perlmacosx
(1)
Name
perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X
Synopsis
This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X.
Description
Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLMACOSX(1)
NAME
README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS
This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X.
DESCRIPTION
The latest Perl release (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds
without changes under Mac OS X. Under 10.3 "Panther" and
newer OS versions, all self-tests pass, and all standard
features are supported.
Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not
include a completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not
fully supported. Also, earlier releases included a buggy
libdb, so some of the DB_File tests are known to fail on
those releases.
Installation Prefix
The default installation location for this release uses the
traditional UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is
the recommended location for most users, and will leave the
Apple-supplied Perl and its modules undisturbed.
Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a
directory layout that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl,
with core modules stored in
'/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of
'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that
are stored on a file server and used by many Macs.
SDK support
First, export the path to the SDK into the build
environment:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags'
and '..flags' config variables:
./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Universal Binary support
To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc
and intel), export the SDK variable as above, selecting the
10.4u SDK:
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export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK,
also add the flags for creating a universal binary:
./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
In Leopard (MacOSX 10.5.6 at the time of this writing) you
must use the 10.5 SDK:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk
You can use the same compiler flags you would use with the
10.4u SDK.
Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will
also be used when building CPAN modules. For XS modules to
be compiled as a universal binary, any libraries it links to
must also be universal binaries. The system libraries that
Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but
user-installed libraries may need to be re-installed as
universal binaries.
64-bit PPC support
Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with
support for 64-bit integers ("use64bitint") or both 64-bit
integers and 64-bit addressing ("use64bitall"). In the
latter case, the resulting binary will run only on G5-based
hosts.
Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects
of Perl may be omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by
Configure for further information. Please use "perlbug" to
submit a problem report in the event that you encounter
difficulties.
When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsiblity to
ensure that linked external libraries and frameworks provide
64-bit support: if they do not, module building may appear
to succeed, but attempts to use the module will result in
run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent test
failures. You can use "file" to discover the architectures
supported by a library:
$ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64
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Note that this issue precludes the building of many
Macintosh-specific CPAN modules ("Mac::*"), as the required
Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64 support. Similarly,
downloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide
64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from source
with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further
information, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/index.html>.
libperl and Prebinding
Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the
default for this release is to compile a static libperl. The
reason for this is pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be
pre-bound to a specific address in memory in order to
decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware of the
location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple
collects this information as part of their overall OS build
process, and thus has easy access to it when building Perl,
but ordinary users would need to go to a great deal of
effort to obtain the information needed for pre-binding.
You can override the default and build a shared libperl if
you wish (Configure ... -Duseshrlib), but the load time on
pre-10.4 OS releases will be greater than either the static
library, or Apple's pre-bound dynamic library.
With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated
the performance penalty for non-prebound libraries.
Updating Apple's Perl
In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason.
Your scripts can just as easily begin with
"#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts
supplied by Apple and other third parties as part of
installation packages and such have generally only been
tested with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.
If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one
issue worth keeping in mind is the question of static vs.
dynamic libraries. If you upgrade using the default static
libperl, you will find that the dynamic libperl supplied by
Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries are present
when an application that links against libperl is built, ld
will link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you
need to replace Apple's dynamic libperl with a static
libperl, you need to be sure to delete the older dynamic
library after you've installed the update.
Known problems
If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through
Fink (in other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib), or
libdlcompat to /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra
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careful when running Configure to not to confuse Configure
and Perl about which libraries to use. Being confused will
show up for example as "dyld" errors about symbol problems,
for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run
Configure as
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib
to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If
you have some extra library directories that you really want
to use (such as newer Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther
systems), add those to the libpth:
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'
The default of building Perl statically may cause problems
with complex applications like Tk: in that case consider
building shared Perl
Configure ... -Duseshrplib
but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case
(see above "libperl and Prebinding").
Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken
locale files for the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In
previous releases of Perl, this resulted in failures in the
"lib/locale" test. These failures have been supressed in the
current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken
locale. If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should
contact Apple support.
MacPerl
Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl
distribution for "Classic MacOS" - that is, versions 9 and
earlier of MacOS. Because it runs in environment that's very
different from that of UNIX, many things are done
differently in MacPerl. Modules are installed using a
different procedure, Perl itself is built differently, path
names are different, etc.
From the perspective of a Perl programmer, Mac OS X is more
like a traditional UNIX than Classic MacOS. If you find
documentation that refers to a special procedure that's
needed for MacOS that's drastically different from the
instructions provided for UNIX, the MacOS instructions are
quite often intended for MacPerl on Classic MacOS. In that
case, the correct procedure on Mac OS X is usually to follow
the UNIX instructions, rather than the MacPerl instructions.
Carbon
MacPerl ships with a number of modules that are used to
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access the classic MacOS toolbox. Many of these modules have
been updated to use Mac OS X's newer "Carbon" toolbox, and
are available from CPAN in the "Mac::Carbon" module.
Cocoa
There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's
PerlObjCBridge module, included with Mac OS X, can be used
by standalone scripts to access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI)
classes and objects.
An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access
to both Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that
full GUI applications can be built in Perl. CamelBones can
be found on SourceForge, at
<http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>.
Starting From Scratch
Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to
break one's Mac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else
fails and you want to really, REALLY, start from scratch and
remove even your Apple Perl installation (which has become
corrupted somehow), the following instructions should do it.
Please think twice before following these instructions: they
are much like conducting brain surgery to yourself. Without
anesthesia. We will not come to fix your system if you do
this.
First, get rid of the libperl.dylib:
# cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
# rm libperl.dylib
Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the
folders:
/System/Library/Perl
/Library/Perl
You can find them for example by
# find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print
After this you can either copy Perl from your operating
system media (you will need at least the
/System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or rebuild Perl
from the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr
-Dusershrplib" NOTE: the "-Dprefix=/usr" to replace the
system Perl works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in
Perl 5.8.0 the settings were not quite right.
"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (<http://www.charlessoft.com/>)
is a nice way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS
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media, without having to reinstall the entire OS.
AUTHOR
This README was written by Sherm Pendley
<sherm@dot-app.org>, and subsequently updated by Dominic
Dunlop <domo@computer.org>. The "Starting From Scratch"
recipe was contributed by John Montbriand
<montbriand@apple.com>.
DATE
Last modified 2006-02-24.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | runtime/perl-512 |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.12.5.tar.bz2
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.perl.org/.
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