1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
|
=head1 NAME
Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
=head1 SYNOPSIS
The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
rm -f config.sh
sh Configure
make
make test
make install
# You may also wish to add these:
(cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
(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 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.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
C<code> literal code
L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
proceeding.
If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
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
actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
directories need something on the order of 7 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 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.
mv config.sh config.sh.old
If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
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.
In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
=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
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. 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
This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
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>.
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
using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
e.g.
sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
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.
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.
CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
The configure script emulates a few of the more common configure
options. Try
./configure.gnu --help
for a listing.
Cross compiling is not supported.
(The file is called configugre.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.)
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
documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
ext/ subdirectory.
Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
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)
GDBM_File i_gdbm
IO (Always included by default)
NDBM_File i_ndbm
ODBM_File i_dbm
POSIX useposix
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
sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
library.
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 or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
well build all the ones that will work on your system.
=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
how to obtain the libraries.
Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
Configure. See the examples below.
=head2 Examples
=over 4
=item gdbm in /usr/local
Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
necessary steps out automatically.
Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
-L/usr/local/lib.
If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
-L/usr/local/lib.
Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
messages, then you can just run
sh Configure -des
and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
=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
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
Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
/usr/you/lib to the list.
It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
line):
sh Configure -des \
-Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
-Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
sh Configure -des \
-Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
-Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
=back
=head2 Installation Directories
The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
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 uses the following directories for
library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
by Configure)
/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
/usr/local/lib/perl5/
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
and the following directories for manual pages:
/usr/local/man/man1
/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
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 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
sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
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
/opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
/opt/perl/lib
/opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
/opt/perl/lib/site_perl
/opt/perl/man/man1
/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.
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/.
Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
Configure.
=head2 Changing the installation directory
Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
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. 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
test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
sh Configure -des
make
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
convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
# Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
# e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
sh Configure -des
make
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.
=head2 Configure-time Options
There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
some of the main things you can change.
=head2 Threads
On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
sh Configure -Dusethreads
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
Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
the default and is the only supported mechanism.
This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
line with
sh Configure -Duseperlio
or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
everywhere.
=over 4
=item 1.
AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
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.
You select this option by
sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
Configure.
Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
and SunOS 4.
You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
#!/bin/sh
cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
#include <stdio.h>
main() { printf("42\n"); }
EOCP
cc -o try try.c -lsfio
val=`./try`
if test X$val = X42; then
echo "Your sfio looks ok"
else
echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
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.)
There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
problem.
=item 2.
Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
abstraction.
This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
You select this option via:
sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
=back
=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
such as -lm.
On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
can share the same library.
The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
and upgrades.
In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
results.
The default name for the shared library is typically something like
libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
You can elect to build a shared libperl by
sh Configure -Duseshrplib
To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
this with
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
for Bourne-style shells, or
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
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. 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 by changing all the *archlib*
variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
=head2 Malloc Issues
Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
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 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
with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
(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.)
To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
=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.
=over 4
=item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
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.
=item -DPACK_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.
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 -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.
=back
=head2 Building a debugging perl
You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
you probably want to do
sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
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
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
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.)
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>.
=head2 Other Compiler Flags
For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
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().)
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?
=over 4
=item Running Configure Interactively
If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
guesses.
All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
will use the defaults from then on.
If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
=item Hint files
The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
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.
=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
will see a message:
*** WHOA THERE!!! ***
The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
Keep the recommended value? [y]
You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
overriding it.
If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
system.
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:
*** WHOA THERE!!! ***
The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
Keep the previous value? [y]
In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
=item Changing Compilers
If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
with the options you want to use.
This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
them to all the .SH files by running
sh Configure -S
You will then have to rebuild by running
make depend
make
=item config.over
You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
=item config.h
Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
lost.
=item cflags
If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
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
sh Configure -S
make depend
=item No sh
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.
=item Porting information
Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
subdirectory.
Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
various other operating systems.
=back
=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.)
Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
explicitly above.
=head1 make
This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
=over 4
=item hints
If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
for further tips and information.
=item extensions
If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
during the building of extensions, you should run
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
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.
=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).
See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
=item croak
If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
numbers will 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
it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
previous L<"varargs"> item.
=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
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. 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,
it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
of your local set-up.
=item dlopen: stub interception failed
The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
=item nm extraction
If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
with
sh Configure -Uusenm
or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
config.sh.
=item vsprintf
If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
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).
=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">.
=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
optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
optimize='-O'
to something like
optimize=' '
then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
with B<make depend; make>.
=item CRIPPLED_CC
If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
indigestion easily.
=item Missing functions
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.
=item toke.c
Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
specific rule.
=item Missing dbmclose
SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
process is continuing.
On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
message
Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
extension without the -lgdbm library.
It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
quite that tightly coordinated.
=item sh: ar: not found
This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
directory.
=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
=item Miscellaneous
Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
=back
=head1 make test
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.
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.,
./perl op/groups.t
Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
./perl harness
(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
complicated constructs).
You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
comments that apply to your system.
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
one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
setenv LC_ALL C
(for C shell) or
LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
external program.
=head1 make install
This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
ignore any messages about chown not working.
If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
anything, you can run
./perl installperl -n
./perl installman -n
make install will install the following:
perl,
perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
will be a link to perl.
suidperl,
sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
a2p awk-to-perl translator
cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
read from stdin.
c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
s2p sed-to-perl translator
find2perl find-to-perl translator
h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
pod2latex, to other useful formats.
pod2man, and
pod2text
splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
something like /usr/local/man/man1.
module in the location specified to Configure, usually
man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
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
will be used for installing extensions.
Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
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, simplly 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/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
using a separate prefix for each version, such as
sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
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
direcotries, 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.
By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
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).
Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
certain structures.
=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:
./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
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).
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)
Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
available in TeX format. Type
(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.
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.
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
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.
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):
./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
(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.
=head1 AUTHOR
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 1.31 1998/03/03 18:08:52 doughera Released $
|