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

6       perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X
7

SYNOPSIS

9       This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.
10
11         curl -O https://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.36.0.tar.gz
12         tar -xzf perl-5.36.0.tar.gz
13         cd perl-5.36.0
14         ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
15         make
16         make test
17         sudo make install
18

DESCRIPTION

20       The latest Perl release (5.36.0 as of this writing) builds without
21       changes under all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards.
22
23       In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make', which
24       is part of Apple's developer tools - also known as Xcode. From Mac OS X
25       10.7 "Lion" onwards, it can be downloaded separately as the 'Command
26       Line Tools' bundle directly from
27       <https://developer.apple.com/downloads/> (you will need a free account
28       to log in), or as a part of the Xcode suite, freely available at the
29       App Store. Xcode is a pretty big app, so unless you already have it or
30       really want it, you are advised to get the 'Command Line Tools' bundle
31       separately from the link above. If you want to do it from within Xcode,
32       go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads and select the 'Command Line
33       Tools' option.
34
35       Between Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard", the 'Command
36       Line Tools' bundle was called 'unix tools', and was usually supplied
37       with Mac OS install DVDs.
38
39       Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a
40       completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also,
41       earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests
42       are known to fail on those releases.
43
44   Installation Prefix
45       The default installation location for this release uses the traditional
46       UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended
47       location for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its
48       modules undisturbed.
49
50       Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory
51       layout that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules
52       stored in '/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
53       '/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of
54       '/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored
55       on a file server and used by many Macs.
56
57   SDK support
58       First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:
59
60        export SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk
61
62       Please make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before '.sdk')
63       matches your system's (in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"), as
64       it is possible to have more than one SDK installed. Also make sure the
65       path exists in your system, and if it doesn't please make sure the SDK
66       is properly installed, as it should come with the 'Command Line Tools'
67       bundle mentioned above. Finally, if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6
68       "Snow Leopard" and below) running Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path
69       might be something like '/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk'.
70
71       You can use the SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and
72       '..flags' config variables:
73
74           ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
75                                  -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
76                                  -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
77                       -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
78                       -de
79
80   Universal Binary support
81       Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" onwards, Apple only supports
82       Intel-based hardware. This means you can safely skip this section
83       unless you have an older Apple computer running on ppc or wish to
84       create a perl binary with backwards compatibility.
85
86       You can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and
87       intel).  In Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", you must export the 'u' variant of
88       the SDK:
89
90           export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
91
92       Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and above do not require the 'u' variant.
93
94       In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the
95       flags for creating a universal binary:
96
97        ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc               \
98                                -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc                      \
99                               -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include  \
100                               -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks"            \
101                    -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK"   \
102                    -de
103
104       Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used
105       when building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a
106       universal binary, any libraries it links to must also be universal
107       binaries. The system libraries that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK
108       are all universal, but user-installed libraries may need to be re-
109       installed as universal binaries.
110
111   64-bit PPC support
112       Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for
113       64-bit integers ("use64bitint") or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit
114       addressing ("use64bitall"). In the latter case, the resulting binary
115       will run only on G5-based hosts.
116
117       Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may
118       be omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by Configure for further
119       information. Please use <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> to
120       submit a problem report in the event that you encounter difficulties.
121
122       When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that
123       linked external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if
124       they do not, module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use
125       the module will result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and
126       subsequent test failures.  You can use "file" to discover the
127       architectures supported by a library:
128
129           $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib
130           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
131           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc):      Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
132           libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64):    Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64
133
134       Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific
135       CPAN modules ("Mac::*"), as the required Apple frameworks do not
136       provide PPC64 support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports
137       are unlikely to provide 64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt
138       from source with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further
139       information, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at
140       <https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/transition/transition.html>.
141
142   libperl and Prebinding
143       Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for
144       this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is
145       pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address
146       in memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be
147       aware of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries.
148       Apple collects this information as part of their overall OS build
149       process, and thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but
150       ordinary users would need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the
151       information needed for pre-binding.
152
153       You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish
154       (Configure ... -Duseshrplib).
155
156       With Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, there is almost no performance
157       penalty for non-prebound libraries. Earlier releases will suffer a
158       greater load time than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound
159       dynamic library.
160
161   Updating Apple's Perl
162       In a word - don't, at least not without a *very* good reason. Your
163       scripts can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with
164       "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as
165       part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested
166       with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.
167
168       If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth
169       keeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you
170       upgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the
171       dynamic libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both
172       libraries are present when an application that links against libperl is
173       built, ld will link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you
174       need to replace Apple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need
175       to be sure to delete the older dynamic library after you've installed
176       the update.
177
178   Known problems
179       If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink (in
180       other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib), or libdlcompat to
181       /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra careful when running Configure
182       to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries to use.
183       Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors about symbol
184       problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run
185       Configure as
186
187           Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib
188
189       to make Configure look only into the system libraries.  If you have
190       some extra library directories that you really want to use (such as
191       newer Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the
192       libpth:
193
194           Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'
195
196       The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex
197       applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl
198
199           Configure ... -Duseshrplib
200
201       but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above
202       "libperl and Prebinding").
203
204       Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files
205       for the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain).  In previous releases of Perl,
206       this resulted in failures in the lib/locale test. These failures have
207       been suppressed in the current release of Perl by making the test
208       ignore the broken locale.  If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you
209       should contact Apple support.
210
211   Cocoa
212       There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge
213       module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to
214       access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects.
215
216       An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both
217       Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI
218       applications can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on
219       SourceForge, at <https://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>.
220

Starting From Scratch

222       Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's
223       Mac OS X Perl rather severely.  If all else fails and you want to
224       really, REALLY, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl
225       installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following
226       instructions should do it.  Please think twice before following these
227       instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery to yourself.
228       Without anesthesia.  We will not come to fix your system if you do
229       this.
230
231       First, get rid of the libperl.dylib:
232
233           # cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
234           # rm libperl.dylib
235
236       Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders:
237
238           /System/Library/Perl
239           /Library/Perl
240
241       You can find them for example by
242
243           # find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print
244
245       After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media
246       (you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or
247       rebuild Perl from the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr
248       -Duseshrplib" NOTE: the "-Dprefix=/usr" to replace the system Perl
249       works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the settings
250       were not quite right.
251
252       "Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (<https://www.charlessoft.com/>) is a nice
253       way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having to
254       reinstall the entire OS.
255

AUTHOR

257       This README was written by Sherm Pendley <sherm@dot-app.org>, and
258       subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> and Breno G.
259       de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org>. The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was
260       contributed by John Montbriand <montbriand@apple.com>.
261

DATE

263       Last modified 2013-04-29.
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267perl v5.36.0                      2022-08-30                     PERLMACOSX(1)
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