=head1 DESCRIPTION
-This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating system
-(AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is
-compiled and/or runs.
+This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating
+system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
+is compiled and/or runs.
=head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
-When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not shif
+When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
gcc for AIX are widely available.
At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
-for which you have to pay: B<xlc> and B<VAC>. If you decide to use eiter
+for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
- xlC.C 3.1.4.0
- vac.C 4.4.0.3 (5.0 is already available)
+ 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
+ vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
-Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. The
-former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
+note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
+you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
+
+ xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
+
+subversions are not the same `latest' on all OS versions. For example,
+the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
+
+Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
+The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
+The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
+optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
+respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
+levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
+Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
+
If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-specific
-details.
+details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
+team.
=head2 OS level
Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
-show the base, but is not allways complete:
+show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
+4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
# oslevel
4.3.0.0
# lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
- bos.rte 4.3.2.1 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
- bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
+ bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
+ bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
+ #
+
+The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl
+cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
+
+ # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
+ bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
+ bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
#
=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
-AIX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared libraries).
-Shared libraries end with the suffix .a, which is a bit misleading,
-cause *all* libraries are shared ;-).
+AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
+Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
+misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
+For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
+many other platforms.
+
+Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
+or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
+called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
+used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
+earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
+modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
+more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
+using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
+code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
+was not possible using the emulated interface.
=head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
All defaults for Configure can be used.
If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
-will turn up nasty later on.
+will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
+but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
+removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
+versions should be considered obsolete.
+
+Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
+level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
+versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
+are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
+in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the
+`base' is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
+cumulative.
+
+ vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
+ xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
+
+ # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
+ Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
+ : welcome message ...
+ Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
+ 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
+ Password:
+ ... accepted login stuff
+ ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
+ ftp> dir other other.ll
+ output to local-file: other.ll? y
+ 200 PORT command successful.
+ 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
+ 226 Transfer complete.
+ ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
+ output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
+ 200 PORT command successful.
+ 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
+ 226 Transfer complete.
+ ftp> bye
+ ... goodbye messages
+ # ls -l *.ll
+ -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
+ -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
+
+On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
+
+ # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
+ xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
+ -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
+ # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
+ #
+
+On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
+
+ # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
+ vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
+ # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
+ #
+
+Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
+fill in its choices
+
+ # smit install_update
+ -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
+ * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
+ [ OK ]
+ [ OK ]
+
+Follow the messages ... and you're done.
+
+If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
+http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
+"C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
-... ?
+Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
+as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
+Linux compatibility packages, available here:
-Wait, I'll have to scan perlbug ...
+ http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
-... ?
+Should yield no problems.
=head2 Threaded Perl
-... ?
+Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
+threads are used in combination with 64bit configurations.
-=head2 64-bit Perl
+You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
+
+ "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
+
+The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
+line this
-... ?
+ hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
-=head2 GDBM and Threads
+in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
+is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
+different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
+is not really significant here.
-... ?
+=head2 64-bit Perl
+
+If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64bit
+configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
+still fail.
-=head2 NFS filesystems and utime(2)
+=head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
-... ?
+In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
+may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
+In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
+the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
+has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
+(such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
+therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
=head1 AUTHOR
H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
-Structure copied from README.hpux
-
=head1 DATE
-Version 0.0.1: 16-10-2000
+Version 0.0.6: 23 Dec 2002
=cut
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff