=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)
+ vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.0
-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
+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:
# oslevel
4.3.0.0
=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/modperl 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.
+
+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 | fgrep 'vac.C '
+ vac.C 4.4.0.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ vac.C 4.4.0.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ # grep 'vac.C.4.4.0.*.bff' other.ll
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13466624 May 26 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.1.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13473792 Aug 31 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.2.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13480960 May 19 20:32 vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
+ # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
+ #
+
+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.4.4.0.3.bff ]
+ [ OK ]
+ [ OK ]
+
+Follow the messages ... and you're done.
=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
-... ?
-
-Wait, I'll have to scan perlbug ...
+We're working on this using gcc-3.0 ... (any input highly appreciated)
=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
-... ?
-
-=head2 GDBM and Threads
-
-... ?
+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
=head1 DATE
-Version 0.0.1: 16-10-2000
+Version 0.0.3: 12 Jul 2001
=cut
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff