1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you 2see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is 3specifically designed to be readable as is. 4 5=head1 NAME 6 7README.freebsd - Perl version 5 on FreeBSD systems 8 9=head1 DESCRIPTION 10 11This document describes various features of FreeBSD that will affect how Perl 12version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs. 13 14=head2 FreeBSD core dumps from readdir_r with ithreads 15 16When perl is configured to use ithreads, it will use re-entrant library calls 17in preference to non-re-entrant versions. There is a bug in FreeBSD's 18C<readdir_r> function in versions 4.5 and earlier that can cause a SEGV when 19reading large directories. A patch for FreeBSD libc is available 20(see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=misc/30631 ) 21which has been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6. 22 23=head2 $^X doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD 24 25perl 5.8.0 sets C<$^X> where possible to a full path by asking the operating 26system. On FreeBSD the full path of the perl interpreter is found by reading 27the symlink F</proc/curproc/file>. There is a bug on FreeBSD, where the 28result of reading this symlink is can be wrong in certain circumstances 29(see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=35703 ). 30In these cases perl will fall back to the old behaviour of using C's 31argv[0] value for C<$^X>. 32 33=head2 Perl will no longer be part of "base FreeBSD" 34 35Not as bad as it sounds--what this means is that Perl will no longer be 36part of the B<kernel build system> of FreeBSD. Perl will still very 37probably be part of the "default install", and in any case the latest 38version will be in the ports system. The first FreeBSD version this 39change will affect is 5.0, all 4.n versions will keep the status quo. 40 41=head1 AUTHOR 42 43Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven Rezic 44and Tim Bunce. 45 46Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to F<perlbug@perl.org>. 47 48