PERLMACOSX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLMACOSX(1)
NAME
README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS
This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X.
DESCRIPTION
The latest Perl (5.8.1-RC3 as of this writing) builds without changes
under Mac OS X. Under the 10.3 "Panther" release, all self-tests pass,
and all standard features are supported.
Earlier Mac OS X releases did not include a completely thread-safe
libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also, earlier releases
included a somewhat buggy libdb, so some of the DBFile tests are known
to fail on those releases.
IInnssttaallllaattiioonn PPrreeffiixx
The default installation location for this release uses the traditional
UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended loca-
tion 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 lay-
out 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 '/Net-
work/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored on a
file server and used by many Macs.
lliibbppeerrll aanndd PPrreebbiinnddiinngg
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 ordi-
nary 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 ... -Duseshrlib), but the load time will be significantly
greater than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound dynamic
library.
UUppddaattiinngg PPaanntthheerr
As of this writing, the latest Perl release that has been tested and
approved for inclusion in the 10.3 "Panther" release of Mac OS X is
5.8.1 RC3. It is currently unknown whether the final 5.8.1 release will
be made in time to be tested and included with Panther.
If the final release of Perl 5.8.1 is not made in time to be included
with Panther, it is recommended that you wait for an official Apple
update to the OS, rather than attempting to update it yourself. In most
cases, if you need a newer Perl, it is preferable to install it in some
other location, such as /usr/local or /opt, rather than overwriting the
system Perl. The default location (no -Dprefix=... specified when run-
ning Configure) is /usr/local.
If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, there is one
potential issue. 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.
Note that this is only an issue when updating from an older build of
the same Perl version. If you're updating from (for example) 5.8.1 to
5.8.2, this issue won't affect you.
KKnnoowwnn pprroobblleemmss
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 Con-
figure 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").
MMaaccPPeerrll
Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl distribution for
"Classic MacOS" - that is, versions 9 and earlier of MacOS. Because it
runs in environment that's very different from that of UNIX, many
things are done differently in MacPerl. Modules are installed using a
different procedure, Perl itself is built differently, path names are
different, etc.
From the perspective of a Perl programmer, Mac OS X is more like a tra-
ditional UNIX than Classic MacOS. If you find documentation that refers
to a special procedure that's needed for MacOS that's drastically dif-
ferent from the instructions provided for UNIX, the MacOS instructions
are quite often intended for MacPerl on Classic MacOS. In that case,
the correct procedure on Mac OS X is usually to follow the UNIX
instructions, rather than the MacPerl instructions.
CCaarrbboonn
MacPerl ships with a number of modules that are used to access the
classic MacOS toolbox. Many of these modules have been updated to use
Mac OS X's newer "Carbon" toolbox, and are available from CPAN in the
"Mac::Carbon" module.
CCooccooaa
There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge mod-
ule, 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 applica-
tions can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at
.
SSttaarrttiinngg FFrroomm SSccrraattcchh
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, RREEAALLLLYY, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl
installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following
instructions should do it. PPlleeaassee tthhiinnkk ttwwiiccee bbeeffoorree ffoolllloowwiinngg tthheessee
iinnssttrruuccttiioonnss:: tthheeyy aarree mmuucchh lliikkee ccoonndduuccttiinngg bbrraaiinn ssuurrggeerryy ttoo yyoouurrsseellff..
WWiitthhoouutt aanneesstthheessiiaa.. We will nnoott 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 CDs (you
will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or
rebuild Perl from the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr -Duser-
shrplib" 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.
AUTHOR This README was written by Sherm Pendley . The
"Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand
.
DDAATTEE
Last modified 2003-09-08.
perl v5.8.6 2004-11-05 PERLMACOSX(1)