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.
7 INSTALL - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
11 First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
12 didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13 http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
14 subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
15 odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16 development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17 production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18 tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19 worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
21 The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
22 the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
29 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
31 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32 platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
33 If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
34 just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35 any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36 To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37 "make install PERLNAME=myperl".
39 Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C compiler.
40 A minimum of C89 is required. Some features available in C99 will
41 be probed for and used when found. The perl build process does not
42 rely on anything more than C89.
44 These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
46 If you're building perl from a git repository, you should also consult
47 the documentation in pod/perlgit.pod for information on that special
50 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
51 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
53 For information on what's new in this release, see the
54 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
55 specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
59 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
61 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
69 Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
70 you should probably at least skim through this document before
73 In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
74 your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
75 instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
76 system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
77 for even more information.
79 For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
80 L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
85 =head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
87 Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
88 potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
89 the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
90 to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
92 B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with earlier versions
93 of Perl. If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
94 using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
97 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
98 without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
99 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
101 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
103 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
104 in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
105 pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
106 installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
107 list of locally installed modules. Also see the L<CPAN> module's
108 C<autobundle> function for one way to make a "bundle" of your currently
113 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
115 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
116 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
117 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
120 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
121 defaults from then on.
123 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
124 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
126 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
129 =head2 Common Configure options
131 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
135 to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
136 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
142 To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
143 system, you should run
145 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
147 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
148 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
150 =item Installation prefix
152 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
153 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
154 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
157 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
158 directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
159 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
161 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
163 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
164 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
165 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
166 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
167 for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
168 or you may experience odd test failures.
170 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
171 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
172 attempt infinite recursion.
176 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
177 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
178 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
179 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
180 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
181 on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
182 configured may be found with
186 (Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
187 spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
188 at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
190 By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
191 version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
193 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
195 or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
197 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
198 (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
199 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
200 obvious and convenient place.
202 =item Building a development release
204 For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
205 use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
206 because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
207 Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
212 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
217 =head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
219 For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
220 be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
221 have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
222 after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
223 For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
226 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
228 To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
229 Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
230 variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
231 But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
233 For more help on Configure switches, run
237 =head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
239 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
240 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
241 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
242 some of the main things you can change.
246 On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
249 sh Configure -Dusethreads
251 The default is to compile without thread support.
253 Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The
254 current model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module
255 since 5.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with
256 one interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated)
257 5.005 version (5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
259 The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
260 'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the
261 current ithreads model.
263 When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
264 the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
265 This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
266 fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
267 PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
268 way to do this is to run Configure with
269 C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
271 =head3 Large file support
273 Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
274 2 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
275 support is on by default.
277 This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
278 seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing
279 Perl using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
280 be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
281 parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
284 There's also one known limitation with the current large files
285 implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
286 section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
287 like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
289 If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
291 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
293 =head3 64 bit support
295 If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
296 them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
297 you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
299 There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
300 using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
301 -Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
302 the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
304 The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
305 64-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
306 longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
307 your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
308 does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
309 might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
310 you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
312 The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
313 integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
314 create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
315 resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
316 have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
319 Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
320 On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
321 is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
322 Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
323 options is planned for a future release of perl.
327 In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
328 range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
329 (that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
330 this support (if it is available).
332 Note that the exact format and range of long doubles varies:
333 the most common is the x86 80-bit (64 bits of mantissa) format,
334 but there are others, with different mantissa and exponent ranges.
335 In fact, the type may not be called "long double" at C level, and
336 therefore the C<uselongdouble> means "using floating point larger
341 You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
342 and the long double support.
346 One option for long doubles is that gcc 4.6 and later have a library
347 called quadmath, which implements the IEEE 754 quadruple precision
348 (128-bit, 113 bits of mantissa) floating point numbers. The library
349 works at least on x86 and ia64 platforms. It may be part of your gcc
350 installation, or you may need to install it separately.
352 With "Configure -Dusequadmath" you can try enabling its use, but note
353 the compiler dependency, you may need to also add "-Dcc=...".
354 At C level the type is called C<__float128> (note, not "long double"),
355 but Perl source knows it as NV.
357 =head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
359 Perl 5.18 reworked the measures used to secure its hash function
360 from algorithmic complexity attacks. By default it will build with
361 all of these measures enabled along with support for controlling and
362 disabling them via environment variables.
