The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
- rm -f config.sh
+ rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
sh Configure
make
make test
# You may also wish to add these:
(cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
- (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
+ (installhtml --help)
(cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
Each of these is explained in further detail below.
-For information on non-Unix systems, see L<"Porting information"> below.
+For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
+L<"Porting information"> below.
-For information on what's new in this release, see the pod/perldelta.pod
-file. For more detailed information about specific changes, see the
-Changes file.
+For information on what's new in this release, see the
+pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
+changes, see the Changes file.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
should also read that hint file for specific information for your
system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
+=head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
+
+Starting with Perl 5.004_50 there were many deep and far-reaching changes
+to the language internals. If you have dynamically loaded extensions
+that you built under perl 5.003 or 5.004, you can continue to use them
+with 5.004, but you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions
+to use them 5.005. See the discussions below on
+L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
+L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> for more details.
+
+The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
+
+In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
+changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
+pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
+
+=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
+
+If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
+GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
+Another alternative may be to use a tool like C<ansi2knr> to convert the
+sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
+you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
+in the Perl sources. C<ansi2knr> is usually found as part of the freely
+available C<Ghostscript> distribution. Another similar tool is
+C<unprotoize>, distributed with GCC. Since C<unprotoize> requires GCC to
+run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
+the sources back to the platform without GCC.
+
+If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
+form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
+followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
+
=head1 Space Requirements
-The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space. The
-complete tree after completing make takes roughly 15 MB, though the
+The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
+complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
-directories need something on the order of 7 MB, though again that
+directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
value is system-dependent.
=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
with the command
+ make distclean
+
+or
+
make realclean
-The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
-you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
-systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
-experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably not
-re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
+The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
+your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
+
+The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
+files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
+change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
+you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
+not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
mv config.sh config.sh.old
numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
-(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
-pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
+(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486, i586, or i686.
+If you pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
+If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
+particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
+same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
+L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
+
=head1 Run Configure
Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
-is almost always ok. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
+is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
-Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
-to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
+Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
+get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
+Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
+
+To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
+NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
+your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
+infinite recursion.
+
+It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
+easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
+/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
+careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
+vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
+put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
+into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
+obvious and convenient place.
+
By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
=head2 GNU-style configure
If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
-use the supplied configure command, e.g.
+use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
- CC=gcc ./configure
+ CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
-The configure script emulates a few of the more common configure
+The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
options. Try
- ./configure --help
+ ./configure.gnu --help
for a listing.
Cross compiling is not supported.
-For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
-"configure", Perl includes a copy of configure named
-configure.gnu.
+(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
+that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
=head2 Extensions
By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
-DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
-not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
-by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
-Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
-Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
-by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
+B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
+Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
+is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
+set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
+the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
+built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
to turn off each extension:
+ B (Always included by default)
DB_File i_db
DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
Fcntl (Always included by default)
SDBM_File (Always included by default)
Opcode useopcode
Socket d_socket
+ Threads usethreads
+ attrs (Always included by default)
Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
the extensions you want.
-Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of
-Berkeley DB. Once Berkeley DB version 2 is released, DB_File will be
-upgraded to work with it. Configure will automatically detect this
-for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
+Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
+DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
+this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
+
+If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
+adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
+for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
+you.
Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
=item gdbm in /usr/you
Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
-but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
+but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
-It is highly recommend that you running Configure interactively
-to be sure it puts everything where you want it. At any point
-during the Configure process, you can answer a question with
-C<&-d> and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
+I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
+everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
+process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
+will use the defaults from then on.
+
+By default, Configure will use the following directories for library files
+for 5.005 (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined by Configure).
-By default, Configure uses the following directories for
-library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
-by Configure)
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
+ $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
+ $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
+ $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
+Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
+to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
+architectures.
-and the following directories for manual pages:
+By default, Configure will use the following directories for manual pages:
- /usr/local/man/man1
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
+ $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
-instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
+instead.)
