1# vim: syntax=pod 2 3If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. 4It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially 5designed to be readable as is. 6 7=head1 NAME 8 9perlos400 - Perl version 5 on OS/400 10 11B<This document needs to be updated, but we don't know what it should say. 12Please submit comments to L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.> 13 14=head1 DESCRIPTION 15 16This document describes various features of IBM's OS/400 operating 17system that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is 18compiled and/or runs. 19 20By far the easiest way to build Perl for OS/400 is to use the PASE 21(Portable Application Solutions Environment), for more information see 22L<http://www.iseries.ibm.com/developer/factory/pase/index.html> 23This environment allows one to use AIX APIs while programming, and it 24provides a runtime that allows AIX binaries to execute directly on the 25PowerPC iSeries. 26 27=head2 Compiling Perl for OS/400 PASE 28 29The recommended way to build Perl for the OS/400 PASE is to build the 30Perl 5 source code (release 5.8.1 or later) under AIX. 31 32The trick is to give a special parameter to the Configure shell script 33when running it on AIX: 34 35 sh Configure -DPASE ... 36 37The default installation directory of Perl under PASE is /QOpenSys/perl. 38This can be modified if needed with Configure parameter -Dprefix=/some/dir. 39 40Starting from OS/400 V5R2 the IBM Visual Age compiler is supported 41on OS/400 PASE, so it is possible to build Perl natively on OS/400. 42The easier way, however, is to compile in AIX, as just described. 43 44If you don't want to install the compiled Perl in AIX into /QOpenSys 45(for packaging it before copying it to PASE), you can use a Configure 46parameter: -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/QOpenSys/perl. This will cause the 47"make install" to install everything into that directory, while the 48installed files still think they are (will be) in /QOpenSys/perl. 49 50If building natively on PASE, please do the build under the /QOpenSys 51directory, since Perl is happier when built on a case sensitive filesystem. 52 53=head2 Installing Perl in OS/400 PASE 54 55If you are compiling on AIX, simply do a "make install" on the AIX box. 56Once the install finishes, tar up the /QOpenSys/perl directory. Transfer 57the tarball to the OS/400 using FTP with the following commands: 58 59 > binary 60 > site namefmt 1 61 > put perl.tar /QOpenSys 62 63Once you have it on, simply bring up a PASE shell and extract the tarball. 64 65If you are compiling in PASE, then "make install" is the only thing you 66will need to do. 67 68The default path for perl binary is /QOpenSys/perl/bin/perl. You'll 69want to symlink /QOpenSys/usr/bin/perl to this file so you don't have 70to modify your path. 71 72=head2 Using Perl in OS/400 PASE 73 74Perl in PASE may be used in the same manner as you would use Perl on AIX. 75 76Scripts starting with #!/usr/bin/perl should work if you have 77/QOpenSys/usr/bin/perl symlinked to your perl binary. This will not 78work if you've done a setuid/setgid or have environment variable 79PASE_EXEC_QOPENSYS="N". If you have V5R1, you'll need to get the 80latest PTFs to have this feature. Scripts starting with 81#!/QOpenSys/perl/bin/perl should always work. 82 83=head2 Known Problems 84 85When compiling in PASE, there is no "oslevel" command. Therefore, 86you may want to create a script called "oslevel" that echoes the 87level of AIX that your version of PASE runtime supports. If you're 88unsure, consult your documentation or use "4.3.3.0". 89 90If you have test cases that fail, check for the existence of spool files. 91The test case may be trying to use a syscall that is not implemented 92in PASE. To avoid the SIGILL, try setting the PASE_SYSCALL_NOSIGILL 93environment variable or have a handler for the SIGILL. If you can 94compile programs for PASE, run the config script and edit config.sh 95when it gives you the option. If you want to remove fchdir(), which 96isn't implement in V5R1, simply change the line that says: 97 98d_fchdir='define' 99 100to 101 102d_fchdir='undef' 103 104and then compile Perl. The places where fchdir() is used have 105alternatives for systems that do not have fchdir() available. 106 107=head2 Perl on ILE 108 109There exists a port of Perl to the ILE environment. This port, however, 110is based quite an old release of Perl, Perl 5.00502 (August 1998). 111(As of July 2002 the latest release of Perl is 5.8.0, and even 5.6.1 112has been out since April 2001.) If you need to run Perl on ILE, though, 113you may need this older port: L<http://www.cpan.org/ports/#os400> 114Note that any Perl release later than 5.00502 has not been ported to ILE. 115 116If you need to use Perl in the ILE environment, you may want to consider 117using Qp2RunPase() to call the PASE version of Perl. 118 119=head1 AUTHORS 120 121Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi> 122Bryan Logan <bryanlog@us.ibm.com> 123David Larson <larson1@us.ibm.com> 124 125=cut 126