If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially designed to be readable as is. =head1 NAME perlbeos - Perl version 5.8+ on BeOS =head1 DESCRIPTION This file contains instructions how to build Perl under BeOS and lists known problems. =head1 BUILD AND INSTALL =head2 Requirements I have built and tested Perl 5.8.6 and 5.9.1 under BeOS R5 x86 net server. I can't say anything with regard to PPC. Since Perl 5.8.0 had been released for BeOS BONE, I suspect, there is a good chance, that it still compiles on a BONE system. The only change I've made, that affects BONE systems is the recognition of whether it is a BONE system or not in F. Now network socket support should remain enabled on BONE systems. This might as well break the build, though. As more recent versions of autoconf require flock() support, I wrote a flock() emulation (flock_server) and released it on BeBits: http://www.bebits.com/app/4030 If you want to build a Perl with flock() support, you have to install this package first. =head2 Configure With flock() support: CFLAGS=-I/path/to/flock/server/headers ./configure.gnu \ --prefix=/boot/home/config Replace C with the path to the directory containing the C header. Without flock() support: ./configure.gnu --prefix=/boot/home/config =head2 Build With flock() support: make LDLOADLIBS="-lnet -lflock" Without flock() support: make LDLOADLIBS="-lnet" C<-lnet> is needed on net server systems only and if the compiler doesn't add it automatically (Be's R5 gcc does, Oliver Tappe's gcc 2.95.3 does not). =head2 Install Install all perl files: make install Create a symlink for libperl: cd ~/config/lib; ln -s perl5/5.8.6/BePC-beos/CORE/libperl.so . Replace C<5.8.6> with your respective version of Perl. =head1 KNOWN PROBLEMS =over 4 =item * Network socket support is disabled for BeOS R5 net server. I didn't dare yet to try enabling it and see what problems occur. =item * The LFS (large file support) tests (F and F) are disabled as seeking beyond 2 GB is broken according to jhi@iki.fi who was the last one checking the BeOS port and updating this file before me. Haven't checked this myself. =item * The F test fails at #6. As far as I can tell, this is caused by a bug in the BeOS pipes implementation that occurs when starting other child processes. In the particular test case a C flushes the stdout pipe of another child process. =item * The F test fails at #1. After all child processes are gone BeOS' waitpid(-1,...) returns 0 instead of -1 (as it should). No idea how to fix this. =back =head1 CONTACT For BeOS specifics problems feel free to mail to: Ingo Weinhold Last update: 2004-12-16