+
+The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
-page, rather than the less program. (This location may change in a
-future release of perl.)
+page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
+change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
--Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
+-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults for 5.005 are
- /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
- /opt/perl/lib
- /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
- /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005/archname
+ $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005
+ $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005/archname
+ $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005
- /opt/perl/man/man1
- /opt/perl/man/man3
+ $man1dir /opt/perl/man/man1
+ $man3dir /opt/perl/man/man3
The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
above.
-The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
-intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
-will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
-just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
+The directories under site_perl are empty, but are intended to be used
+for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl will automatically
+look in these directories.
-In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
+In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.005 after
a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
stored in a version-specific directory, such as
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
-files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
-not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
-the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
-can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.005/.
+
+Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
+development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
+discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
Configure.
This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
-Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory.
-You can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to
-point to /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. You could
-also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
-automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
-config.over before you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
-directory of your choice):
+Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
+can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
+/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
+process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
+run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
installprefix=/tmp/perl5
test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
make test
make install
+Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
+extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
+follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
+that problem.
+
=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
make test
make install
cd /tmp/perl5
+ # Edit $archlib/Config.pm to change all the
+ # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
+ # really be installed.
+ # Edit any of the scripts in $scriptdir to have the correct
+ # #!/wherever/perl line.
tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
# Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
+=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
+
+After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
+answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
+person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
+system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
+to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
+hint file for your system.
+
+Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
+answers, you should
+
+ rm -f Policy.sh
+
+to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
+
+Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
+
=head2 Configure-time Options
There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
some of the main things you can change.
-=head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
-
-If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
-perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
-need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
+=head2 Threads
-Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
-been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
-may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
-collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
-installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
-re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
-(The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
-automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
--DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
+On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
+enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
-Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
-been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
-complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
-Perl for such a site, then when Configure asks if you want binary
-compatibility, answer "y".
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads
-On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
-and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
-answer "n" when Configure asks if you want binary compatibility.
+Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
+line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
-The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
-appropriate for almost everyone.
-
-In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the changes
-in the Perl language in the current release. Please see pod/perldelta for
-a description of what's changed.
+The default is to compile without thread support.
=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
-A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
-it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
+A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
You select this option by
fi
If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
-and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
-your platform.)
+and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
problem.
that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
-with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
+with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
+override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
+to point to the perl build directory.
The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
-version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
+version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
the malloc function on your system.
-The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
-but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
-malloc() function is probably a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
+The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast but
+somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's malloc
+function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal. However,
+as of 5.004_68, perl's malloc has been optimized for the typical
+requests from perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and
+use less memory.
For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
-your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
-malloc flags discussed below.)
+your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags
+discussed below.)
To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
-If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
-more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
-to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
-more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
-In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
+If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or more of the following
+items to your ccflags config.sh variable to change its behavior. You can
+find out more about these and other flags by reading the commentary near
+the top of the malloc.c source. The defaults should be fine for
+nearly everyone.
=over 4
-=item -DDEBUGGING_MSTATS
-
-If DEBUGGING_MSTATS is defined, you can extract malloc
-statistics from the Perl interpreter. The overhead this imposes is not
-large (perl just twiddles integers at malloc/free/sbrk time). When you
-run perl with the environment variable PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS set to
-either 1 or 2, the interpreter will dump statistics to stderr at exit
-time and (with a value of 2) after compilation. If you install the
-Devel::Peek module you can get the statistics whenever you like by
-invoking its mstat() function.
-
-=item -DEMERGENCY_SBRK
-
-If EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
-fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
-variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
-
-=item -DPACK_MALLOC
+=item -DNO_FANCY_MALLOC
-If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
-algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
-allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
+Undefined by default. Defining it returns malloc to the version used
+in Perl 5.004.
