perlmacosx

PERLMACOSX(1)          Perl Programmers Reference Guide          PERLMACOSX(1)

NAME
       perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X

SYNOPSIS
       This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.

         curl -O http://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.30.0.tar.gz
         tar -xzf perl-5.30.0.tar.gz
         cd perl-5.30.0
         ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
         make
         make test
         sudo make install

DESCRIPTION
       The latest Perl release (5.30.0 as of this writing) builds without
       changes under all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards.

       In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make', which
       is part of Apple's developer tools - also known as Xcode. From Mac OS X
       10.7 "Lion" onwards, it can be downloaded separately as the 'Command
       Line Tools' bundle directly from
       <https://developer.apple.com/downloads/> (you will need a free account
       to log in), or as a part of the Xcode suite, freely available at the
       App Store. Xcode is a pretty big app, so unless you already have it or
       really want it, you are advised to get the 'Command Line Tools' bundle
       separately from the link above. If you want to do it from within Xcode,
       go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads and select the 'Command Line
       Tools' option.

       Between Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard", the 'Command
       Line Tools' bundle was called 'unix tools', and was usually supplied
       with Mac OS install DVDs.

       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 '/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
       '/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of
       '/Network/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 environment:

        export SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk

       Please make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before '.sdk')
       matches your system's (in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"), as
       it is possible to have more than one SDK installed. Also make sure the
       path exists in your system, and if it doesn't please make sure the SDK
       is properly installed, as it should come with the 'Command Line Tools'
       bundle mentioned above. Finally, if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6
       "Snow Leopard" and below) running Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path
       might be something like '/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk'.

       You can use the 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
       Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" onwards, Apple only supports
       Intel-based hardware. This means you can safely skip this section
       unless you have an older Apple computer running on ppc or wish to
       create a perl binary with backwards compatibility.

       You can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and
       intel).  In Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", you must export the 'u' variant of
       the SDK:

           export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk

       Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and above do not require the 'u' variant.

       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.

   64-bit PPC support
       Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for
       64-bit integers ("use64bitint") or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit
       addressing ("use64bitall"). In the latter case, the resulting binary
       will run only on G5-based hosts.

       Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may
       be omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by Configure for further
       information. Please use "perlbug" to submit a problem report in the
       event that you encounter difficulties.

       When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that
       linked external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if
       they do not, module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use
       the module will result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and
       subsequent test failures.  You can use "file" to discover the
       architectures supported by a library:

           $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib
           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc):      Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64):    Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64

       Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific
       CPAN modules ("Mac::*"), as the required Apple frameworks do not
       provide PPC64 support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports
       are unlikely to provide 64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt
       from source with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further
       information, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at
       <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/index.html>.

   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...-Duseshrplib).

       With Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, there is almost no performance
       penalty for non-prebound libraries. Earlier releases will suffer a
       greater load time than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound
       dynamic library.

   Updating Apple's Perl
       In a word - don't, at least not 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 previous releases of Perl,
       this resulted in failures in the lib/locale test. These failures have
       been suppressed 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.

   Cocoa
       There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge
       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 <http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>.

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 folders:

           /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 /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or
       rebuild Perl from the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr
       -Duseshrplib" 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 (<http://www.charlessoft.com/>) 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 <sherm@dot-app.org>, and
       subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> and Breno G.
       de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org>. The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was
       contributed by John Montbriand <montbriand@apple.com>.

DATE
       Last modified 2013-04-29.

perl v5.30.0                      2023-11-23                     PERLMACOSX(1)
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