3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23 L<"Porting information"> below.
25 For information on what's new in this release, see the
26 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27 changes, see the Changes file.
31 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
33 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
34 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
40 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
43 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
47 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
51 =head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
53 Starting with Perl 5.004_50 there were many deep and far-reaching changes
54 to the language internals. If you have dynamically loaded extensions
55 that you built under perl 5.003 or 5.004, you can continue to use them
56 with 5.004, but you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions
57 to use them 5.005. See the discussions below on
58 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
59 L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> for more details.
61 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
63 In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
64 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
65 pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
67 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
69 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
70 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
71 Another alternative may be to use a tool like C<ansi2knr> to convert the
72 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
73 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
74 in the Perl sources. C<ansi2knr> is usually found as part of the freely
75 available C<Ghostscript> distribution. Another similar tool is
76 C<unprotoize>, distributed with GCC. Since C<unprotoize> requires GCC to
77 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
78 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
80 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
81 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
82 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
84 =head1 Space Requirements
86 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
87 complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
88 actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
89 directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
90 value is system-dependent.
92 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
94 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
103 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
104 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
106 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
107 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
108 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
109 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
110 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
112 mv config.sh config.sh.old
114 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
115 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
116 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
117 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
118 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
119 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
120 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
121 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
122 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
124 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
125 (such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486, i586, or i686.
126 If you pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
128 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
129 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
131 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
132 particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
133 same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
134 L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
138 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
139 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
140 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
141 is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
142 and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
144 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
145 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
147 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
148 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
149 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
151 To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
153 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
155 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
156 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
158 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
159 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
161 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
162 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
163 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
164 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
167 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
169 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
170 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
171 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
172 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
174 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
175 your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
178 It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
179 easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
180 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
181 careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
182 vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
183 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
184 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
185 obvious and convenient place.
187 You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
188 to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl.
190 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
191 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
192 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
193 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
195 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
200 For my Solaris system, I usually use
202 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
204 =head2 GNU-style configure
206 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
207 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
209 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
211 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
214 ./configure.gnu --help
218 Cross compiling is not supported.
220 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
221 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
225 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
226 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
227 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
228 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
229 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
230 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
231 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
232 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
233 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
234 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
236 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
237 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
240 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
241 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
242 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
244 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
245 to turn off each extension:
247 B (Always included by default)
249 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
250 Fcntl (Always included by default)
252 IO (Always included by default)
256 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
260 attrs (Always included by default)
262 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
264 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
266 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
269 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
270 the extensions you want.
272 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
273 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
274 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
276 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
277 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
278 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
281 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
282 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
283 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
284 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
286 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
288 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
289 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
290 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
291 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
292 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
293 how to obtain the libraries.
295 Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
296 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
297 include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
298 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
299 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
300 include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
301 Configure. See the examples below.
307 =item gdbm in /usr/local
309 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
310 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
311 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
312 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
313 necessary steps out automatically.
315 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
316 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
318 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
321 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
322 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
325 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
326 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
327 messages, then you can just run
331 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
333 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
334 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
336 =item gdbm in /usr/you
338 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
339 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
340 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
341 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
342 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
343 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
344 /usr/you/lib to the list.
346 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
350 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
351 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
353 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
354 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
356 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
357 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
358 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
359 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
362 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
363 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
367 =head2 Installation Directories
369 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
370 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
371 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
373 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
374 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
375 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
376 will use the defaults from then on.
378 By default, Configure will use the following directories for library files
379 for 5.005 (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined by Configure).
381 Configure variable Default value
382 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
383 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
384 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
385 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
387 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
388 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
391 By default, Configure will use the following directories for manual pages:
393 Configure variable Default value
394 $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
395 $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
397 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
398 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
401 The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
402 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
403 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
404 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
405 page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
406 change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
408 Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
409 /usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
411 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
413 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
415 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
417 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
418 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
419 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults for 5.005 are
421 Configure variable Default value
422 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005/archname
423 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005
424 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005/archname
425 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005
427 $man1dir /opt/perl/man/man1
428 $man3dir /opt/perl/man/man3
430 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
433 The directories under site_perl are empty, but are intended to be used
434 for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl will automatically
435 look in these directories.
437 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.005 after
438 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
439 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
440 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.005/.
442 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
443 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
444 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
446 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
449 =head2 Changing the installation directory
451 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
452 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
453 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
454 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
455 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
456 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
457 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
458 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
459 an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
461 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
462 can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
463 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
464 process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
465 run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
467 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
468 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
469 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
470 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
471 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
472 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
473 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
474 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
475 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
476 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
477 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
479 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
486 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
487 extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
488 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
491 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
493 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
494 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
495 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
496 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
497 Here's one way to do that:
499 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
500 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
501 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
504 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
506 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
507 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
508 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
509 # everywhere in those files.)
510 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
511 # #!/wherever/perl line.
512 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
513 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
514 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
515 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
517 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
519 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
520 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
521 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
522 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
523 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
524 hint file for your system.