-The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
-about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
-additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
-to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
+=item -DPLAIN_MALLOC
-=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
-
-If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
-algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
-(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
-special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
-manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
-might be wise to define this macro.
-
-The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
-require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
-negligible.
+Undefined by default. Defining it in addition to NO_FANCY_MALLOC returns
+malloc to the version used in Perl version 5.000.
=back
This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
-cc -g2. Check you man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
+cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
config.sh.
-For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
-perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
-following:
-
- sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
-
-or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
-at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
-me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
-different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
+Starting from Perl 5.005_53 you no more need to replace the rand() and
+srand() functions in the perl source by any other random number
+generator because Configure chooses the widest one available
+(drand48(), srandom(), or rand()).
You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
will offer to use that hint file.
Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
-If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
-file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
-extensive example.
+If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
+for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
+More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
+file.
=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
-Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
+Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
+issue a message:
*** WHOA THERE!!! ***
The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
lost the next time you run Configure.
-To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
-and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
-and then re-run
+To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
+see the file hints/README.hints.
+
+To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
+$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
sh Configure -S
make depend
=item No sh
-If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
-config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
+If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
+to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
mechanism.
=head1 make depend
-This will look for all the includes.
-The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
-Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
-makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
-makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
-makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
-a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
-if in doubt.)
+This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
+The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
+the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
+makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
+(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
+Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
explicitly above.
If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
during the building of extensions, you should run
- make minitest
+ make minitest
to test your version of miniperl.
=item locale
-If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
-unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
-while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
-locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
+If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
+them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
+running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
+See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
+whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
+The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
+
+ perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
+ perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
+ LC_ALL = "En_US",
+ LANG = (unset)
+ are supported and installed on your system.
+ perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
+
+at Perl startup.
=item malloc duplicates
-If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
-or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
+If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DEMBEDMYMALLOC
+to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
=item varargs
If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
-correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
-and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
-running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
-forget to propagate your changes (see
-L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
+correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
+gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
+in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
+correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
+your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
-=item croak
+=item util.c
If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
-numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
+numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
- util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
- util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
- proto.h:45: prototype declaration
+ util.c: In function `Perl_form':
+ util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
+ proto.h:125: prototype declaration
it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
previous L<"varargs"> item.
Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
-and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
+and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
+Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
+One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
+invoke Configure with
+
+ sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
+
+for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
+instead.
+
+Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
+include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
+config.sh.
+
=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
config.sh.
+=item umask not found
+
+If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
+is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
+Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
+this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
+try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
+
=item vsprintf
If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
d_vprintf='define'
If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
-on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
-re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
+on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
+the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
=item do_aspawn
If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
-fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
-on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
+fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
+on L<"nm extraction">.
+
+=item __inet_* errors
+
+If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
+referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
+installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
+these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
+in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
+newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
+updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
+/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
+avoid the problem.
=item Optimizer
optimize='-O'
-to something like
+to
optimize=' '
If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
-likely suspects.
+likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
+you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
=item toke.c
with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
+=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
+
+If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
+V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
+also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
+to include the System V semaphores.
+
+=item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
+
+Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
+both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
+ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
+with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
+system.
+
=item Miscellaneous
Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
+FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
+configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
+you will get a message telling what to do.
+
If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
=head1 make test
-This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
-doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
-file t/README in the t subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
-tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
+This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
+should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
+complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
+then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
+
+Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
+opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
+a few tty tests will be skipped.
+
+=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
./perl harness
-(this assumes that most tests succeed, since harness uses
+(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
complicated constructs).
-You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
+You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
comments that apply to your system.
+=over 4
+
+=item locale
+
Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
external program.
+=item Out of memory
+
+On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
+of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
+Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
+fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
+will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
+same time.
+
+Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
+
+ cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
+
+to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
+test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
+tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
+and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
+
+=back
+
=head1 make install
This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
ignore any messages about chown not working.