364 You can override various aspects of this feature by defining various
365 symbols during configure. An example might be:
367 Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
369 B<Unless stated otherwise these options are considered experimental or
370 insecure and are not recommended for production use.>
372 Perl 5.18 includes support for multiple hash functions, and changed
373 the default (to ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD), you can choose a different
374 algorithm by defining one of the following symbols. Note that as of
375 Perl 5.18 we can only recommend use of the default or SIPHASH. All
376 the others are known to have security issues and are for research
379 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
382 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SUPERFAST
383 PERL_HASH_FUNC_MURMUR3
384 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME
385 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD
386 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_OLD
388 Perl 5.18 randomizes the order returned by keys(), values(), and each(),
389 and allows controlling this behavior by using of the PERL_PERTURB_KEYS
390 option. You can disable this option entirely with the define:
392 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DISABLED
394 You can disable the environment variable checks and specify the type of
395 key traversal randomization to be used by defining one of these:
397 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_RANDOM
398 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DETERMINISTIC
400 In Perl 5.18 the seed used for the hash function is randomly selected
401 at process start which can be overridden by specifying a seed by setting
402 the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable.
404 You can change this behavior by building perl with the
406 USE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT
408 define, in which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED
409 environment variable to enable the security feature or by adding
413 to the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
414 Note these modes are poorly tested, insecure and not recommended.
416 B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
417 ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
418 5. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
419 be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
420 randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
421 between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
422 hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
425 See L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED> and L<perlrun/PERL_PERTURB_KEYS> for
426 details on the environment variables, and L<perlsec/Algorithmic
427 Complexity Attacks> for further security details.
431 Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
432 TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
433 access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
434 Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
435 You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
436 L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
438 =head3 Dynamic Loading
440 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
441 If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
442 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
443 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
444 With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
445 (XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
447 =head3 Building a shared Perl library
449 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
450 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
451 extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
453 On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
454 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
455 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
456 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
457 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
458 can share the same library.
460 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
461 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
462 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
465 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
466 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
467 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
470 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
471 libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
472 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
473 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
474 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
475 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
477 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
479 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
481 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
482 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
483 Darwin, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
484 for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
485 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
486 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
487 library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
488 variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
490 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
492 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
493 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
494 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
497 ./perl -MTestInit t/misc/failing_test.t
501 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
503 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
506 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
508 for Bourne-style shells, or
510 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
512 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
513 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
514 again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
516 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
517 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
520 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
522 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
523 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
524 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
525 install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
526 try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
527 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
528 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
529 libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
530 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
531 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
532 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
533 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
534 LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
535 Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
536 _RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
538 In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
539 with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
542 A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
543 architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
544 You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
545 point to your new architecture-dependent library.
547 =head3 Environment access
549 Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when
550 C<%ENV> is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function
551 C<putenv()> leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the
552 environment directly to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform
553 direct manipulation whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter,
554 and to call the safe but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the
555 perl interpreter is embedded in another application. You can force perl
556 to always use C<putenv()> by compiling with
557 C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section L</"Altering Configure
558 variables for C compiler switches etc.">. You can force an embedded perl
559 to use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after
560 the C<perl_construct()> call.
562 =head2 Installation Directories
564 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
565 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
566 questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
567 slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
568 you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
569 from then on. Alternatively, you can
571 grep '^install' config.sh
573 after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
575 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
576 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
577 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
578 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
579 you can safely skip the next section.
581 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
585 =item Directories for the perl distribution
587 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.23.0.
588 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
589 5.12.3, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
590 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
591 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
593 Configure variable Default value
594 $prefixexp /usr/local
595 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
596 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
597 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
598 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
599 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
600 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
604 $prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert
605 home directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables
606 listed. As file system calls do not do this, you should always reference
607 the ...exp variables, to support users who build perl in their home
610 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
611 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
612 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
613 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
614 the common style is shown here.
616 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
618 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
619 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
620 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
624 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
625 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
626 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
627 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
629 $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
630 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
631 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
632 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
633 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
635 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
636 modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
638 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
640 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
641 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
642 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
646 $vendorprefixexp (none)
648 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
650 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
651 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
652 $vendorlibexp $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
654 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
655 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
656 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
657 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
658 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
660 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
661 a vendor might choose the following settings:
664 $siteprefix /usr/local
667 This would have the effect of setting the following:
670 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
671 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
672 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
673 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
674 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
676 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
677 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
678 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
679 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
680 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
681 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
683 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
684 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
685 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
686 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
687 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
688 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
690 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
691 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end user are in
692 the /usr/local hierarchy.
