PERLHPUX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLHPUX(1)
NAME
README.hpux - Perl version 5 on Hewlett-Packard Unix (HP-UX) systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of HP's Unix operating system (HP-UX) that will affect how
Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
Using perl as shipped with HP-UX
Application release September 2001, HP-UX 11.00 is the first to ship with Perl. By the time it was
perl-5.6.1 in /opt/perl. The first occurrence is on CD 5012-7954 and can be installed using
swinstall -s /cdrom perl
assuming you have mounted that CD on /cdrom. In this version the following modules were installed:
ActivePerl::DocTools-0.04 HTML::Parser-3.19 XML::DOM-1.25
Archive::Tar-0.072 HTML::Tagset-3.03 XML::Parser-2.27
Compress::Zlib-1.08 MIME::Base64-2.11 XML::Simple-1.05
Convert::ASN1-0.10 Net-1.07 XML::XPath-1.09
Digest::MD5-2.11 PPM-2.1.5 XML::XSLT-0.32
File::CounterFile-0.12 SOAP::Lite-0.46 libwww-perl-5.51
Font::AFM-1.18 Storable-1.011 libxml-perl-0.07
HTML-Tree-3.11 URI-1.11 perl-ldap-0.23
The build was a portable hppa-1.1 multithread build that supports large files compiled with
gcc-2.9-hppa-991112
If you perform a new installation, then Perl will be installed automatically.
More recent (preinstalled) HP-UX systems have more recent versions of Perl and the updated modules.
Using perl from HP's porting centre
HP porting centre tries very hard to keep up with customer demand and release updates from the Open
Source community. Having precompiled Perl binaries available is obvious.
The HP porting centres are limited in what systems they are allowed to port to and they usually
choose the two most recent OS versions available. This means that at the moment of writing, there are
only HP-UX 11.11 (pa-risc 2.0) and HP-UX 11.23 (Itanium 2) ports available on the porting centres.
HP has asked the porting centre to move Open Source binaries from /opt to /usr/local, so binaries
produced since the start of July 2002 are located in /usr/local.
One of HP porting centres URL's is http://hpux.connect.org.uk/ The port currently available is built
with GNU gcc.
Compiling Perl 5 on HP-UX
When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. The C compiler that ships with all HP-UX sys-
tems is a K&R compiler that should only be used to build new kernels.
Perl can be compiled with either HP's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. The former is recommended, as not
only can it compile Perl with no difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later
that require the use of HP compiler-specific command-line flags.
If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and complete, and be sure to read the
Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific details.
PA-RISC
HP's current Unix systems run on its own Precision Architecture (PA-RISC) chip. HP-UX used to run on
the Motorola MC68000 family of chips, but any machine with this chip in it is quite obsolete and this
document will not attempt to address issues for compiling Perl on the Motorola chipset.
The most recent version of PA-RISC at the time of this document's last update is 2.0. HP PA-RISC sys-
tems are usually refered to with model description "HP 9000".
A complete list of models at the time the OS was built is in the file /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models.
The first column corresponds to the last part of the output of the "model" command. The second col-
umn is the PA-RISC version and the third column is the exact chip type used. (Start browsing at the
bottom to prevent confusion ;-)
# model
9000/800/L1000-44
# grep L1000-44 /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models
L1000-44 2.0 PA8500
Portability Between PA-RISC Versions
An executable compiled on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform will not execute on a PA-RISC 1.1 platform, even if
they are running the same version of HP-UX. If you are building Perl on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform and
want that Perl to also run on a PA-RISC 1.1, the compiler flags +DAportable and +DS32 should be used.
It is no longer possible to compile PA-RISC 1.0 executables on either the PA-RISC 1.1 or 2.0 plat-
forms. The command-line flags are accepted, but the resulting executable will not run when trans-
ferred to a PA-RISC 1.0 system.
PA-RISC 1.0
The original version of PA-RISC, HP no longer sells any system with this chip.
The following systems contained PA-RISC 1.0 chips:
600, 635, 645, 808, 815, 822, 825, 832, 834, 835, 840, 842, 845, 850,
852, 855, 860, 865, 870, 890
PA-RISC 1.1
An upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it shipped for many years in many different system.
