1PERLAIX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLAIX(1)
2
6 perlaix - Perl version 5 on IBM AIX (UNIX) systems
7
9 This document describes various features of IBM's UNIX operating system
10 AIX that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is
11 compiled and/or runs.
12 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
14 For information on compilers on older versions of AIX, see "Compiling
15 Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3".
16 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
18 an ANSI compliant C compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
19 gcc for AIX are widely available. A version of gcc is also included in
20 the AIX Toolbox which is shipped with AIX.
21 Supported Compilers
23 Currently all versions of IBM's "xlc", "xlc_r", "cc", "cc_r" or "vac"
24 ANSI/C compiler will work for building Perl if that compiler works on
25 your system.
26 If you plan to link Perl to any module that requires thread-support,
28 like DBD::Oracle, it is better to use the _r version of the compiler.
29 This will not build a threaded Perl, but a thread-enabled Perl. See
30 also "Threaded Perl" later on.
31 As of writing (2010-09) only the IBM XL C for AIX or IBM XL C/C++ for
33 AIX compiler is supported by IBM on AIX 5L/6.1/7.1.
34 The following compiler versions are currently supported by IBM:
36 IBM XL C and IBM XL C/C++ V8, V9, V10, V11
38 The XL C for AIX is integrated in the XL C/C++ for AIX compiler and
40 therefore also supported.
41 If you choose XL C/C++ V9 you need APAR IZ35785 installed otherwise the
43 integrated SDBM_File do not compile correctly due to an optimization
44 bug. You can circumvent this problem by adding -qipa to the
45 optimization flags (-Doptimize='-O -qipa'). The PTF for APAR IZ35785
46 which solves this problem is available from IBM (April 2009 PTF for XL
47 C/C++ Enterprise Edition for AIX, V9.0).
48 If you choose XL C/C++ V11 you need the April 2010 PTF (or newer)
50 installed otherwise you will not get a working Perl version.
51 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
53 The former is recommended, as not only it can compile Perl with no
54 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
55 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
56 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
58 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-
59 specific details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to
60 the development team.
61 Incompatibility with AIX Toolbox lib gdbm
63 If the AIX Toolbox version of lib gdbm < 1.8.3-5 is installed on your
64 system then Perl will not work. This library contains the header files
65 /opt/freeware/include/gdbm/dbm.h|ndbm.h which conflict with the AIX
66 system versions. The lib gdbm will be automatically removed from the
67 wanted libraries if the presence of one of these two header files is
68 detected. If you want to build Perl with GDBM support then please
69 install at least gdbm-devel-1.8.3-5 (or higher).
70 Perl 5 was successfully compiled and tested on:
72 Perl | AIX Level | Compiler Level | w th | w/o th
73 -------+---------------------+-------------------------+------+-------
74 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 32 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
75 5.12.2 |5.1 TL9 64 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
76 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
77 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 32 bit | gcc 3.2.2 | OK | OK
78 5.12.2 |5.2 TL10 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
79 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
80 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 32 bit | gcc 4.2.4 | OK | OK
81 5.12.2 |5.3 TL8 SP8 64 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
82 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK
83 5.12.2 |5.3 TL10 SP3 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Apr 2010 | OK | OK
84 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 32 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
85 5.12.2 |6.1 TL1 SP7 64 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
86 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 32 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK
87 5.13 |7.1 TL0 SP1 64 bit | XL C/C++ V11 + Jul 2010 | OK | OK
88 w th = with thread support
90 w/o th = without thread support
91 OK = tested
92 Successfully tested means that all "make test" runs finish with a
94 result of 100% OK. All tests were conducted with -Duseshrplib set.
95 All tests were conducted on the oldest supported AIX technology level
97 with the latest support package applied. If the tested AIX version is
98 out of support (AIX 4.3.3, 5.1, 5.2) then the last available support
99 level was used.
100 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
102 Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x / 5.12.x) and
103 AIX 4.3 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in
104 the so called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface
105 that was used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases
106 4.2 and earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with
107 compiled modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to
108 make Perl more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl
109 which are using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the
110 use of C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl
111 extensions, which was not possible using the emulated interface.
112 It is highly recommended to use the new interface.
114 Using Large Files with Perl
116 Should yield no problems.
117 Threaded Perl
119 Should yield no problems with AIX 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.3 / 6.1 / 7.1.
120 IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.6.0 on AIX 5.1 and V5.8.2 on AIX 5.2 /
122 5.3 and 6.1; V5.8.8 on AIX 5.3 TL11 and AIX 6.1 TL4; V5.10.1 on AIX
123 7.1) for some AIX system scripts. If you switch the links in /usr/bin
124 from the AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build Perl then
125 you get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if the
126 threaded options are used.
127 The threaded Perl build works also on AIX 5.1 but the IBM Perl build
129 (Perl v5.6.0) is not threaded on AIX 5.1.
130 Perl 5.12 an newer is not compatible with the IBM fileset perl.libext.
132 64-bit Perl
134 If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect
135 64-bit configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX
136 6.1 you need an APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX
137 functions. The APAR number for this problem is IZ39077.
138 If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs
140 you can set:
141 /etc/security/limits
143 default: (or your user)
144 data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte)
145 With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB. The -1 removes
147 this limit. If the "make test" fails please change your
148 /etc/security/limits as stated above.
149 Long doubles
151 IBM calls its implementation of long doubles 128-bit, but it is not the
152 IEEE 128-bit ("quadruple precision") which would give 116 bit of
153 mantissa (nor it is implemented in hardware), instead it's a special
154 software implementation called "double-double", which gives 106 bits of
155 mantissa.
