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NAME
README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating system
(AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is com-
piled and/or runs.
Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
gcc for AIX are widely available.
At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compil-
ers, for which you have to pay: xlC and vac. If you decide to use
either of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be
sure to upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
subversions are not the same `latest' on all OS versions. For example,
the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no dif-
ficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler opti-
mization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c, respectively.
If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch levels, optimiza-
tion is turned off for the said source code files. Upgrading to at
least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-spe-
cific details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the
development team.
OS level
Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know
the level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel'
will show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel
shows 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
# oslevel
4.3.0.0
# lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
#
The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note,
perl cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm
installed
# lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
#
Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic mem-
bers. For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also
used on many other platforms.
Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
was not possible using the emulated interface.
The IBM ANSI C Compiler
All defaults for Configure can be used.
If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these ver-
sions should be considered obsolete.
Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest level.
Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade versions
from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups are the same
(in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches in the developer
snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the `base' is available.
In other words, the AIX compiler patches are cumulative.
vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
# ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
: welcome message ...
Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password:
... accepted login stuff
ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
ftp> dir other other.ll
output to local-file: other.ll? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> bye
... goodbye messages
# ls -l *.ll
-rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
-rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
# lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
# grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
-rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
-rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
-rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
-rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
# wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
#
On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
# lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
# grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
-rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
# wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
#
Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command,
and fill in its choices
# smit install_update
-> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
* INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
[ OK ]
[ OK ]
Follow the messages ... and you're done.
If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
"C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
Using GNU's gcc for building perl
Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the
box, as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of
their Linux compatibility packages, available here:
http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
Using Large Files with Perl
Should yield no problems.
Threaded Perl
Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
threads are used in combination with 64bit configurations.
64-bit Perl
If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64bit con-
figurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might still
fail.
AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics may
have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. In
newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with the libC_r
library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library has an obscure
bug where the various functions related to time (such as time() and
gettimeofday()) return broken values, and therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is
not linked against the libC_r.
AUTHOR
H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
DATE
Version 0.0.6: 23 Dec 2002
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