README.machten(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 dynami-
       cally 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" on MachTen

       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 stdout 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 stat), 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.

       Building external modules on MachTen

       To add an external module to perl, build in the normal way, which is
       documented in ExtUtils::MakeMaker, or which can be driven automatically
       by the CPAN module (see CPAN), which is part of the standard distribu-
       tion.  If you want to install a module which contains 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
       statically-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 modules 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 statically-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 1.0.1 2000-03-27

perl v5.8.0                       2002-06-08                    PERLMACHTEN(1)