NAME¶
README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS¶
This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.
curl http://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.12.3.tar.gz > perl-5.12.3.tar.gz
tar -xzf perl-5.12.3.tar.gz
cd perl-5.12.3
./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
make
make test
sudo make install
DESCRIPTION¶
The latest Perl release (5.12.3 as of this writing) builds without changes under
all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards.
In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make' this is part of
the Apples developer tools (you only need the 'unix tools'), usually supplied
with Mac OS install DVDs. You do not need the latest version of Xcode (which
is now charged for) in order to install make.
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:
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 responsibility 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
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 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
suppressed 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.
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 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.