The following systems contain with PA-RISC 1.1 chips:
705, 710, 712, 715, 720, 722, 725, 728, 730, 735, 742, 743, 744, 745,
747, 750, 755, 770, 777, 778, 779, 800, 801, 803, 806, 807, 809, 811,
813, 816, 817, 819, 821, 826, 827, 829, 831, 837, 839, 841, 847, 849,
851, 856, 857, 859, 867, 869, 877, 887, 891, 892, 897, A180, A180C,
B115, B120, B132L, B132L+, B160L, B180L, C100, C110, C115, C120,
C160L, D200, D210, D220, D230, D250, D260, D310, D320, D330, D350,
D360, D410, DX0, DX5, DXO, E25, E35, E45, E55, F10, F20, F30, G30,
G40, G50, G60, G70, H20, H30, H40, H50, H60, H70, I30, I40, I50, I60,
I70, J200, J210, J210XC, K100, K200, K210, K220, K230, K400, K410,
K420, S700i, S715, S744, S760, T500, T520
PA-RISC 2.0
The most recent upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it added support for 64-bit integer data.
As of the date of this document's last update, the following systems contain PA-RISC 2.0 chips:
700, 780, 781, 782, 783, 785, 802, 804, 810, 820, 861, 871, 879, 889,
893, 895, 896, 898, 899, A400, A500, B1000, B2000, C130, C140, C160,
C180, C180+, C180-XP, C200+, C400+, C3000, C360, C3600, CB260, D270,
D280, D370, D380, D390, D650, J220, J2240, J280, J282, J400, J410,
J5000, J5500XM, J5600, J7000, J7600, K250, K260, K260-EG, K270, K360,
K370, K380, K450, K460, K460-EG, K460-XP, K470, K570, K580, L1000,
L2000, L3000, N4000, R380, R390, SD16000, SD32000, SD64000, T540,
T600, V2000, V2200, V2250, V2500, V2600
Just before HP took over Compaq, some systems were renamed. the link that contained the explanation
is dead, so here's a short summary:
HP 9000 A-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp2400 series.
HP 9000 L-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp5400 series.
HP 9000 N-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp7400.
rp2400, rp2405, rp2430, rp2450, rp2470, rp3410, rp3440, rp4410,
rp4440, rp5400, rp5405, rp5430, rp5450, rp5470, rp7400, rp7405,
rp7410, rp7420, rp8400, rp8420, Superdome
The current naming convention is:
aadddd
||||`+- 00 - 99 relative capacity & newness (upgrades, etc.)
|||`--- unique number for each architecture to ensure different
||| systems do not have the same numbering across
||| architectures
||`---- 1 - 9 identifies family and/or relative positioning
||
|`----- c = ia32 (cisc)
| p = pa-risc
| x = ia-64 (Itanium & Itanium 2)
| h = housing
`------ t = tower
r = rack optimized
s = super scalable
b = blade
sa = appliance
Itanium Processor Family and HP-UX
HP-UX also runs on the new Itanium processor. This requires the use of a different version of HP-UX
(currently 11.23 or 11i v2), and with the exception of a few differences detailed below and in later
sections, Perl should compile with no problems.
Although PA-RISC binaries can run on Itanium systems, you should not attempt to use a PA-RISC version
of Perl on an Itanium system. This is because shared libraries created on an Itanium system cannot
be loaded while running a PA-RISC executable.
HP Itanium 2 systems are usually refered to with model description "HP Integrity".
Itanium & Itanium 2
HP also ships servers with the 128-bit Itanium processor(s). As of the date of this document's last
update, the following systems contain Itanium or Itanium 2 chips (this is very likely to be out of
date):
BL60p, rx1600, rx1620, rx2600, rx2600hptc, rx2620, rx4610, rx4640,
rx5670, rx7620, rx8620, rx9610
To see all about your machine, type
# model
ia64 hp server rx2600
# /usr/contrib/bin/machinfo
Building Dynamic Extensions on HP-UX
HP-UX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared libraries). Shared libraries end with the suf-
fix .sl. On Itanium systems, they end with the suffix .so.
