xref: /openbsd/gnu/usr.bin/perl/README.freebsd (revision 9e6efb0a)
1# vim: syntax=pod
2
3If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
4see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
5specifically designed to be readable as is.
6
7=head1 NAME
8
9perlfreebsd - Perl version 5 on FreeBSD systems
10
11=head1 DESCRIPTION
12
13This document describes various features of FreeBSD that will affect how Perl
14version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
15
16=head2 FreeBSD core dumps from readdir_r with ithreads
17
18When perl is configured to use ithreads, it will use re-entrant library calls
19in preference to non-re-entrant versions.  There is a bug in FreeBSD's
20C<readdir_r> function in versions 4.5 and earlier that can cause a SEGV when
21reading large directories. A patch for FreeBSD libc is available
22(see L<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=30631>)
23which has been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.
24
25=head2 C<$^X> doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD
26
27perl sets C<$^X> where possible to a full path by asking the operating
28system. On FreeBSD the full path of the perl interpreter is found by using
29C<sysctl> with C<KERN_PROC_PATHNAME> if that is supported, else by reading
30the symlink F</proc/curproc/file>. FreeBSD 7 and earlier has a bug where
31either approach sometimes returns an incorrect value
32(see L<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35703>).
33In these cases perl will fall back to the old behaviour of using C's
34C<argv[0]> value for C<$^X>.
35
36=head1 AUTHOR
37
38Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven Rezic
39and Tim Bunce.
40
41Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to
42L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
43
44