1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. 2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially 3designed to be readable as is. 4 5=head1 NAME 6 7README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X 8 9=head1 SYNOPSIS 10 11This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X. 12 13 14=head1 DESCRIPTION 15 16The latest Perl release (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds without changes 17under Mac OS X. Under 10.3 "Panther" and newer OS versions, all self-tests 18pass, and all standard features are supported. 19 20Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a 21completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also, 22earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests 23are known to fail on those releases. 24 25 26=head2 Installation Prefix 27 28The default installation location for this release uses the traditional 29UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended location 30for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules 31undisturbed. 32 33Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout 34that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in 35'/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in 36'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of 37'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored 38on a file server and used by many Macs. 39 40 41=head2 SDK support 42 43First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment: 44 45 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk 46 47Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags' 48config variables: 49 50 ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \ 51 -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \ 52 -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \ 53 -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \ 54 -de 55 56=head2 Universal Binary support 57 58To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel), export 59the SDK variable as above, selecting the 10.4u SDK: 60 61 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk 62 63In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags 64for creating a universal binary: 65 66 ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \ 67 -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \ 68 -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \ 69 -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \ 70 -de 71 72In Leopard (MacOSX 10.5.6 at the time of this writing) you must use the 10.5 SDK: 73 74 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk 75 76You can use the same compiler flags you would use with the 10.4u SDK. 77 78Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when 79building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any 80libraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries that 81Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed libraries 82may need to be re-installed as universal binaries. 83 84=head2 64-bit PPC support 85 86Follow the instructions in F<INSTALL> to build perl with support for 64-bit 87integers (C<use64bitint>) or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing 88(C<use64bitall>). In the latter case, the resulting binary will run only 89on G5-based hosts. 90 91Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may be 92omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by F<Configure> for further 93information. Please use C<perlbug> to submit a problem report in the 94event that you encounter difficulties. 95 96When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsiblity to ensure that linked 97external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they do not, 98module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use the module will 99result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent test failures. 100You can use C<file> to discover the architectures supported by a library: 101 102 $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib 103 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures 104 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc 105 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64 106 107Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific CPAN 108modules (C<Mac::*>), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64 109support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide 11064-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from source with the appropriate 111compiler and linker flags. For further information, see Apple's 112I<64-Bit Transition Guide> at 113L<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/index.html>. 114 115=head2 libperl and Prebinding 116 117Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for 118this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is 119pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in 120memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware 121of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple 122collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and 123thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users would 124need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed 125for pre-binding. 126 127You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish 128(S<Configure ... -Duseshrlib>), but the load time on pre-10.4 OS 129releases will be greater than either the static library, or Apple's 130pre-bound dynamic library. 131 132With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated the performance 133penalty for non-prebound libraries. 134 135 136=head2 Updating Apple's Perl 137 138In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason. Your scripts 139can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with 140"#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as 141part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested 142with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple. 143 144If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth 145keeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you 146upgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the dynamic 147libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries are 148present when an application that links against libperl is built, ld will 149link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replace 150Apple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to 151delete the older dynamic library after you've installed the update. 152 153 154=head2 Known problems 155 156If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink 157(in other words, you have libraries under F</sw/lib>), or libdlcompat 158to F</usr/local/lib>, you may need to be extra careful when running 159Configure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries 160to use. Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors about 161symbol problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run 162Configure as 163 164 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib 165 166to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If you have some 167extra library directories that you really want to use (such as newer 168Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth: 169 170 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib' 171 172The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex 173applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl 174 175 Configure ... -Duseshrplib 176 177but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above 178"libperl and Prebinding"). 179 180Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for 181the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in 182failures in the C<lib/locale> test. These failures have been supressed 183in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken locale. 184If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support. 185 186=head2 MacPerl 187 188Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl distribution for 189"Classic MacOS" - that is, versions 9 and earlier of MacOS. Because it 190runs in environment that's very different from that of UNIX, many things 191are done differently in MacPerl. Modules are installed using a different 192procedure, Perl itself is built differently, path names are different, 193etc. 194 195From the perspective of a Perl programmer, Mac OS X is more like a 196traditional UNIX than Classic MacOS. If you find documentation that 197refers to a special procedure that's needed for MacOS that's drastically 198different from the instructions provided for UNIX, the MacOS 199instructions are quite often intended for MacPerl on Classic MacOS. In 200that case, the correct procedure on Mac OS X is usually to follow the 201UNIX instructions, rather than the MacPerl instructions. 202 203 204=head2 Carbon 205 206MacPerl ships with a number of modules that are used to access the 207classic MacOS toolbox. Many of these modules have been updated to use 208Mac OS X's newer "Carbon" toolbox, and are available from CPAN in the 209"Mac::Carbon" module. 210 211 212=head2 Cocoa 213 214There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge 215module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to 216access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects. 217 218An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both 219Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applications 220can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at 221L<http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>. 222 223 224=head1 Starting From Scratch 225 226Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's 227Mac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else fails and you want to 228really, B<REALLY>, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl 229installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following 230instructions should do it. B<Please think twice before following 231these instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery to 232yourself. Without anesthesia.> We will B<not> come to fix your system 233if you do this. 234 235First, get rid of the libperl.dylib: 236 237 # cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE 238 # rm libperl.dylib 239 240Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders: 241 242 /System/Library/Perl 243 /Library/Perl 244 245You can find them for example by 246 247 # find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print 248 249After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media 250(you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), 251or rebuild Perl from the source code with C<Configure -Dprefix=/usr 252-Dusershrplib> NOTE: the C<-Dprefix=/usr> to replace the system Perl 253works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the 254settings were not quite right. 255 256"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (L<http://www.charlessoft.com/>) is a nice 257way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having to 258reinstall the entire OS. 259 260 261=head1 AUTHOR 262 263This README was written by Sherm Pendley E<lt>sherm@dot-app.orgE<gt>, 264and subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@computer.orgE<gt>. 265The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand 266E<lt>montbriand@apple.comE<gt>. 267 268=head1 DATE 269 270Last modified 2006-02-24. 271