694 The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
695 version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
696 However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search
697 the installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
698 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more
699 details on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
701 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
702 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
703 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
704 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
705 network. One way to do that would be something like
707 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
711 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
712 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
713 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
714 Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
715 version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
717 For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
718 installation, perhaps in a strange place:
720 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
724 There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
725 that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
726 separated list of directories, like this
728 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
730 The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
731 ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
732 modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
733 touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
734 version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
735 present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
736 directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
737 run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
739 =item usesitecustomize
741 Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
743 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
745 which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
746 When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
747 anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
752 By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
753 are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
754 want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
756 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
760 Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
761 HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
762 add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
763 variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
764 documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
765 eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
769 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
770 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
773 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
774 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
777 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
778 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
779 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
781 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
782 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
783 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
785 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
786 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
788 Configure variable Default value
789 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
790 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
791 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
792 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
794 =head2 Changing the installation directory
796 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
797 associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
798 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
799 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
800 However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
801 dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
802 wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
803 to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
809 To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
812 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
814 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
816 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
817 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
818 follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
819 as shown in the next section.
823 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
824 to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
825 multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
826 archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
827 using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
828 automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
831 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
834 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
835 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
836 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
840 =head2 Relocatable @INC
842 To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
844 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
846 Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
847 optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
849 That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
850 path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
851 can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
852 "-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
853 install is done to the original configured prefix.
855 This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
856 ("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
857 rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
859 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
861 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
862 answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
863 If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
864 defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
865 directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
866 generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
867 different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
868 you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
869 example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
870 as the system on which the file was generated.
872 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
877 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
879 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
881 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
882 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
883 platform-specific hints files.
885 =head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
887 Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
888 installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
889 and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
890 being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
891 variable inc_version_list.
893 To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure
894 perl modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
896 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
898 If you do want to use modules from some previous perl versions, the
899 variable must contain a space separated list of directories under the
900 site_perl directory, and has to include architecture-dependent
901 directories separately, eg.
903 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list="5.16.0/x86_64-linux 5.16.0" ...
905 When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
906 PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
908 =head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
910 Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
911 where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
912 read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
913 architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
916 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
917 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
918 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
920 This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
921 pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
922 unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
928 as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
930 =head2 Building a debugging perl
932 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
933 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
934 you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
935 (activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
936 system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
939 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
943 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
945 For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
946 for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
947 to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
949 Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
957 =item -DEBUGGING=both
959 Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
961 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
962 but usually it's convenient to have both.
968 Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
970 (Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
971 Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
973 =item -DEBUGGING=none
977 Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
981 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
982 versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
984 Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be much bigger and will run
985 much, much more slowly than a standard perl.
987 =head2 DTrace support
989 On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
990 using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available
991 for subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
992 simple D script that uses them:
994 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
995 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
996 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
1002 Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1003 in the ext/ subdirectory.
1005 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1006 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1007 only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
1009 To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1010 -Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1011 a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
1013 C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1014 the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1015 extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1016 certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1017 examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1018 these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
1020 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1021 the extensions you want.
1023 If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1024 running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1025 extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1026 it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1027 has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1028 extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1029 convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1030 you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1031 dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1032 Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
1033 L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1035 If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1036 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1037 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1040 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1042 Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
1043 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
1044 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1045 automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
1046 to be specified explicitly (see L</Threads>).
1048 Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
1049 for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
1050 compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
1051 option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
1052 directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
1053 need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
1054 by Configure. See the examples below.
1060 =item gdbm in /usr/local
1062 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1063 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
1064 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1065 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1066 necessary steps out automatically.
1068 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1069 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1070 not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1071 you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
1073 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1074 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1077 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1078 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1079 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
1081 =item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1083 The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by Oracle installs in a
1084 version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1085 /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1086 -I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous
1087 example, and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure
1088 find -ldb. Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library
1089 directories, add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you
1090 will need to add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker
1091 where to find the BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1093 It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
1097 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include \
1098 /usr/local/include' \
1099 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1100 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
1102 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1103 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1105 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1106 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
1108 The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1109 the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1110 Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1115 =head2 Specifying a logical root directory
1117 If you are cross-compiling, or are using a compiler which has it's own
1118 headers and libraries in a nonstandard location, and your compiler
1119 understands the C<--sysroot> option, you can use the C<-Dsysroot> option
1120 to specify the logical root directory under which all libraries and
1121 headers are searched for. This patch adjusts Configure to search under
1122 $sysroot, instead of /.