Shared libraries created on a platform using a particular PA-RISC version are not usable on platforms
using an earlier PA-RISC version by default. However, this backwards compatibility may be enabled
using the same +DAportable compiler flag (with the same PA-RISC 1.0 caveat mentioned above).
Shared libraries created on an Itanium platform cannot be loaded on a PA-RISC platform. Shared
libraries created on a PA-RISC platform can only be loaded on an Itanium platform if it is a PA-RISC
executable that is attempting to load the PA-RISC library. A PA-RISC shared library cannot be loaded
into an Itanium executable nor vice-versa.
To create a shared library, the following steps must be performed:
1. Compile source modules with +z or +Z flag to create a .o module
which contains Position-Independent Code (PIC). The linker will
tell you in the next step if +Z was needed.
(For gcc, the appropriate flag is -fpic or -fPIC.)
2. Link the shared library using the -b flag. If the code calls
any functions in other system libraries (e.g., libm), it must
be included on this line.
(Note that these steps are usually handled automatically by the extension's Makefile).
If these dependent libraries are not listed at shared library creation time, you will get fatal
"Unresolved symbol" errors at run time when the library is loaded.
You may create a shared library that refers to another library, which may be either an archive
library or a shared library. If this second library is a shared library, this is called a "dependent
library". The dependent library's name is recorded in the main shared library, but it is not linked
into the shared library. Instead, it is loaded when the main shared library is loaded. This can
cause problems if you build an extension on one system and move it to another system where the
libraries may not be located in the same place as on the first system.
If the referred library is an archive library, then it is treated as a simple collection of .o mod-
ules (all of which must contain PIC). These modules are then linked into the shared library.
Note that it is okay to create a library which contains a dependent library that is already linked
into perl.
Some extensions, like DB_File and Compress::Zlib use/require prebuilt libraries for the perl exten-
sions/modules to work. If these libraries are built using the default configuration, it might happen
that you run into an error like "invalid loader fixup" during load phase. HP is aware of this prob-
lem. Search the HP-UX cxx-dev forums for discussions about the subject. The short answer is that
everything (all libraries, everything) must be compiled with "+z" or "+Z" to be PIC (position inde-
pendent code). (For gcc, that would be "-fpic" or "-fPIC"). In HP-UX 11.00 or newer the linker
error message should tell the name of the offending object file.
A more general approach is to intervene manually, as with an example for the DB_File module, which
requires SleepyCat's libdb.sl:
# cd .../db-3.2.9/build_unix
# vi Makefile
... add +Z to all cflags to create shared objects
CFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
CXXFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
# make clean
# make
# mkdir tmp
# cd tmp
# ar x ../libdb.a
# ld -b -o libdb-3.2.sl *.o
# mv libdb-3.2.sl /usr/local/lib
# rm *.o
# cd /usr/local/lib
# rm -f libdb.sl
# ln -s libdb-3.2.sl libdb.sl
# cd .../DB_File-1.76
# make distclean
# perl Makefile.PL
# make
# make test
# make install
As of db-4.2.x it is no longer needed to do this by hand. Sleepycat has changed the configuration
process to add +z on HP-UX automatically.
# cd .../db-4.2.25/build_unix
# env CFLAGS=+DA2.0w LDFLAGS=+DA2.0w ../dist/configure
should work to generate 64bit shared libraries for HP-UX 11.00 and 11i.
It is no longer possible to link PA-RISC 1.0 shared libraries (even though the command-line flags are
still present).
PA-RISC and Itanium object files are not interchangeable. Although you may be able to use ar to cre-
ate an archive library of PA-RISC object files on an Itanium system, you cannot link against it using
an Itanium link editor.
The HP ANSI C Compiler
When using this compiler to build Perl, you should make sure that the flag -Aa is added to the cpprun
and cppstdin variables in the config.sh file (though see the section on 64-bit perl below). If you
are using a recent version of the Perl distribution, these flags are set automatically.