156 There seem to be various problems in this long double implementation.
158 If Configure detects this brokenness, it will disable the long double
159 support. This can be overridden with explicit "-Duselongdouble" (or
160 "-Dusemorebits", which enables both long doubles and 64 bit integers).
161 If you decide to enable long doubles, for most of the broken things
162 Perl has implemented workarounds, but the handling of the special
163 values infinity and NaN remains badly broken: for example infinity plus
164 zero results in NaN.
165 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/32-bit)
167 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which passes
168 all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default
169 configuration for the Perl builds that AIX ships with.
170 rm config.sh
172 ./Configure \
173 -d \
174 -Dcc=cc_r \
175 -Duseshrplib \
176 -Dusethreads \
177 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
178 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
180 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
181 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (32-bit)
183 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all make
184 tests in 32-bit mode.
185 rm config.sh
187 ./Configure \
188 -d \
189 -Dcc=cc_r \
190 -Duseshrplib \
191 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
192 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
194 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
195 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (threaded/64-bit)
197 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which passes
198 all make tests in 64-bit mode.
199 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
201 rm config.sh
203 ./Configure \
204 -d \
205 -Dcc=cc_r \
206 -Duseshrplib \
207 -Dusethreads \
208 -Duse64bitall \
209 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
210 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3/6.1 and 7.1 (64-bit)
212 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all make
213 tests in 64-bit mode.
214 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
216 rm config.sh
218 ./Configure \
219 -d \
220 -Dcc=cc_r \
221 -Duseshrplib \
222 -Duse64bitall \
223 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
224 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
226 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
227 If you choose gcc to compile 64-bit Perl then you need to add the
229 following option:
230 -Dcc='gcc -maix64'
232 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX 7.1.0
234 A regression in AIX 7 causes a failure in make test in Time::Piece
235 during daylight savings time. APAR IV16514 provides the fix for this.
236 A quick test to see if it's required, assuming it is currently daylight
237 savings in Eastern Time, would be to run " TZ=EST5 date +%Z ". This
238 will come back with "EST" normally, but nothing if you have the
239 problem.
240 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3
242 Due to the fact that AIX 4.3.3 reached end-of-service in December 31,
243 2003 this information is provided as is. The Perl versions prior to
244 Perl 5.8.9 could be compiled on AIX up to 4.3.3 with the following
245 settings (your mileage may vary):
246 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
248 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
249 gcc for AIX are widely available.
250 At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C
252 compilers, for which you have to pay: xlC and vac. If you decide to use
253 either of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be
254 sure to upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
255 xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
257 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
258 note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
260 you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
261 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
263 subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
265 the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
266 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
268 The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
269 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
270 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
271 The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
273 optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
274 respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
275 levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
276 Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
277 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
279 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-
280 specific details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to
281 the development team.
282 OS level
284 Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know
285 the level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel'
286 will show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel
287 shows 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
288 # oslevel
290 4.3.0.0
291 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
292 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
293 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
294 #
295 The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note,
297 Perl cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm
298 installed
299 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
301 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
302 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
303 #
304 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX < 5L
306 AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
307 Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
308 misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic
309 members. For Perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix
310 also used on many other platforms.
311 Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
313 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
314 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
315 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
316 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
317 modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
318 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
319 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
320 code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, which
321 was not possible using the emulated interface.
322 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
324 All defaults for Configure can be used.
325 If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
327 will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
328 but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
329 removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
330 versions should be considered obsolete.
331 Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest level.
333 Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade versions
334 from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups are the same
335 (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches in the developer
336 snapshots of Perl), or to one version up where the "base" is available.
337 In other words, the AIX compiler patches are cumulative.
338 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
340 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not
341 available)
342 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
344 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
345 : welcome message ...
346 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
347 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
348 Password:
349 ... accepted login stuff
350 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
351 ftp> dir other other.ll
352 output to local-file: other.ll? y
353 200 PORT command successful.
354 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
355 226 Transfer complete.
356 ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
357 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
358 200 PORT command successful.
359 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
360 226 Transfer complete.
361 ftp> bye
362 ... goodbye messages
363 # ls -l *.ll
364 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
365 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
366 On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
368 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
370 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
371 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
372 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
373 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
374 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
375 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
376 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
377 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
378 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
379 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
380 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
381 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
382 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
383 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
384 #
385 On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
387 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
389 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
390 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
391 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
392 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
393 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
394 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
395 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
396 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
397 #
398 Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command,
400 and fill in its choices
401 # smit install_update
403 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
404 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
405 [ OK ]
406 [ OK ]
407 Follow the messages ... and you're done.
409 If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
411 <http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp> and
412 click "C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
413 The usenm option
415 If linking miniperl
416 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
418 causes error like this
420 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
422 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
423 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
424 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
425 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
426 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
427 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
428 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more
429 information.
430 you could retry with
432 make realclean
434 rm config.sh
435 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
436 which makes Configure to use the "nm" tool when scanning for library
438 symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
439 Related to this, you probably should not use the "-r" option of
441 Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the "nm" tool is used.
442 Using GNU's gcc for building Perl
444 Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the
445 box, as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of
446 their Linux compatibility packages, available here:
447 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
449 Using Large Files with Perl < 5L
451 Should yield no problems.
452 Threaded Perl < 5L
454 Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
455 threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
456 You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
458 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment
460 between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
461 The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a
463 line line this
464 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
466 in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
468 is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
469 different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
470 is not really significant here.
471 64-bit Perl < 5L
473 If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
474 configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
475 still fail.
476 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
478 In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics may
479 have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. In
480 newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with the libC_r
481 library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library has an obscure
482 bug where the various functions related to time (such as time() and
483 gettimeofday()) return broken values, and therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is
484 not linked against the libC_r.
485
487 Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net>
488perl v5.38.2 2023-11-30 PERLAIX(1)