1124 --sysroot is added to ccflags and friends so that make in
1125 ExtUtils::MakeMaker, and other extensions, will use it.
1127 =head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1129 If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1130 Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1131 need to use B<Configure -O>.
1133 =head2 GNU-style configure
1135 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1136 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1138 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1140 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1143 ./configure.gnu --help
1147 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1148 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1150 =head2 Malloc Issues
1152 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1153 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1154 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1155 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1156 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1157 than your system malloc.
1159 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1160 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1161 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1162 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1166 =item Using the system malloc
1168 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1170 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1172 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1174 Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1175 depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1176 systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1177 See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1180 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1182 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1183 run Configure to accept all the defaults.
1185 Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1186 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1187 These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1189 If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1190 will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1191 sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1192 been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1194 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1195 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1196 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1199 =item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1201 This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1202 Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1203 using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1205 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
1207 to enable this option.
1211 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1213 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1214 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1218 =item Running Configure Interactively
1220 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1221 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1224 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1225 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1226 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1227 will use the defaults from then on.
1229 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1230 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1231 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1235 Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1241 The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1242 library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1247 The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1248 although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1249 resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1253 How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size
1254 and/or speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in
1255 the implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example,
1256 Configure often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1260 The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1261 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1262 will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1263 not to, you should accept its offer.
1265 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1266 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
1267 file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive
1268 example. More information about writing good hints is in the
1269 hints/README.hints file, which also explains hint files known as
1272 Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1273 Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
1277 If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure
1278 detects different values from the ones specified in this file. You will
1279 almost always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed
1280 something on your system.
1282 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1283 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1284 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1285 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1288 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1289 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1290 Keep the previous value? [y]
1292 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1293 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1294 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1296 =item Changing Compilers
1298 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1299 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1300 rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
1302 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1304 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1305 them to all the .SH files by running
1309 You will then have to rebuild by running
1314 =item config.over and config.arch
1316 You can also supply a shell script config.over to override
1317 Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1318 before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1319 however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1320 This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1322 There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1323 config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1324 architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1325 hints file that creates the config.arch.
1329 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1330 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1331 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1333 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1334 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1339 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1340 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1341 optimizer on toke.c, find the switch structure marked 'or customize here',
1342 and add a line for toke.c ahead of the catch-all *) so that it now reads:
1347 toke) optimize='-g' ;;
1350 You should not edit the generated file cflags directly, as your changes
1351 will be lost the next time you run Configure, or if you edit config.sh.
1353 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1354 see the file hints/README.hints.
1356 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1357 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1364 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1365 Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1366 system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1367 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1370 =item Porting information
1372 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1373 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1374 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1375 subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
1377 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1378 http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
1379 various other operating systems.
1381 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
1382 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1383 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlgit.pod.
1384 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1388 =head2 Adding extra modules to the build
1390 You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1391 CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1392 command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1394 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
1396 or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1397 then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1398 The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install'
1399 command. This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1400 extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1401 extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
1403 Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1404 modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1405 or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1406 do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1408 Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1409 dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the
1410 build. For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
1411 headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1412 process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1416 suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1417 longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1418 changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
1422 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1423 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1424 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1425 makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1426 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1427 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1429 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1434 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1436 =head2 Expected errors
1438 These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
1441 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1443 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1445 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1447 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1448 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1449 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1450 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1456 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1457 for further tips and information.
1461 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1462 during the building of extensions, run
1466 to test your version of miniperl.
1470 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1471 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1472 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1473 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1474 whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file
1475 pod/perllocale.pod. The latter is especially useful if you see something
1478 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1479 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1482 are supported and installed on your system.
1483 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1487 =item other environment variables
1489 Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1490 have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1491 OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1492 their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1493 behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1494 executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
1495 PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
1496 So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1497 retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1501 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1502 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1503 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1504 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
1505 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1506 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1507 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1511 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1512 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1514 util.c: In function 'Perl_form':
1515 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1516 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1518 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1519 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1521 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1523 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1524 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1525 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1526 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1527 of your local setup.
1531 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1532 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1535 sh Configure -Uusenm
1537 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1538 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1541 =item umask not found
1543 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1544 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1545 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1546 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1547 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1551 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1552 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1553 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1554 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1555 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1559 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1560 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1561 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1565 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1566 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1567 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1568 on L<"nm extraction">.
