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 7perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X 8 9=head1 SYNOPSIS 10 11This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X. 12 13 curl -O http://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.20.3.tar.gz 14 tar -xzf perl-5.20.3.tar.gz 15 cd perl-5.20.3 16 ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/ 17 make 18 make test 19 sudo make install 20 21=head1 DESCRIPTION 22 23The latest Perl release (5.20.3 as of this writing) builds without changes 24under all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards. 25 26In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make', 27which is part of Apple's developer tools - also known as Xcode. From 28Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" onwards, it can be downloaded separately as the 29'Command Line Tools' bundle directly from L<https://developer.apple.com/downloads/> 30(you will need a free account to log in), or as a part of the Xcode suite, 31freely available at the App Store. Xcode is a pretty big app, so 32unless you already have it or really want it, you are advised to get the 33'Command Line Tools' bundle separately from the link above. If you want 34to do it from within Xcode, go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads and 35select the 'Command Line Tools' option. 36 37Between Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard", the 'Command 38Line Tools' bundle was called 'unix tools', and was usually supplied 39with Mac OS install DVDs. 40 41Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a 42completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also, 43earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests 44are known to fail on those releases. 45 46 47=head2 Installation Prefix 48 49The default installation location for this release uses the traditional 50UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended location 51for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules 52undisturbed. 53 54Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout 55that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in 56'/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in 57'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of 58'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored 59on a file server and used by many Macs. 60 61 62=head2 SDK support 63 64First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment: 65 66 export SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk 67 68Please make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before '.sdk') 69matches your system's (in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"), as it is 70possible to have more than one SDK installed. Also make sure the path exists 71in your system, and if it doesn't please make sure the SDK is properly 72installed, as it should come with the 'Command Line Tools' bundle mentioned 73above. Finally, if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6 "Snow Leopard" and below) 74running Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path might be something like 75C<'/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk'>. 76 77You can use the SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags' 78config variables: 79 80 ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \ 81 -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \ 82 -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \ 83 -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \ 84 -de 85 86=head2 Universal Binary support 87 88Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" onwards, Apple only supports 89Intel-based hardware. This means you can safely skip this section unless 90you have an older Apple computer running on ppc or wish to create a perl 91binary with backwards compatibility. 92 93You can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel). 94In Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", you must export the 'u' variant of the SDK: 95 96 export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk 97 98Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and above do not require the 'u' variant. 99 100In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags 101for creating a universal binary: 102 103 ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \ 104 -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \ 105 -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \ 106 -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \ 107 -de 108 109Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when 110building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any 111libraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries that 112Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed libraries 113may need to be re-installed as universal binaries. 114 115=head2 64-bit PPC support 116 117Follow the instructions in F<INSTALL> to build perl with support for 64-bit 118integers (C<use64bitint>) or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing 119(C<use64bitall>). In the latter case, the resulting binary will run only 120on G5-based hosts. 121 122Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may be 123omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by F<Configure> for further 124information. Please use C<perlbug> to submit a problem report in the 125event that you encounter difficulties. 126 127When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that linked 128external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they do not, 129module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use the module will 130result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent test failures. 131You can use C<file> to discover the architectures supported by a library: 132 133 $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib 134 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures 135 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc 136 libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64 137 138Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific CPAN 139modules (C<Mac::*>), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64 140support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide 14164-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from source with the appropriate 142compiler and linker flags. For further information, see Apple's 143I<64-Bit Transition Guide> at 144L<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/index.html>. 145 146=head2 libperl and Prebinding 147 148Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for 149this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is 150pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in 151memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware 152of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple 153collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and 154thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users would 155need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed 156for pre-binding. 157 158You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish 159(S<Configure ... -Duseshrplib>). 160 161With Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, there is almost no performance 162penalty for non-prebound libraries. Earlier releases will suffer a greater 163load time than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound dynamic library. 164 165=head2 Updating Apple's Perl 166 167In a word - don't, at least not without a *very* good reason. Your scripts 168can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with 169"#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as 170part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested 171with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple. 172 173If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth 174keeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you 175upgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the dynamic 176libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries are 177present when an application that links against libperl is built, ld will 178link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replace 179Apple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to 180delete the older dynamic library after you've installed the update. 181 182 183=head2 Known problems 184 185If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink 186(in other words, you have libraries under F</sw/lib>), or libdlcompat 187to F</usr/local/lib>, you may need to be extra careful when running 188Configure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries 189to use. Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors about 190symbol problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run 191Configure as 192 193 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib 194 195to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If you have some 196extra library directories that you really want to use (such as newer 197Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth: 198 199 Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib' 200 201The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex 202applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl 203 204 Configure ... -Duseshrplib 205 206but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above 207"libperl and Prebinding"). 208 209Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for 210the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in 211failures in the F<lib/locale> test. These failures have been suppressed 212in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken locale. 213If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support. 214 215 216=head2 Cocoa 217 218There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge 219module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to 220access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects. 221 222An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both 223Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applications 224can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at 225L<http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>. 226 227 228=head1 Starting From Scratch 229 230Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's 231Mac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else fails and you want to 232really, B<REALLY>, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl 233installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following 234instructions should do it. B<Please think twice before following 235these instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery to 236yourself. Without anesthesia.> We will B<not> come to fix your system 237if you do this. 238 239First, get rid of the libperl.dylib: 240 241 # cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE 242 # rm libperl.dylib 243 244Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders: 245 246 /System/Library/Perl 247 /Library/Perl 248 249You can find them for example by 250 251 # find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print 252 253After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media 254(you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), 255or rebuild Perl from the source code with C<Configure -Dprefix=/usr 256-Duseshrplib> NOTE: the C<-Dprefix=/usr> to replace the system Perl 257works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the 258settings were not quite right. 259 260"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (L<http://www.charlessoft.com/>) is a nice 261way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having to 262reinstall the entire OS. 263 264 265=head1 AUTHOR 266 267This README was written by Sherm Pendley E<lt>sherm@dot-app.orgE<gt>, 268and subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@computer.orgE<gt> 269and Breno G. de Oliveira E<lt>garu@cpan.orgE<gt>. The "Starting From Scratch" 270recipe was contributed by John Montbriand E<lt>montbriand@apple.comE<gt>. 271 272=head1 DATE 273 274Last modified 2013-04-29. 275