The GNU C Compiler
When you are going to use the GNU C compiler (gcc), and you don't have gcc yet, you can either build
it yourself from the sources (available from e.g. http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/soft-
ware/gcc/releases.html) or fetch a prebuilt binary from the HP porting center. There are two places
where gcc prebuilds can be fetched; the first and best (for HP-UX 11 only) is
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSoftwareDetailPage_IDX/1,1703,547,00.html the second is
http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Gnu/ where you can also find the GNU binutils package. (Browse
through the list, because there are often multiple versions of the same package available).
Above mentioned distributions are depots. H.Merijn Brand has made prebuilt gcc binaries available on
http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/ and/or http://www.cmve.net/~merijn/ for HP-UX 10.20, HP-UX 11.00,
and HP-UX 11.11 (HP-UX 11i) in both 32- and 64-bit versions. These are bzipped tar archives that also
include recent GNU binutils and GNU gdb. Read the instructions on that page to rebuild gcc using
itself.
On PA-RISC you need a different compiler for 32-bit applications and for 64-bit applications. On
PA-RISC, 32-bit objects and 64-bit objects do not mix. Period. There is no different behaviour for HP
C-ANSI-C or GNU gcc. So if you require your perl binary to use 64-bit libraries, like Oracle-64bit,
you MUST build a 64-bit perl.
Building a 64-bit capable gcc on PA-RISC from source is possible only when you have the HP C-ANSI C
compiler or an already working 64-bit binary of gcc available. Best performance for perl is achieved
with HP's native compiler.
Using Large Files with Perl on HP-UX
Beginning with HP-UX version 10.20, files larger than 2GB (2^31 bytes) may be created and manipu-
lated. Three separate methods of doing this are available. Of these methods, the best method for
Perl is to compile using the -Duselargefiles flag to Configure. This causes Perl to be compiled
using structures and functions in which these are 64 bits wide, rather than 32 bits wide. (Note that
this will only work with HP's ANSI C compiler. If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have
to get a version of the compiler that supports 64-bit operations. See above for where to find it.)
There are some drawbacks to this approach. One is that any extension which calls any file-manipulat-
ing C function will need to be recompiled (just follow the usual "perl Makefile.PL; make; make test;
make install" procedure).
The list of functions that will need to recompiled is: creat, fgetpos, fopen, fre-
open, fsetpos, fstat, fstatvfs, fstatvfsdev, ftruncate, ftw, lockf, lseek,
lstat, mmap, nftw, open, prealloc, stat, statvfs, statvfsdev, tmpfile,
truncate, getrlimit, setrlimit
Another drawback is only valid for Perl versions before 5.6.0. This drawback is that the seek and
tell functions (both the builtin version and POSIX module version) will not perform correctly.
It is strongly recommended that you use this flag when you run Configure. If you do not do this, but
later answer the question about large files when Configure asks you, you may get a configuration that
cannot be compiled, or that does not function as expected.
Threaded Perl on HP-UX
It is possible to compile a version of threaded Perl on any version of HP-UX before 10.30, but it is
strongly suggested that you be running on HP-UX 11.00 at least.
To compile Perl with threads, add -Dusethreads to the arguments of Configure. Verify that the
-D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L compiler flag is automatically added to the list of flags. Also make sure
that -lpthread is listed before -lc in the list of libraries to link Perl with. The hints provided
for HP-UX during Configure will try very hard to get this right for you.
HP-UX versions before 10.30 require a separate installation of a POSIX threads library package. Two
examples are the HP DCE package, available on "HP-UX Hardware Extensions 3.0, Install and Core OS,
Release 10.20, April 1999 (B3920-13941)" or the Freely available PTH package, available on H.Merijn's
site (http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/)
If you are going to use the HP DCE package, the library used for threading is /usr/lib/libcma.sl, but
there have been multiple updates of that library over time. Perl will build with the first version,
but it will not pass the test suite. Older Oracle versions might be a compelling reason not to update
that library, otherwise please find a newer version in one of the following patches: PHSS_19739,
PHSS_20608, or PHSS_23672
reformatted output:
d3:/usr/lib 106 > what libcma-*.1
libcma-00000.1:
HP DCE/9000 1.5 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
Date: Apr 29 1996 22:11:24
libcma-19739.1:
HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_19739-40 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
Date: Sep 4 1999 01:59:07
libcma-20608.1:
HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_20608 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
Date: Dec 8 1999 18:41:23
libcma-23672.1:
HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_23672 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
Date: Apr 9 2001 10:01:06
d3:/usr/lib 107 >
If you choose for the PTH package, use swinstall to install pth in the default location (/opt/pth),