1570 =item __inet_* errors
1572 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1573 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1574 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1575 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1576 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1577 newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1578 If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library
1579 provided with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the
1580 Perl build and test process to avoid the problem.
1582 =item .*_r() prototype NOT found
1584 On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1585 reentrant functions -- specifically networking-related ones -- being
1586 present but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or
1587 possibly other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1588 header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or
1589 into another directory as specified at build/install time), at least
1590 optionally. Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C
1591 preprocessor's header file include search path (determined by -I options
1592 plus defaults, normally /usr/include).
1594 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1596 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1597 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1598 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1599 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1600 update your gcc installation.
1604 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1605 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1613 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1614 with B<make depend; make>.
1616 =item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
1618 If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1619 undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1620 should look something like
1622 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1624 The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1625 need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1626 will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1627 need to start all over again. Run
1631 and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1632 what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1635 If the libs variable is missing -lm, there is a chance that libm.so.1
1636 is available, but the required (symbolic) link to libm.so is missing.
1637 (same could be the case for other libraries like libcrypt.so). You
1638 should check your installation for packages that create that link, and
1639 if no package is installed that supplies that link or you cannot install
1640 them, make the symbolic link yourself e.g.:
1642 $ rpm -qf /usr/lib64/libm.so
1643 glibc-devel-2.15-22.17.1.x86_64
1644 $ ls -lgo /usr/lib64/libm.so
1645 lrwxrwxrwx 1 16 Jan 7 2013 /usr/lib64/libm.so -> /lib64/libm.so.6
1649 $ sudo ln -s /lib64/libm.so.6 /lib64/libm.so
1651 If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1652 L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1654 If you still have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1655 need to add some library or other, make a symbolic link like described
1656 above, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1657 there but is defective or incomplete. If you used a hint file, see if
1658 it has any relevant advice. You can also look through through config.h
1659 for likely suspects.
1663 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1664 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1665 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1666 each file in cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files
1667 into makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1670 =item Missing dbmclose
1672 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1673 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1675 =item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1677 Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1678 error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1680 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1682 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1684 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1686 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1687 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1688 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1690 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1692 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1693 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1695 =item Warning (mostly harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1697 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1698 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1699 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1700 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1701 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1702 Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1703 phrase 'mostly harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1704 unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
1706 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1709 Warning (mostly harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1711 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1712 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1713 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1715 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1716 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1717 quite that tightly coordinated.
1719 =item sh: ar: not found
1721 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1722 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1723 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1724 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1727 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1729 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1730 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1731 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1733 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1735 If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your
1736 System V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1737 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1738 to include the System V semaphores.
1740 =item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
1742 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1743 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1744 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1745 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1750 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1751 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1752 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1753 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1754 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1755 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1756 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1757 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1759 =item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1761 The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1762 make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1763 archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1764 C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1765 archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1766 incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1767 official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1768 that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1769 archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1771 =item invalid token: ##
1773 You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1774 need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1775 file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1780 Some additional things that have been reported:
1782 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1784 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1786 UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and #undef LSTAT.
1788 FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1789 configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1790 you will get a message telling you what to do.
1792 Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1793 installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1794 and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1795 the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1796 view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1801 =head2 Cross-compilation
1803 Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1804 rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for several platforms: as of
1805 January 2014, these include Android, Blackberry 10, PocketPC aka
1806 WinCE, ARM Linux, and Solaris. Previous versions of
1807 Perl also provided support for Open Zaurus, Symbian, and
1808 the IBM OS/400, but it's unknown if those ports are still functional.
1809 These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms, while the systems
1810 where the compilation takes place are the B<host> platforms.
1812 What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1813 cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1814 up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1815 (using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1816 awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1817 version 5.18.0, the Configure script also knows two ways of supporting
1818 cross-compilation, so please keep reading.
1820 See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1821 the particular platforms:
1825 =item WinCE/PocketPC
1827 L<README.ce or perlce|perlce>
1831 L<"Cross-compilation" in README.android or
1832 perlandroid|perlandroid/Cross-compilation>
1836 L<"Cross-compilation" in README.qnx or perlqnx|perlqnx/Cross-compilation>
1840 L<"CROSS-COMPILATION" in README.solaris or
1841 perlsolaris|perlsolaris/CROSS-COMPILATION>
1845 This document; See below.
1849 Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1850 modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1851 cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1852 platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1853 L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1854 of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1856 For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1857 C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1860 About the cross-compilation support of Configure: There's two forms.
