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
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. 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
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
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.
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
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
+=head2 Threads
-For Perl 5.004 it was possible to be binary compatible with 5.003.
-Starting from Perl 5.005 this is no more possible because there were
-many deep and far-reaching changes to the language internals.
+On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
+enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
-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.
-
-Background: 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.
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads
-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.
+Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
+line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
+
+The default is to compile without thread support.
=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
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
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
=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
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
bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
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.
=head1 LAST MODIFIED
-$Id: INSTALL,v 1.28 1997/10/10 16:50:59 doughera Released $
+$Id: INSTALL,v 1.35 1998/05/18 19:06:26 doughera Released $
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff