| 1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
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| 2 | It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
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| 3 | designed to be readable as is.
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| 4 |
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| 5 | =head1 NAME
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| 6 |
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| 7 | README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X
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| 8 |
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| 9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS
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| 10 |
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| 11 | This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X.
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| 12 |
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| 13 |
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| 14 | =head1 DESCRIPTION
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| 15 |
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| 16 | The latest Perl release (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds without changes
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| 17 | under Mac OS X. Under 10.3 "Panther" and newer OS versions, all self-tests
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| 18 | pass, and all standard features are supported.
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| 19 |
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| 20 | Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a
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| 21 | completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also,
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| 22 | earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests
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| 23 | are known to fail on those releases.
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| 24 |
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| 25 |
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| 26 | =head2 Installation Prefix
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| 27 |
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| 28 | The default installation location for this release uses the traditional
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| 29 | UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended location
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| 30 | for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules
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| 31 | undisturbed.
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| 32 |
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| 33 | Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout
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| 34 | that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in
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| 35 | '/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
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| 36 | '/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of
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| 37 | '/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored
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| 38 | on a file server and used by many Macs.
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| 39 |
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| 40 |
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| 41 | =head2 SDK support
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| 42 |
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| 43 | First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:
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| 44 |
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| 45 | export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
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| 46 |
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| 47 | Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags'
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| 48 | config variables:
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| 49 |
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| 50 | ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
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| 51 | -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
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| 52 | -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
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| 53 | -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
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| 54 | -de
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| 55 |
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| 56 | =head2 Universal Binary support
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| 57 |
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| 58 | To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel), export
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| 59 | the SDK variable as above, selecting the 10.4u SDK:
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| 60 |
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| 61 | export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
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| 62 |
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| 63 | In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags
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| 64 | for creating a universal binary:
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| 65 |
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| 66 | ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
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| 67 | -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
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| 68 | -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
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| 69 | -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
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| 70 | -de
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| 71 |
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| 72 | Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when
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| 73 | building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any
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| 74 | libraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries that
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| 75 | Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed libraries
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| 76 | may need to be re-installed as universal binaries.
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| 77 |
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| 78 | =head2 libperl and Prebinding
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| 79 |
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| 80 | Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for
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| 81 | this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is
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| 82 | pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in
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| 83 | memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware
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| 84 | of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple
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| 85 | collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and
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| 86 | thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users would
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| 87 | need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed
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| 88 | for pre-binding.
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| 89 |
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| 90 | You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish
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| 91 | (S<Configure ... -Duseshrlib>), but the load time on pre-10.4 OS
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| 92 | releases will be greater than either the static library, or Apple's
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| 93 | pre-bound dynamic library.
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| 94 |
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| 95 | With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated the performance
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| 96 | penalty for non-prebound libraries.
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| 97 |
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| 98 |
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| 99 | =head2 Updating Apple's Perl
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| 100 |
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| 101 | In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason. Your scripts
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| 102 | can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with
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| 103 | "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as
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| 104 | part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested
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| 105 | with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.
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| 106 |
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