1861 The more common one requires some way of transferring and running
1862 executables in the target system, such as an ssh connection; this is the
1863 C<./Configure -Dusecrosscompile -Dtargethost=...> route. The second
1864 method doesn't need access to the target system, but requires you to
1865 provide a config.sh, and and a canned Makefile; the rest of this section
1866 describes the former.
1868 This cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1869 a wide variety of setups, such as a 64-bit OS X host for an Android ARM
1870 target, or an amd64 Linux host targeting x86 Solaris, or even Windows.
1872 To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1873 has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>:
1875 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1877 This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1878 symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
1880 During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1881 into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1882 cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1883 target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1884 transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1885 the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1886 methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1887 F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1889 To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1890 the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1891 happens), supply Configure with
1893 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1895 The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
1896 must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1897 You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
1901 but in case you don't, "root" will be used. Similarly, you can specify
1902 a non-standard (i.e. not 22) port for the connection, if applicable,
1907 If the name of C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1908 compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the target architecture (C<targetarch>),
1909 plus names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and C<ranlib> will also be automatically
1910 chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
1911 (The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1912 as appropriate). This will also aid in guessing the proper
1913 operating system name for the target, which has other repercussions, like
1914 better defaults and possibly critical fixes for the platform. If
1915 Configure isn't guessing the OS name properly, you may need to either add
1916 a hint file redirecting Configure's guess, or modify Configure to make
1919 If your compiler doesn't follow that convention, you will also need to
1920 specify which target environment to use, as well as C<ar> and friends:
1922 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1926 Additionally, a cross-compilation toolchain will usually install it's own
1927 logical system root somewhere -- that is, it'll create a directory
1928 somewhere which includes subdirectories like 'include' or 'lib'. For
1929 example, you may end up with C</skiff/local/arm-linux>, where
1930 C</skiff/local/arm-linux/bin> holds the binaries for cross-compilation,
1931 C</skiff/local/arm-linux/include> has the headers, and
1932 C</skiff/local/arm-linux/lib> has the library files.
1933 If this is the case, and you are using a compiler that understands
1934 C<--sysroot>, like gcc or clang, you'll want to specify the
1935 C<-Dsysroot> option for Configure:
1937 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux
1939 However, if your don't have a suitable directory to pass to C<-Dsysroot>,
1940 you will also need to specify which target environment to use:
1942 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1943 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1944 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1946 In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1947 choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1950 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1952 Putting it all together:
1954 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1955 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1956 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
1958 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1959 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1960 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux \
1963 or if you are happy with the defaults:
1965 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1966 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1967 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1970 Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1971 F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1973 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1974 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1975 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1976 -Dsysroot=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5
1978 There is also a C<targetenv> option for Configure which can be used
1979 to modify the environment of the target just before testing begins
1980 during 'make test'. For example, if the target system has a nonstandard
1981 /tmp location, you could do this:
1983 -Dtargetenv="export TMPDIR=/other/tmp;"
1985 If you are planning on cross-compiling to several platforms, or some
1986 other thing that would involve running Configure several times, there are
1987 two options that can be used to speed things up considerably.
1988 As a bit of background, when you
1989 call Configure with C<-Dusecrosscompile>, it begins by actually partially
1990 building a miniperl on the host machine, as well as the generate_uudmap
1991 binary, and we end up using that during the build.
1992 So instead of building that new perl every single time, you can build it
1993 just once in a separate directory, and then pass the resulting binaries
1994 to Configure like this:
1996 -Dhostperl=/path/to/second/build/dir/miniperl
1997 -Dhostgenerate=/path/to/second/build/dir/generate_uudmap
1999 Much less commonly, if you are cross-compiling from an ASCII host to an
2000 EBCDIC target, or vise versa, you'll have to pass C<-Uhostgenerate> to
2001 Configure, to signify that you want to build a generate_uudmap binary
2002 that, during make, will be run on the target system.
2006 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
2007 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
2010 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
2011 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
2012 a few tty tests will be skipped.
2014 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
2016 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
2017 by hand to see if it makes any difference.
2019 One way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
2020 individual subtests is to run the harness from the t directory:
2022 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
2024 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
2025 complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
2028 If individual tests fail, you can often run them by hand (from the main
2029 perl directory), e.g.,
2031 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
2033 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
2034 comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2035 shared library path if you get errors like:
2037 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2039 The file t/README in the t subdirectory contains more information about
2040 running and modifying tests.
