


PERLMACHTEN(1)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  PERLMACHTEN(1)


NAME
       README.machten - Perl version 5 on Power MachTen systems

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes how to build Perl 5 on Power
       MachTen systems, and discusses a few wrinkles in the
       implementation.

       Compiling Perl 5 on MachTen

       To compile perl under MachTen 4.1.4 (and probably earlier
       versions):

         ./Configure -de
         make
         make test
         make install

       This builds and installs a statically-linked perl;
       MachTen's dynamic linking facilities are not adequate to
       support Perl's use of dynamically linked libraries.  (See
       hints/machten.sh for more information.)

       You should have at least 32 megabytes of free memory on
       your system before running the `make' command.

       For much more information on building perl -- for example,
       on how to change the default installation directory -- see
       INSTALL.

       Failures during `make test'


       op/lexassign.t
           This test may fail when first run after building perl.
           It does not fail subsequently.  The cause is unknown.

       pragma/warnings.t
           Test 257 fails due to a failure to warn about attempts
           to read from a filehandle which is a duplicate of std-
           out when stdout is attached to a pipe.  The output of
           the test contains a block comment which discusses a
           different failure, not applicable to MachTen.

           The root of the problem is that Machten does not
           assign a file type to either end of a pipe (see the
           stat manpage), resulting, among other things in Perl's
           `-p' test failing on file descriptors belonging to
           pipes.  As a result, perl becomes confused, and the
           test for reading from a write-only file fails.  I am
           reluctant to patch perl to get around this, as it's
           clearly an OS bug (about which Tenon has been
           informed), and limited in its effect on practical Perl
           programs.



2000-04-06                 perl v5.6.0                          1





PERLMACHTEN(1)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  PERLMACHTEN(1)


       Using external modules

       If warnings are enabled with Perl's `-w' command-line
       flag, you are likely to see warnings when using external
       modules containing XS (compiled) code:

         Subroutine DynaLoader::dl_error redefined at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/powerpc-machten/DynaLoader.pm line 93.

       This is a harmless consequence of the static linking used
       for MachTen perl.  You can suppress the warnings by using
       the more modern `-Mwarnings' instead of the traditional
       `-w'.  (See the perllexwarn manpage.)

       Building external modules

       To add an external module to perl, build in the normal
       way, which is documented in the ExtUtils::MakeMaker man-
       page, or which can be driven automatically by the CPAN
       module (see the CPAN manpage), which is part of the stan-
       dard distribution.  If wou want to install a module con-
       tains XS code (C or C++ source which compiles to object
       code for linking with perl), you will have to replace your
       perl binary with a new version containing the new stati-
       cally-linked object module.  The build process tells you
       how to do this.

       There is a gotcha, however, which users usually encounter
       immediately they respond to CPAN's invitation to `install
       Bundle::CPAN'. When installing a bundle -- a group of mod-
       ules which together achieve some particular purpose, the
       installation process for later modules in the bundle tends
       to assume that earlier modules have been fully installed
       and are available for use.  This is not true on a stati-
       cally-linked system for earlier modules which contain XS
       code.  As a result the installation of the bundle fails.
       The work-around is not to install the bundle as a one-shot
       operation, but instead to see what modules it contains,
       and install these one-at-a-time by hand in the order
       given.

AUTHOR
       Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org>

DATE
       Version 1.0 2000-03-22












2000-04-06                 perl v5.6.0                          2


