PERLIRIX(1)      Perl Programmers Reference Guide     PERLIRIX(1)



NAME
       README.irix - Perl version 5 on Irix systems

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes various features of Irix that will
       affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is com-
       piled and/or runs.

       Building 32-bit Perl in Irix

       Use

               sh Configure -Dcc='cc -n32'

       to compile Perl 32-bit.  Don't bother with -n32 unless you
       have 7.1 or later compilers (use cc -version to check).

       (Building 'cc -n32' is the default.)

       Building 64-bit Perl in Irix

       Use

               sh Configure -Dcc='cc -64' -Duse64bitint

       This requires require a 64-bit MIPS CPU (R8000, R10000,
       ...)

       You can also use

               sh Configure -Dcc='cc -64' -Duse64bitall

       but that makes no difference compared with the
       -Duse64bitint because of the "cc -64".

       You can also do

               sh Configure -Dcc='cc -n32' -Duse64bitint

       to use long longs for the 64-bit integer type, in case you
       don't have a 64-bit CPU.

       If you are using gcc, just

               sh Configure -Dcc=gcc -Duse64bitint

       should be enough, the Configure should automatically probe
       for the correct 64-bit settings.

       About Compiler Versions of Irix

       Some Irix cc versions, e.g. 7.3.1.1m (try cc -version)
       have been known to have issues (coredumps) when compiling
       perl.c.  If you've used -OPT:fast_io=ON and this happens,
       try removing it.  If that fails, or you didn't use that,
       then try adjusting other optimization options (-LNO,
       -INLINE, -O3 to -O2, etcetera).  The compiler bug has been
       reported to SGI.  (Allen Smith )




       Linker Problems in Irix

       If you get complaints about so_locations then search in
       the file hints/irix_6.sh for "lddflags" and do the sug-
       gested adjustments.  (David Billinghurst
       )

       Malloc in Irix

       Do not try to use Perl's malloc, this will lead into very
       mysterious errors (especially with -Duse64bitall).

       Building with threads in Irix

       Run Configure with -Duseithreads which will configure Perl
       with the new Perl 5.8.0 "interpreter threads", see
       threads.

       The old Perl 5.005 threads is obsolete, unmaintained, and
       its use is discouraged.  If you really want it, run Con-
       figure with the -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads options as
       described in INSTALL.

       For either thread model and for Irix 6.2, you have to have
       the following patches installed:

               1404 Irix 6.2 Posix 1003.1b man pages
               1645 Irix 6.2 & 6.3 POSIX header file updates
               2000 Irix 6.2 Posix 1003.1b support modules
               2254 Pthread library fixes
               2401 6.2 all platform kernel rollup

       IMPORTANT: Without patch 2401, a kernel bug in Irix 6.2
       will cause your machine to panic and crash when running
       threaded perl.  Irix 6.3 and later are okay.

           Thanks to Hannu Napari  for the IRIX
           pthreads patches information.

       Irix 5.3

       While running Configure and when building, you are likely
       to get quite a few of these warnings:

         ld:
         The shared object /usr/lib/libm.so did not resolve any symbols.
               You may want to remove it from your link line.

       Ignore them: in IRIX 5.3 there is no way to quieten ld
       about this.

       During compilation you will see this warning from toke.c:

         uopt: Warning: Perl_yylex: this procedure not optimized because it
               exceeds size threshold; to optimize this procedure, use -Olimit option
               with value >= 4252.

       Ignore the warning.

       In IRIX 5.3 and with Perl 5.8.1 (Perl 5.8.0 didn't compile
       in IRIX 5.3) the following failures are known.




        Failed Test                  Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
        --------------------------------------------------------------------------
        ../ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t    0   139    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../lib/Math/Trig.t            255 65280    29   12  41.38%  24-29
        ../lib/sort.t                   0   138   119   72  60.50%  48-119
        56 tests and 474 subtests skipped.
        Failed 3/811 test scripts, 99.63% okay. 78/75813 subtests failed, 99.90% okay.

       They are suspected to be compiler errors (at least the
       shuffle.t failure is known from some IRIX 6 setups) and
       math library errors (the Trig.t failure), but since IRIX 5
       is long since end-of-lifed, further fixes for the IRIX are
       unlikely.  If you can get gcc for 5.3, you could try that,
       too, since gcc in IRIX 6 is a known workaround for at
       least the shuffle.t and sort.t failures.

AUTHOR
       Jarkko Hietaniemi 

       Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perl-
       bug@perl.org.



perl v5.8.8                 2006-01-07                PERLIRIX(1)