2042 See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
2048 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
2049 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
2050 'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
2051 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2052 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
2053 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2055 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
2061 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2063 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2064 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
2065 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
2066 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
2067 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2068 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
2071 =item Timing problems
2073 Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2074 sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
2075 If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2076 these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2077 with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2078 and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2079 F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
2080 F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2081 F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
2083 You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
2084 perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
2089 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2090 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
2091 For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2092 test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
2094 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2096 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/pat.t
2098 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2099 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2100 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2101 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2103 =item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
2105 This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
2106 a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
2107 (or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
2108 shared library should fix the problem.
2110 =item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2112 First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2113 real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2115 Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2116 directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2117 systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2118 run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2121 The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2123 (1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2124 other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2126 This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2127 unpacked in such a way that the user IDs in the distribution package
2128 are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2130 (2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2131 by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2132 UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2133 add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2134 used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2135 set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2136 file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2139 This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2140 permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2141 also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2142 is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2143 should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2144 supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2145 used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
2146 11.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2147 on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2148 local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
2150 (3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2151 any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2152 directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
2153 (2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2154 building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2155 module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
2157 See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
2158 about the various security aspects of temporary files.
2162 The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2163 Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS>
2164 in your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2165 C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2167 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2169 An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself,
2170 because L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual
2171 non-conflicting test scripts itself, and there is no standard interface
2172 to C<make> utilities to interact with their job schedulers.
2176 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
2177 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try to put
2178 the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man pages,
2179 however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you are not
2180 root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2181 in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2183 If "make install" just says "'install' is up to date" or something
2184 similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2185 and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2186 by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
2188 =head2 Installing perl under different names
2190 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2191 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2192 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2194 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2196 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2197 "perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2199 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2201 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to avoid
2202 conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2203 Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
2205 =head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2207 You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2208 the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2210 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2212 DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2213 the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
2215 =head2 Installed files
2217 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2218 anything, you can run
2220 ./perl installperl -n
2221 ./perl installman -n
2223 make install will install the following:
2228 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
2229 will be a link to perl.
2233 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P,
2234 if your cc -E can't read from stdin.
2235 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header
2237 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with
2240 cpan The CPAN shell.
2241 enc2xs Encoding module generator.
2242 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C
2244 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
2245 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2246 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
2247 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
2248 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
2249 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure.
2250 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
2252 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules.
2253 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
2257 podchecker POD syntax checker.
2258 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation.
2259 prove A command-line tool for running tests.
2260 psed A Perl implementation of sed.
2261 ptar A Perl implementation of tar.
2262 ptardiff A diff for tar archives.
2263 ptargrep A grep for tar archives.
2264 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums.
2265 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors.
2266 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
2267 zipdetails display the internal structure of zip files
2271 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
2272 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
2276 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2278 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
2279 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2281 installperl will also create the directories listed above
2282 in L<"Installation Directories">.
2284 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
2285 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
2286 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2287 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
2289 =head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2291 Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2292 installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2293 perl alongside an already installed production version without
2294 disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2295 To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2297 Configure -Dversiononly
2299 or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2300 you can just manually run
2302 ./perl installperl -v
2304 and skip installman altogether.
2306 See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2309 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2311 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2312 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2313 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2314 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2315 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2317 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2318 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2319 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2320 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2323 =head1 installhtml --help
2325 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2326 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2327 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2329 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2330 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2332 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2337 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2339 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2340 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2341 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2342 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2345 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2346 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2347 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2348 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2349 (and would welcome patches for them).
2351 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2352 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2354 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2356 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2357 available in TeX format. Type
2359 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2361 =head1 Starting all over again
2363 If you wish to rebuild perl from the same build directory, you should
2364 clean it out with the command
2372 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2373 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files. (A plain 'make clean' is now
2374 eqivalent to 'make realclean'.)
2376 If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2377 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2378 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not reuse
2381 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2382 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2383 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2386 =head1 Reporting Problems
2388 Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2389 to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2390 information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2391 more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2392 carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2393 on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2394 you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2395 message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2398 The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2399 completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2400 C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2401 C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2402 run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2403 directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2405 If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2406 B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2407 an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2409 If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2410 (needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2411 description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2412 -- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2414 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2415 reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2416 written English is not great -- what matters is how well you describe
2417 the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2418 not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2420 Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2421 config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2422 necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2423 session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2424 messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2425 appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient -- fancy
2426 attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2427 read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2428 subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2430 If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2431 inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please
2432 send it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed
2433 subscription unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core
2434 committers, who be able to help assess the impact of issues, figure out
2435 a resolution, and help co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or
2436 fix the problem across all platforms on which Perl is supported. Please
2437 only use this address for security issues in the Perl core, not for
2438 modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2440 If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2441 report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2442 http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2444 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
2446 Perl 5.23.0 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
2447 In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
2449 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl
2450 (e.g. 5.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2451 re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2452 version around in case the new version causes you problems for some
2455 Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2456 used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
2457 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
2459 Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2460 searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
2462 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2463 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2464 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2465 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
2467 Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2468 searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
2470 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2471 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2472 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2473 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
2475 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2476 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
2477 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2479 Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
2480 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2481 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2482 to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
2483 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
2484 present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2485 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2486 but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
2488 The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
2489 5.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
2491 Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2492 with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
2493 Configure defaults) will be:
2495 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2496 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2497 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2498 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
2500 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
2502 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
2504 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2506 Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2507 modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2509 This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2510 to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2511 versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
2513 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
2515 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
2516 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
2517 won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2518 libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2519 way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
2521 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.23.0
2523 and adding /opt/perl5.23.0/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
2524 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2525 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2527 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
2528 (e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
2531 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2532 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2533 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2536 =head2 Upgrading from 5.21.11 or earlier
2538 B<Perl 5.23.0 may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.21.11 or
2539 earlier Perl releases.> Perl modules having binary parts
2540 (meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
2541 used with 5.23.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
2542 5.23.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
2543 installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
2546 See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2547 incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
2548 perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
2550 =head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2552 The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2553 Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2554 operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2556 Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
2557 Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2558 space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2559 Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
2560 programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2561 depends on what do you need to do.
2563 In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2564 recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2565 depends on what you need.
2567 Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2571 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2575 in Linux with perl-5.23.0 is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
2578 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/strict.pm
2579 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/warnings.pm
2580 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2581 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/feature.pm
2582 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/XSLoader.pm
2583 ./lib/perl5/5.23.0/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2585 Secondly, for perl-5.10.1, the Debian perl-base package contains 591
2586 files, (of which 510 are for lib/unicore) totaling about 3.5MB in its
2587 i386 version. Omitting the lib/unicore/* files for brevity, the
2588 remaining files are:
2592 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config.pm
2593 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_git.pl
2594 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_heavy.pl
2595 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Cwd.pm
2596 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/DynaLoader.pm
2597 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Errno.pm
2598 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Fcntl.pm
2599 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/File/Glob.pm
2600 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Hash/Util.pm
2601 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO.pm
2602 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/File.pm
2603 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Handle.pm
2604 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2605 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2606 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Select.pm
2607 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket.pm
2608 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2609 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2610 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/List/Util.pm
2611 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/POSIX.pm
2612 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Scalar/Util.pm
2613 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Socket.pm
2614 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/XSLoader.pm
2615 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2616 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2617 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2618 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2619 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2620 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2621 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2622 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Hash/Util/Util.so
2623 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2624 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/List/Util/Util.so
2625 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2626 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2627 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2628 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2629 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/lib.pm
2630 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/re.pm
2631 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
2632 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2633 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
2634 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
2635 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
2636 /usr/share/lintian/overrides/perl-base
2637 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
2638 /usr/share/man/man1/perl5.10.1.1.gz
2639 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/AutoLoader.pm
2640 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp.pm
2641 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2642 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter.pm
2643 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2644 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec.pm
2645 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2646 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/FileHandle.pm
2647 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2648 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2649 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2650 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/SelectSaver.pm
2651 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Symbol.pm
2652 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/ParseWords.pm
2653 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2654 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2655 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Tie/Hash.pm
2656 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/attributes.pm
2657 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/base.pm
2658 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes.pm
2659 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes_heavy.pl
2660 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/constant.pm
2661 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/fields.pm
2662 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/integer.pm
2663 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/locale.pm
2664 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/overload.pm
2665 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/strict.pm
2666 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/unicore/*
2667 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8.pm
2668 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8_heavy.pl
2669 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/vars.pm
2670 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings.pm
2671 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings/register.pm
2673 A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2674 need to run a Perl program is
2676 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
2678 (this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2679 it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2680 use something like the below
2682 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 \
2683 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2685 (The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2688 =head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2690 If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2691 F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2692 by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2695 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
2697 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2698 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
2699 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
2700 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2701 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
2705 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2706 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2707 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
2709 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2710 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2712 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2714 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
2715 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
2716 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
2717 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2718 and the contact information to match your distribution.