526 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
531 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
533 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
535 =head2 Configure-time Options
537 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
538 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
539 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
540 some of the main things you can change.
544 On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled with experimental support
545 for threads. To enable this, read the file README.threads, and then
548 sh Configure -Dusethreads
550 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
551 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
553 The default is to compile without thread support.
555 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
557 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
558 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
559 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
560 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
562 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
565 sh Configure -Duseperlio
567 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
569 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
570 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
571 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
578 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
579 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
580 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
581 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
582 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
583 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
585 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
586 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
588 You select this option by
590 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
592 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
593 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
596 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
597 to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
598 Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
601 You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
602 script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
603 portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
608 main() { printf("42\n"); }
610 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
612 if test X$val = X42; then
613 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
615 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
618 If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
619 and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
621 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
626 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
627 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
628 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
631 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
633 You select this option via:
635 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
637 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
638 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
642 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
644 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
645 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
646 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
649 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
650 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
651 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
652 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
653 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
654 can share the same library.
656 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
657 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
658 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
661 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
662 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
663 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
666 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
667 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
668 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
669 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
670 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
671 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
673 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
674 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
676 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
678 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
680 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
681 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
684 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
686 for Bourne-style shells, or
688 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
690 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
691 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
692 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
694 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
695 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
696 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
697 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
698 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
699 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
700 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
701 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
702 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
703 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
704 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
705 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
706 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
707 to point to the perl build directory.
709 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
710 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
711 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
712 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
713 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
717 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
718 perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
719 the malloc function on your system.
721 The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast but
722 somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's malloc
723 function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal. However,
724 as of 5.004_68, perl's malloc has been optimized for the typical
725 requests from perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and
728 For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
729 the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
730 with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
731 (e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
732 if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
733 third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
734 your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags
737 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
739 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
741 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
743 =head2 Malloc Performance Flags
745 If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or more of the following
746 items to your ccflags config.sh variable to change its behavior. You can
747 find out more about these and other flags by reading the commentary near
748 the top of the malloc.c source. The defaults should be fine for
753 =item -DNO_FANCY_MALLOC
755 Undefined by default. Defining it returns malloc to the version used
760 Undefined by default. Defining it in addition to NO_FANCY_MALLOC returns
761 malloc to the version used in Perl version 5.000.
765 =head2 Building a debugging perl
767 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
768 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
769 you probably want to do
771 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
773 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
774 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
775 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
776 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
777 system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
778 config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
779 state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
780 default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
781 reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
782 optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
783 as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
785 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
786 it's convenient to have both.
788 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
789 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
791 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
793 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
794 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
795 by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
798 You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
799 doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
800 shouldn't do that, but some might.)
802 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
806 =item Running Configure Interactively
808 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
809 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
812 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
813 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
814 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
815 will use the defaults from then on.
817 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
818 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
819 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
823 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
824 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
825 will offer to use that hint file.
827 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
828 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
829 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
830 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
833 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
835 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
836 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
837 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
840 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
841 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
842 Keep the recommended value? [y]
844 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
845 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
848 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
849 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
850 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
853 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
854 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
855 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
856 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
859 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
860 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
861 Keep the previous value? [y]
863 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
864 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
865 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
867 =item Changing Compilers
869 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
870 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
871 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
872 with the options you want to use.
874 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
875 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
877 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
879 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
880 them to all the .SH files by running
884 You will then have to rebuild by running
891 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
892 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
893 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
894 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
895 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
899 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
900 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
901 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
903 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
904 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
909 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
910 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
911 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
912 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
913 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
914 lost the next time you run Configure.
916 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
917 see the file hints/README.hints.
919 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
920 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
927 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
928 to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
929 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
932 =item Environment variable clashes
934 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
935 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
936 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
937 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
939 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
941 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX Configure might abort with
943 Build a threading Perl? [n]
944 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
946 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
947 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
948 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
949 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
950 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
951 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
952 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
954 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
956 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
957 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
958 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
961 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
962 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
963 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
965 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
966 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
968 =item Porting information
970 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
971 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
972 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
975 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
976 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
977 various other operating systems.
983 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
984 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
985 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
986 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
987 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
988 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
990 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
995 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
997 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
998 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
999 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
1000 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1001 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1002 See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1008 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1009 for further tips and information.
1013 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1014 during the building of extensions, you should run
1018 to test your version of miniperl.
1022 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1023 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1024 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1025 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1026 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1027 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1029 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1030 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1033 are supported and installed on your system.
1034 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1038 =item malloc duplicates
1040 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DEMBEDMYMALLOC
1041 to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
1045 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1046 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1047 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1048 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1049 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1050 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1051 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1055 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1056 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1058 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1059 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1060 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1062 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1063 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1065 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1067 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1068 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1069 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1070 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1071 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1072 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1073 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1074 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1075 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1077 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1078 invoke Configure with
1080 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1082 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1085 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1086 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1089 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1091 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1092 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1093 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1095 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1097 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1098 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1099 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1100 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1101 of your local set-up.