+=head2 Installing perl under different names
+
+If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
+when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
+indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
+
+ make install PERLNAME=myperl
+
+=head2 Installed files
+
If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
anything, you can run
Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
-where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
+
+where archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
will be used for installing extensions.
Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
-You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
-under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
-starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
-#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
-If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
-need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
-since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
-in incompatible ways.
-
-The old architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
-directory (such as /usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.003) so that they
-will still be accessible even after a later version is installed.
-(Note: Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not put their architecture-dependent
-libraries in a version-specific directory. They are simply in
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname. If you will not be using 5.000 or
-5.001, you may safely remove those files.)
-
-In general, the standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should
-be usable by all versions of perl5. However, the diagnostics.pm module
-uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod documentation file, so
-the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script will only identify
-and explain any warnings or errors that the most recently-installed
-version of perl can generate.
-
-Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
-version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
-to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
-those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
-/usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
-files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
-newer extension in the site_perl directory.
+WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
+tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
+
+In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
+5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
+all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
+around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
+For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
+with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
+top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
+#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
+
+Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
+with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
+(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
+
+The directories searched by version 5.005 will be
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
+ $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
+ $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
+ $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+
+while the directories searched by version 5.005_01 will be
+
+ $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501/archname
+ $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501
+ $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
+ $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+
+When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
+$sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
+does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.005 and
+5.005_01 can use the extension. Only when a perl version changes to
+break backwards compatibility will the default suggestions for the
+$sitearch and $sitelib version numbers be increased.
+
+However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
+old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
+to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
+(The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
+extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
+is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
+to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
+5.005 will find your files in the 5.005 directory, and newer versions
+of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
+(This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
+
+Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your extensions
+every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
+number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
+
+=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
+Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
+(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
+each major version.
+
+If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
+seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
+subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
+yet.
+
+=head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
+
+Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50
+will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later. You will,
+however, be able to continue using 5.004 even after you install 5.005.
+The 5.004 binary will still be able to find the extensions built under
+5.004; the 5.005 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
+directories, and will not find them.
+
=head1 Coexistence with perl4
You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
-by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
-you specified to Configure; by default this is
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
-(such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
-building (for example, 5.004).
+by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent library
+($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
certain structures.
-=head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
+=head1 installhtml --help
+
+Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
+format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
+documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
+
+The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
+perl documentation:
-Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
-available in HTML format. Type
+ ./installhtml \
+ --podroot=. \
+ --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
+ --recurse \
+ --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
+ --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
+ --splithead=pod/perlipc \
+ --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
+ --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
+ --verbose
- cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
+See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
+many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
+see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
+resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
+(and would welcome patches for them).
-where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
+You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
+the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
=head1 Reporting Problems
-If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
-file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
-manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
-message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
-perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
+If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
+helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
+pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
+to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
+an accurate description of your problem.
-Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
-that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
-perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
-but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
+Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
+the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
+comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
+before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
+run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
-You might also find helpful information in the Porting
-directory of the perl distribution.
+You might also find helpful information in the Porting directory of the
+perl distribution.
=head1 DOCUMENTATION
-Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
-in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
+Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
+is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
-can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
-is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
+can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
+sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
-along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
-and running (either):
+along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
+running (either):
./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
set-up.)
-Note that you must have performed the installation already before
-running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
-generate the documentation.
+Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
+the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
+the documentation.
=head1 AUTHOR
-Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu , borrowing very heavily
-from the original README by Larry Wall, and also with lots of helpful
-feedback from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
+Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
+heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
+feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
+
+If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
+L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
+
+=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
+
+This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
+the same terms as perl itself.
+
+If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
+a larger package) please do modify these installation instructions and
+the contact information to match your distribution.
=head1 LAST MODIFIED
-$Id: INSTALL,v 1.13 1997/04/03 18:29:14 doughera Released $
+$Id: INSTALL,v 1.42 1998/07/15 18:04:44 doughera Released $
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff