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.
the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
+If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
+should also read that hint file for specific information for your
+system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
+
+=head1 NOTE: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
+
+For Perl 5.004 it was possible to be binary compatible with 5.003.
+Starting from Perl 5.004_50 this is no longer possible because 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 and the so-called 'bincompat3' mode (the default mode)
+and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.005, you may need to
+reinstall the extensions. If you wish to continue to support both 5.004
+and 5.005 on your system, you will have to move the 5.004 extensions
+over to the 5.004 architecture-dependent library. See the discussion
+below on L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.">
+
+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 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
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.
+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
If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
-If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
-output, you can run
-
- sh Configure -des
-
By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
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
you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
+If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
+output, you can run
+
+ sh Configure -des
+
+For my Solaris system, I usually use
+
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
+
=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
(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
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.
+will automatically look in these directories.
In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 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/5.004/.
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 lib/<archname>/<version>/Config.pm to change all the
+ # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
+ # really be installed.
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.
-
-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.
+=head2 Threads
-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".
+On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
+enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
-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.
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads
-The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
-appropriate for almost everyone.
+Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
+line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
-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
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.
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.
+malloc() function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
=over 4
-=item -DDEBUGGING_MSTATS
+=item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
-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
+If PERL_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.
sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
-This will do two things: First, it will force compilation to use
-cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the executable.
-Second, it will add a -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
+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 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, however, that Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
+state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
-as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.
+as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
+
+You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
+it's convenient to have both.
If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
-or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrandom=srandom to your ccflags
-at the appropriate Configure prompt. (You may also have to adjust
-Configure's guess for 'randbits' as well.)
+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().)
+
+You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
+doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
+shouldn't do that, but some might.)
=head2 What if it doesn't work?
=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.
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.
+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
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,
fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
on L<"vsprintf"> and 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
If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
=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.
+
+You may also be able to reduce perl's memory usage by using some of
+the ideas described above in L<"Malloc Performance Flags">.
+
+=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
=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
+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.
+
+(If you are upgrading from 5.002 or earlier, beware that some of the
+standard library files have changed in incompatible ways, so you are
+probably better off starting with a fresh installation.)
+
+The standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should be usable by
+all versions of perl5 after 5.002. An exception is the diagnostics.pm
+module. Since that module uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod
+documentation file, 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. Usually, this is not
+a problem.
+
+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 5.004_05 will be
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00405
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
+
+while the directories searched by version 5.004_04 are
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
+
+When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname (if it is architecture-specific.)
+This directory is deliberately NOT version-specific so that both 5.004_04
+and 5.004_05 can use the extension.
+
+However, 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.
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404. Then use your newer version of
+perl to rebuild and re-install the extension into site_perl. This way,
+Perl 5.004_04 will find your files in the 5.00404 directory, and
+newer versions of perl will find your newer extension in the site_perl
+directory.
+
+=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 compiled with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50 will need
+to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later.
+
+If you wish to continue using those extensions under 5.004_04, for
+example, then you need to move those extensions from their current
+directories, which are something like
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
+
+to the version-specific directory such as
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
+
+as described above.
+
+Once you have moved the 5.00404 versions of the extensions out of the
+way, you may recompile and reinstall with 5.005.
+
=head1 Coexistence with perl4
You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
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 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@lafcol.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 or questions, please see L<"Reporting Problems">
+above.
=head1 LAST MODIFIED
-$Id: INSTALL,v 1.11 1997/03/26 19:08:06 doughera Released $
+$Id: INSTALL,v 1.35 1998/05/18 19:06:26 doughera Released $
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff