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 release (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds without changes under Mac OS X. Under 10.3
"Panther" and newer OS versions, all self-tests pass, and all standard features are supported.
Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a completely thread-safe libc, so
threading is not fully supported. Also, earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the
DB_File tests are known to fail on those releases.
Installation Prefix
The default installation location for this release uses the traditional UNIX directory layout under
/usr/local. This is the recommended location 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 layout 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 '/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for mod-ules modules
ules that are stored on a file server and used by many Macs.
SDK support
First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
Use an SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags' config variables:
./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Universal Binary support
To compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel), export the SDK variable as
above, selecting the 10.4u SDK:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags for creating a universal
binary:
./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when building CPAN modules.
For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any libraries it links to must also be universal
binaries. The system libraries that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed userinstalled
installed libraries may need to be re-installed as universal binaries.
libperl and Prebinding
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 ordinary 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 on pre-10.4 OS releases will be greater than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound prebound
bound dynamic library.
With 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, Apple has all but eliminated the performance penalty for non-prebound
libraries.
Updating Apple's Perl
In a word - don't, at least without a *very* good reason. Your scripts can just as easily begin with
"#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties
as part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested with the /usr/bin/perl
that's installed by Apple.
If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth keeping in mind is the ques-tion question
tion of static vs. dynamic libraries. 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.
Known problems
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 Con-figure Configure
figure 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 Configure 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").
Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for the eu_ES locale
(Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in failures in the "lib/locale" test.
These failures have been supressed in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the bro-ken broken
ken locale. If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support.
MacPerl
Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl distribution for "Classic MacOS" - that is, ver-sions versions
sions 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 traditional UNIX than Classic
MacOS. If you find documentation that refers to a special procedure that's needed for MacOS that's
drastically different 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.
Carbon
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.
Cocoa
There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge module, 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 applications can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on Source-Forge, SourceForge,
Forge, at <http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/.
Starting From Scratch
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, REALLY, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl
installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following instructions should do it. Please
think twice before following these instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery to your-self. yourself.
self. Without anesthesia. We will not 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 media (you will need at least the
/System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or rebuild Perl from the source code with "Configure -Dpre-fix=/usr -Dprefix=/usr
fix=/usr -Dusershrplib" 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.
"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (<http://www.charlessoft.com/) is a nice way to extract the Perl bina-ries binaries
ries from the OS media, without having to reinstall the entire OS.
AUTHOR
This README was written by Sherm Pendley <sherm@dot-app.org>, and subsequently updated by Dominic
Dunlop <domo@computer.org>. The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand
<montbriand@apple.com>.
DATE
Last modified 2005-11-07.
perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLMACOSX(1)
|