1103 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1105 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1106 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1107 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1109 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1110 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1111 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1112 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1113 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1117 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1118 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1121 sh Configure -Uusenm
1123 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1124 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1127 =item umask not found
1129 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1130 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1131 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1132 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1133 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1137 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1138 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1139 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1140 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1141 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1145 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1146 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1147 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1151 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1152 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1153 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1154 on L<"nm extraction">.
1156 =item __inet_* errors
1158 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1159 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1160 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1161 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1162 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1163 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1164 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1165 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1170 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1171 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1179 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1180 with B<make depend; make>.
1184 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
1185 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1186 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1189 =item Missing functions
1191 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1192 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1193 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1194 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1195 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1199 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1200 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1201 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1202 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1203 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1206 =item Missing dbmclose
1208 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1209 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1211 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1213 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1214 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1215 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1216 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1217 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1218 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1219 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1220 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1221 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1222 process is continuing.
1224 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1227 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1229 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1230 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1231 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1233 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1234 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1235 quite that tightly coordinated.
1237 =item sh: ar: not found
1239 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1240 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1241 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1242 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1245 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1247 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1248 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1249 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1251 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1253 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1254 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1255 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1256 to include the System V semaphores.
1258 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1260 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1261 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1262 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1263 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1268 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1269 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1270 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1271 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1272 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1273 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1274 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1275 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1279 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1281 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1283 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1285 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1287 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1288 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1289 you will get a message telling what to do.
1291 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1293 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1295 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1296 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1297 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1298 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1299 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1305 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1306 should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1307 complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1308 then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1310 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1311 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1312 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1314 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1316 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1317 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1318 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1322 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1323 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1327 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1328 complicated constructs).
1330 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1331 comments that apply to your system.
1337 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1338 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1339 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1340 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1341 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1342 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1344 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1350 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1352 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1353 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1354 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1355 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1356 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1357 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1362 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1363 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1364 Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1365 fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1366 will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1369 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1371 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1373 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1374 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1375 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1376 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1382 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1383 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1384 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1385 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1386 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1387 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1389 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1391 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1392 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1393 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1395 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1397 =head2 Installed files
1399 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1400 anything, you can run
1402 ./perl installperl -n
1403 ./perl installman -n
1405 make install will install the following:
1408 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1409 will be a link to perl.
1411 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1412 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1413 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1415 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1416 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1417 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1418 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1419 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1420 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1421 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1422 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1423 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1424 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1427 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1429 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1430 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1431 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1432 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1433 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1434 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1435 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1437 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1438 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1440 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1441 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1443 where archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1444 will be used for installing extensions.
1446 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1447 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1448 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1449 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1451 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1453 WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1454 tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1456 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1457 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1458 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1459 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1460 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1461 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1462 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1463 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1465 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1466 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1467 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1469 The directories searched by version 5.005 will be
1471 Configure variable Default value
1472 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
1473 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
1474 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1475 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1477 while the directories searched by version 5.005_01 will be
1479 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501/archname
1480 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501
1481 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1482 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1484 When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1485 $sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1486 does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.005 and
1487 5.005_01 can use the extension. Only when a perl version changes to
1488 break backwards compatibility will the default suggestions for the
1489 $sitearch and $sitelib version numbers be increased.
1491 However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1492 old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1493 to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1494 (The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1495 extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1496 is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1497 to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
1498 5.005 will find your files in the 5.005 directory, and newer versions
1499 of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1500 (This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1502 Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your extensions
1503 every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1504 number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
1506 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1508 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1509 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1510 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1512 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1514 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1515 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1516 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1518 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1519 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1522 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1523 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1524 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1527 =head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1529 Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50
1530 will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later. You will,
1531 however, be able to continue using 5.004 even after you install 5.005.
1532 The 5.004 binary will still be able to find the extensions built under
1533 5.004; the 5.005 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1534 directories, and will not find them.
1536 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1538 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1540 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1541 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1543 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1544 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1545 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1546 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1547 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
1548 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1549 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1551 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1553 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1554 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1555 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1556 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent library
1557 ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1559 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1560 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1561 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1562 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1565 =head1 installhtml --help
1567 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1568 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1569 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1571 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1576 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1578 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1579 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1580 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1581 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1582 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1585 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1586 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1587 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1588 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1589 (and would welcome patches for them).
1591 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1592 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1594 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1596 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1597 available in TeX format. Type
1599 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1601 =head1 Reporting Problems
1603 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1604 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1605 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1606 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1607 an accurate description of your problem.
1609 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1610 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1611 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1612 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1613 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1615 You might also find helpful information in the Porting directory of the
1618 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1620 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1621 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1622 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1623 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1624 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1626 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1627 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1630 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1631 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1633 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1634 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1637 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1638 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1643 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1644 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1645 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1647 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1648 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1650 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1652 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1653 the same terms as perl itself.
1655 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1656 a larger package) please do modify these installation instructions and
1657 the contact information to match your distribution.
1659 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1661 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.42 1998/07/15 18:04:44 doughera Released $