| 1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you |
| 2 | see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is |
| 3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 NAME |
| 6 | |
| 7 | README.machten - Perl version 5 on Power MachTen systems |
| 8 | |
| 9 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 10 | |
| 11 | This document describes how to build Perl 5 on Power MachTen systems, |
| 12 | and discusses a few wrinkles in the implementation. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on MachTen |
| 15 | |
| 16 | To compile perl under MachTen 4.1.4 (and probably earlier versions): |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ./Configure -de |
| 19 | make |
| 20 | make test |
| 21 | make install |
| 22 | |
| 23 | This builds and installs a statically-linked perl; MachTen's dynamic |
| 24 | linking facilities are not adequate to support Perl's use of |
| 25 | dynamically linked libraries. (See F<hints/machten.sh> for more |
| 26 | information.) |
| 27 | |
| 28 | You should have at least 32 megabytes of free memory on your |
| 29 | system before running the C<make> command. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | For much more information on building perl -- for example, on how to |
| 32 | change the default installation directory -- see F<INSTALL>. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | =head2 Failures during C<make test> on MachTen |
| 35 | |
| 36 | =over 4 |
| 37 | |
| 38 | =item op/lexassign.t |
| 39 | |
| 40 | This test may fail when first run after building perl. It does not |
| 41 | fail subsequently. The cause is unknown. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | =item pragma/warnings.t |
| 44 | |
| 45 | Test 257 fails due to a failure to warn about attempts to read from a |
| 46 | filehandle which is a duplicate of stdout when stdout is attached to a |
| 47 | pipe. The output of the test contains a block comment which discusses |
| 48 | a different failure, not applicable to MachTen. |
| 49 | |
| 50 | The root of the problem is that Machten does not assign a file type to |
| 51 | either end of a pipe (see L<stat>), resulting, among other things |
| 52 | in Perl's C<-p> test failing on file descriptors belonging to pipes. |
| 53 | As a result, perl becomes confused, and the test for reading from a |
| 54 | write-only file fails. I am reluctant to patch perl to get around |
| 55 | this, as it's clearly an OS bug (about which Tenon has been informed), |
| 56 | and limited in its effect on practical Perl programs. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | =back |
| 59 | |
| 60 | =head2 Building external modules on MachTen |
| 61 | |
| 62 | To add an external module to perl, build in the normal way, which |
| 63 | is documented in L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, or which can be driven |
| 64 | automatically by the CPAN module (see L<CPAN>), which is part of the |
| 65 | standard distribution. If you want to install a module which |
| 66 | contains XS code (C or C++ source which compiles to object code |
| 67 | for linking with perl), you will have to replace your perl binary with |
| 68 | a new version containing the new statically-linked object module. The |
| 69 | build process tells you how to do this. |
| 70 | |
| 71 | There is a gotcha, however, which users usually encounter immediately |
| 72 | they respond to CPAN's invitation to C<install Bundle::CPAN>. When |
| 73 | installing a I<bundle> -- a group of modules which together achieve |
| 74 | some particular purpose, the installation process for later modules in |
| 75 | the bundle tends to assume that earlier modules have been fully |
| 76 | installed and are available for use. This is not true on a |
| 77 | statically-linked system for earlier modules which contain XS code. |
| 78 | As a result the installation of the bundle fails. The work-around is |
| 79 | not to install the bundle as a one-shot operation, but instead to see |
| 80 | what modules it contains, and install these one-at-a-time by hand in |
| 81 | the order given. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | =head1 AUTHOR |
| 84 | |
| 85 | Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> |
| 86 | |
| 87 | =head1 DATE |
| 88 | |
| 89 | Version 1.0.1 2000-03-27 |