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PERLMACOSX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLMACOSX(1)
NAME
README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS
This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X.
DESCRIPTION
The latest Perl release (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds
without changes under Mac OS X. Under 10.3 "Panther" and
newer OS versions, all self-tests pass, and all standard
features are supported.
Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did
not include a completely thread-safe libc, so threading is
not fully supported. Also, earlier releases included a
buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests are known to
fail on those releases.
Installation Prefix
The default installation location for this release uses
the traditional UNIX directory layout under /usr/local.
This is the recommended location for most users, and will
leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules undisturbed.
Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a
directory layout that mirrors that of Apple's default
Perl, with core modules stored in '/Sys-
tem/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of '/Net-
work/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are
stored on a file server and used by many Macs.
SDK support
First, export the path to the SDK into the build environ-
ment:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags'
and '..flags' config variables:
./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Universal Binary support
To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc
and intel), export the SDK variable as above, selecting
the 10.4u SDK:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK,
also add the flags for creating a universal binary:
./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will
also be used when building CPAN modules. For XS modules to
be compiled as a universal binary, any libraries it links
to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries
that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal,
but user-installed libraries may need to be re-installed
as universal binaries.
libperl and Prebinding
Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the
default for this release is to compile a static libperl.
The reason for this is pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can
be pre-bound to a specific address in memory in order to
decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware of
the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries.
Apple collects this information as part of their overall
OS build process, and thus has easy access to it when
building Perl, but ordinary users would need to go to a
great deal of effort to obtain the information needed for
pre-binding.
You can override the default and build a shared libperl if
you wish (Configure ... -Duseshrlib), but the load time on
pre-10.4 OS releases will be greater than either the
static library, or Apple's pre-bound dynamic library.
With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated
the performance penalty for non-prebound libraries.
Updating Apple's Perl
In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason.
Your scripts can just as easily begin with
"#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts
supplied by Apple and other third parties as part of
installation packages and such have generally only been
tested with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.
If you find that you do need to update the system Perl,
one issue worth keeping in mind is the question of static
vs. dynamic libraries. If you upgrade using the default
static libperl, you will find that the dynamic libperl
supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries
are present when an application that links against libperl
is built, ld will link against the dynamic library by
default. So, if you need to replace Apple's dynamic
libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to
delete the older dynamic library after you've installed
the update.
Known problems
If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through
Fink (in other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib),
or libdlcompat to /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra
careful when running Configure to not to confuse Configure
and Perl about which libraries to use. Being confused
will show up for example as "dyld" errors about symbol
problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet
is to run Configure as
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib
to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If
you have some extra library directories that you really
want to use (such as newer Berkeley DB libraries in pre-
Panther systems), add those to the libpth:
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'
The default of building Perl statically may cause problems
with complex applications like Tk: in that case consider
building shared Perl
Configure ... -Duseshrplib
but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that
case (see above "libperl and Prebinding").
Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken
locale files for the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In pre-
vious releases of Perl, this resulted in failures in the
"lib/locale" test. These failures have been supressed in
the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the
broken locale. If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you
should contact Apple support.
MacPerl
Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl dis-
tribution for "Classic MacOS" - that is, versions 9 and
earlier of MacOS. Because it runs in environment that's
very different from that of UNIX, many things are done
differently in MacPerl. Modules are installed using a dif-
ferent procedure, Perl itself is built differently, path
names are different, etc.
From the perspective of a Perl programmer, Mac OS X is
more like a traditional UNIX than Classic MacOS. If you
find documentation that refers to a special procedure
that's needed for MacOS that's drastically different from
the instructions provided for UNIX, the MacOS instructions
are quite often intended for MacPerl on Classic MacOS. In
that case, the correct procedure on Mac OS X is usually to
follow the UNIX instructions, rather than the MacPerl
instructions.
Carbon
MacPerl ships with a number of modules that are used to
access the classic MacOS toolbox. Many of these modules
have been updated to use Mac OS X's newer "Carbon" tool-
box, and are available from CPAN in the "Mac::Carbon" mod-
ule.
Cocoa
There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlOb-
jCBridge module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by
standalone scripts to access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI)
classes and objects.
An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows
access to both Foundation and AppKit classes and objects,
so that full GUI applications can be built in Perl.
CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at
.
Starting From Scratch
Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to
break one's Mac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else
fails and you want to really, REALLY, start from scratch
and remove even your Apple Perl installation (which has
become corrupted somehow), the following instructions
should do it. Please think twice before following these
instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery
to yourself. Without anesthesia. We will not come to fix
your system if you do this.
First, get rid of the libperl.dylib:
# cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
# rm libperl.dylib
Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the fold-
ers:
/System/Library/Perl
/Library/Perl
You can find them for example by
# find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print
After this you can either copy Perl from your operating
system media (you will need at least the /Sys-
tem/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or rebuild Perl from
the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr -Duser-
shrplib" NOTE: the "-Dprefix=/usr" to replace the system
Perl works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl
5.8.0 the settings were not quite right.
"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft
() is a nice way to extract
the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having to
reinstall the entire OS.
AUTHOR
This README was written by Sherm Pendley
, and subsequently updated by Dominic
Dunlop . The "Starting From Scratch"
recipe was contributed by John Montbriand .
DATE
Last modified 2005-11-07.
perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLMACOSX(1)