
| 334 | vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed) |
| 335 | xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available) |
| 336 | |
| 337 | # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com |
| 338 | Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com. |
| 339 | : welcome message ... |
| 340 | Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous |
| 341 | 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password. |
| 342 | Password: |
| 343 | ... accepted login stuff |
| 344 | ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/ |
| 345 | ftp> dir other other.ll |
| 346 | output to local-file: other.ll? y |
| 347 | 200 PORT command successful. |
| 348 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. |
| 349 | 226 Transfer complete. |
| 350 | ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll |
| 351 | output to local-file: xlc.ll? y |
| 352 | 200 PORT command successful. |
| 353 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. |
| 354 | 226 Transfer complete. |
| 355 | ftp> bye |
| 356 | ... goodbye messages |
| 357 | # ls -l *.ll |
| 358 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll |
| 359 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll |
| 360 | |
| 361 | On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue: |
| 362 | |
| 363 | # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C ' |
| 364 | xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 365 | xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 366 | # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll |
| 367 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff |
| 368 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff |
| 369 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff |
| 370 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff |
| 371 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff |
| 372 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff |
| 373 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff |
| 374 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff |
| 375 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff |
| 376 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff |
| 377 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff |
| 378 | # |
| 379 | |
| 380 | On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue: |
| 381 | |
| 382 | # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C ' |
| 383 | vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 384 | vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler |
| 385 | # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll |
| 386 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff |
| 387 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff |
| 388 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff |
| 389 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff |
| 390 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff |
| 391 | # |
| 392 | |
| 393 | Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and |
| 394 | fill in its choices |
| 395 | |
| 396 | # smit install_update |
| 397 | -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software |
| 398 | * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ] |
| 399 | [ OK ] |
| 400 | [ OK ] |
| 401 | |
| 402 | Follow the messages ... and you're done. |
| 403 | |
| 404 | If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be |
| 405 | http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click |
| 406 | "C for AIX", and follow the instructions. |
| 407 | |
| 408 | =head2 The usenm option |
| 409 | |
| 410 | If linking miniperl |
| 411 | |
| 412 | cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ... |
| 413 | |
| 414 | causes error like this |
| 415 | |
| 416 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl |
| 417 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl |
| 418 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall |
| 419 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess |
| 420 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid |
| 421 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid |
| 422 | ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle |
| 423 | ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information. |
| 424 | |
| 425 | you could retry with |
| 426 | |
| 427 | make realclean |
| 428 | rm config.sh |
| 429 | ./Configure -Dusenm ... |
| 430 | |
| 431 | which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library |
| 432 | symbols, which usually is not done in AIX. |
| 433 | |
| 434 | Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of |
| 435 | Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used. |
| 436 | |
| 437 | =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building Perl |
| 438 | |
| 439 | Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box, |
| 440 | as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their |
| 441 | Linux compatibility packages, available here: |
| 442 | |
| 443 | http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/ |
| 444 | |
| 445 | =head2 Using Large Files with Perl E<lt> 5L |
| 446 | |
| 447 | Should yield no problems. |
| 448 | |
| 449 | =head2 Threaded Perl E<lt> 5L |
| 450 | |
| 451 | Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when |
| 452 | threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations. |
| 453 | |
| 454 | You may get a warning when doing a threaded build: |
| 455 | |
| 456 | "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment |
| 457 | between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed. |
| 458 | |
| 459 | The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line |
| 460 | line this |
| 461 | |
| 462 | hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype); |
| 463 | |
| 464 | in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning |
| 465 | is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly |
| 466 | different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference |
| 467 | is not really significant here. |
| 468 | |
| 469 | =head2 64-bit Perl E<lt> 5L |
| 470 | |
| 471 | If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit |
| 472 | configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might |
| 473 | still fail. |
| 474 | |
| 475 | =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics |
| 476 | |
| 477 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
| 478 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. |
| 479 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with |
| 480 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library |
| 481 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time |
| 482 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and |
| 483 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. |
| 484 | |
| 485 | =head1 AUTHORS |
| 486 | |
| 487 | Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net> |
| 488 | |
| 489 | =cut |