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 perlaix - Perl version 5 on IBM AIX (UNIX) systems
11 This document describes various features of IBM's UNIX operating
12 system AIX that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
13 is compiled and/or runs.
15 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
17 For information on compilers on older versions of AIX, see L</Compiling
18 Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3>.
20 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
21 an ANSI compliant C compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
22 gcc for AIX are widely available. A version of gcc is also included in
23 the AIX Toolbox which is shipped with AIX.
25 =head2 Supported Compilers
27 Currently all versions of IBM's "xlc", "xlc_r", "cc", "cc_r" or
28 "vac" ANSI/C compiler will work for building Perl if that compiler
31 If you plan to link Perl to any module that requires thread-support,
32 like DBD::Oracle, it is better to use the _r version of the compiler.
33 This will not build a threaded Perl, but a thread-enabled Perl. See
34 also L</Threaded Perl> later on.
36 As of writing (2010-09) only the I<IBM XL C for AIX> or I<IBM XL C/C++
37 for AIX> compiler is supported by IBM on AIX 5L/6.1/7.1.
39 The following compiler versions are currently supported by IBM:
41 IBM XL C and IBM XL C/C++ V8, V9, V10, V11
43 The XL C for AIX is integrated in the XL C/C++ for AIX compiler and
44 therefore also supported.
46 If you choose XL C/C++ V9 you need APAR IZ35785 installed
47 otherwise the integrated SDBM_File do not compile correctly due
48 to an optimization bug. You can circumvent this problem by
49 adding -qipa to the optimization flags (-Doptimize='-O -qipa').
50 The PTF for APAR IZ35785 which solves this problem is available
51 from IBM (April 2009 PTF for XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition for AIX, V9.0).
53 If you choose XL C/C++ V11 you need the April 2010 PTF (or newer)
54 installed otherwise you will not get a working Perl version.
56 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
57 The former is recommended, as not only it can compile Perl with no
58 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later
59 that require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
61 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
62 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
63 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the
66 =head2 Incompatibility with AIX Toolbox lib gdbm
68 If the AIX Toolbox version of lib gdbm < 1.8.3-5 is installed on your
69 system then Perl will not work. This library contains the header files
70 /opt/freeware/include/gdbm/dbm.h|ndbm.h which conflict with the AIX
71 system versions. The lib gdbm will be automatically removed from the
72 wanted libraries if the presence of one of these two header files is
73 detected. If you want to build Perl with GDBM support then please install
74 at least gdbm-devel-1.8.3-5 (or higher).
76 =head2 Perl 5 was successfully compiled and tested on:
78 Perl | AIX Level | Compiler Level | w th | w/o th
79 -------+---------------------+-------------------------+------+-------
80 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 32 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
81 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 64 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
82 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
83 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | gcc 3.2.2 | OK | OK
84 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
85 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
86 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | gcc 4.2.4 | OK | OK
87 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
88 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK
89 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK
90 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 32 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
91 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 64 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
92 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK
93 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK
95 w th = with thread support
96 w/o th = without thread support
99 Successfully tested means that all "make test" runs finish with a
100 result of 100% OK. All tests were conducted with -Duseshrplib set.
102 All tests were conducted on the oldest supported AIX technology level
103 with the latest support package applied. If the tested AIX version is
104 out of support (AIX 4.3.3, 5.1, 5.2) then the last available support
107 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
109 Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x / 5.12.x)
110 and AIX 4.3 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface
111 in the so called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface
112 that was used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases
113 4.2 and earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with
114 compiled modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make
115 Perl more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
116 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of
117 C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions,
118 which was not possible using the emulated interface.
120 It is highly recommended to use the new interface.
122 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
124 Should yield no problems.
128 Should yield no problems with AIX 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.3 / 6.1 / 7.1.
130 IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.6.0 on AIX 5.1 and V5.8.2 on
131 AIX 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1; V5.8.8 on AIX 5.3 TL11 and AIX 6.1 TL4; V5.10.1
132 on AIX 7.1) for some AIX system scripts. If you switch the links in
133 /usr/bin from the AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build
134 Perl then you get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if
135 the threaded options are used.
137 The threaded Perl build works also on AIX 5.1 but the IBM Perl
138 build (Perl v5.6.0) is not threaded on AIX 5.1.
140 Perl 5.12 an newer is not compatible with the IBM fileset perl.libext.
144 If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
145 configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX 6.1
146 you need an APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX functions.
147 The APAR number for this problem is IZ39077.
149 If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs you
153 default: (or your user)
154 data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte)
156 With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB.
157 The -1 removes this limit. If the "make test" fails please change
158 your /etc/security/limits as stated above.
162 IBM calls its implementation of long doubles 128-bit, but it is not
163 the IEEE 128-bit ("quadruple precision") which would give 116 bit of
164 mantissa (nor it is implemented in hardware), instead it's a special
165 software implementation called "double-double", which gives 106 bits
168 There seem to be various problems in this long double implementation.
169 If Configure detects this brokenness, it will disable the long double support.
170 This can be overriden with explicit C<-Duselongdouble> (or C<-Dusemorebits>,
171 which enables both long doubles and 64 bit integers). If you decide to
172 enable long doubles, for most of the broken things Perl has implemented
173 workarounds, but the handling of the special values infinity and NaN
174 remains badly broken: for example infinity plus zero results in NaN.
176 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/32-bit)
178 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
179 passes all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default
180 configuration for the Perl builds that AIX ships with.
188 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
190 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
191 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
193 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (32-bit)
195 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes
196 all make tests in 32-bit mode.
203 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
205 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
206 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
208 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/64-bit)
210 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
211 passes all make tests in 64-bit mode.
213 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
222 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
224 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (64-bit)
226 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all
227 make tests in 64-bit mode.
229 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
237 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
239 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
240 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
242 If you choose gcc to compile 64-bit Perl then you need to add the
248 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX 7.1.0
250 A regression in AIX 7 causes a failure in make test in Time::Piece during
251 daylight savings time. APAR IV16514 provides the fix for this. A quick
252 test to see if it's required, assuming it is currently daylight savings
253 in Eastern Time, would be to run C< TZ=EST5 date +%Z >. This will come
254 back with C<EST> normally, but nothing if you have the problem.
257 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3
259 Due to the fact that AIX 4.3.3 reached end-of-service in December 31,
260 2003 this information is provided as is. The Perl versions prior to
261 Perl 5.8.9 could be compiled on AIX up to 4.3.3 with the following
262 settings (your mileage may vary):
264 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
265 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
266 gcc for AIX are widely available.
268 At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
269 for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
270 of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
271 upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
273 xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
274 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
276 note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
277 you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
279 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
281 subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
282 the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
284 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
285 The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
286 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
287 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
289 The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
290 optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
291 respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
292 levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
293 Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
295 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
296 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
297 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
302 Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
303 level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
304 show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
305 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
309 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
310 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
311 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
314 The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, Perl
315 cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
317 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
318 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
319 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
322 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX E<lt> 5L
324 AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
325 Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
326 misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
327 For Perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
328 many other platforms.
330 Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
331 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
332 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
333 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
334 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
335 modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
336 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
337 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
338 code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, which
339 was not possible using the emulated interface.
341 =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
343 All defaults for Configure can be used.
345 If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
346 will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
347 but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
348 removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
349 versions should be considered obsolete.
351 Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
352 level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
353 versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
354 are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
355 in the developer snapshots of Perl), or to one version up where the
356 "base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
359 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
360 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not
363 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
364 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
365 : welcome message ...
366 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
367 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
369 ... accepted login stuff
370 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
371 ftp> dir other other.ll
372 output to local-file: other.ll? y
373 200 PORT command successful.
374 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
375 226 Transfer complete.
377 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
378 200 PORT command successful.
379 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
380 226 Transfer complete.
384 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
385 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
387 On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
389 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
390 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
391 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
392 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
393 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
394 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
395 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
396 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
397 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
398 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
399 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
400 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
401 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
402 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
403 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
406 On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
408 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
409 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
410 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
411 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
412 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
413 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
414 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
415 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
416 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
419 Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
422 # smit install_update
423 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
424 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
428 Follow the messages ... and you're done.
430 If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
431 L<http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp> and click
432 "C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
434 =head2 The usenm option
438 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
440 causes error like this
442 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
443 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
444 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
445 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
446 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
447 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
448 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
449 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more
456 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
458 which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library
459 symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
461 Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of
462 Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used.
464 =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building Perl
466 Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
467 as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
468 Linux compatibility packages, available here:
470 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
472 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl E<lt> 5L
474 Should yield no problems.
476 =head2 Threaded Perl E<lt> 5L
478 Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
479 threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
481 You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
483 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment
484 between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
486 The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
489 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
491 in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
492 is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
493 different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
494 is not really significant here.
496 =head2 64-bit Perl E<lt> 5L
498 If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
499 configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
502 =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
504 In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
505 may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
506 In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
507 the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
508 has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
509 (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
510 therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
514 Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net>