and then make symbolic links to the libraries from /usr/lib
# cd /usr/lib
# ln -s /opt/pth/lib/libpth* .
For building perl to support Oracle, it needs to be linked with libcl and libpthread. So even if your
perl is an unthreaded build, these libraries might be required. See "Oracle on HP-UX" below.
64-bit Perl on HP-UX
Beginning with HP-UX 11.00, programs compiled under HP-UX can take advantage of the LP64 programming
environment (LP64 means Longs and Pointers are 64 bits wide), in which scalar variables will be able
to hold numbers larger than 2^32 with complete precision. Perl has proven to be consistent and reli-
able in 64bit mode since 5.8.1 on all HP-UX 11.xx.
As of the date of this document, Perl is fully 64-bit compliant on HP-UX 11.00 and up for both cc-
and gcc builds. If you are about to build a 64-bit perl with GNU gcc, please read the gcc section
carefully.
Should a user have the need for compiling Perl in the LP64 environment, use the -Duse64bitall flag to
Configure. This will force Perl to be compiled in a pure LP64 environment (with the +DD64 flag for
HP C-ANSI-C, with no additional options for GNU gcc 64-bit on PA-RISC, and with -mlp64 for GNU gcc on
Itanium). If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have to get a version of the compiler that
supports 64-bit operations.)
You can also use the -Duse64bitint flag to Configure. Although there are some minor differences
between compiling Perl with this flag versus the -Duse64bitall flag, they should not be noticeable
from a Perl user's perspective. When configuring -Duse64bitint using a 64bit gcc on a pa-risc archi-
tecture, -Duse64bitint is silently promoted to -Duse64bitall.
In both cases, it is strongly recommended that you use these flags when you run Configure. If you do
not use do this, but later answer the questions about 64-bit numbers when Configure asks you, you may
get a configuration that cannot be compiled, or that does not function as expected.
Oracle on HP-UX
Using perl to connect to Oracle databases through DBI and DBD::Oracle has caused a lot of people many
headaches. Read README.hpux in the DBD::Oracle for much more information. The reason to mention it
here is that Oracle requires a perl built with libcl and libpthread, the latter even when perl is
build without threads. Building perl using all defaults, but still enabling to build DBD::Oracle
later on can be achieved using
Configure -A prepend:libswanted='cl pthread ' ...
Do not forget the space before the trailing quote.
Also note that this does not (yet) work with all configurations, it is known to fail with 64-bit ver-
sions of GCC.
GDBM and Threads on HP-UX
If you attempt to compile Perl with threads on an 11.X system and also link in the GDBM library, then
Perl will immediately core dump when it starts up. The only workaround at this point is to relink
the GDBM library under 11.X, then relink it into Perl.
NFS filesystems and utime(2) on HP-UX
If you are compiling Perl on a remotely-mounted NFS filesystem, the test io/fs.t may fail on test
#18. This appears to be a bug in HP-UX and no fix is currently available.
perl -P and // and HP-UX
If HP-UX Perl is compiled with flags that will cause problems if the -P flag of Perl (preprocess Perl
code with the C preprocessor before perl sees it) is used. The problem is that "//", being a
C++-style until-end-of-line comment, will disappear along with the remainder of the line. This means
that common Perl constructs like
s/foo//;
will turn into illegal code
s/foo
The workaround is to use some other quoting separator than "/", like for example "!":
s!foo!!;
HP-UX Kernel Parameters (maxdsiz) for Compiling Perl
By default, HP-UX comes configured with a maximum data segment size of 64MB. This is too small to
correctly compile Perl with the maximum optimization levels. You can increase the size of the maxd-
siz kernel parameter through the use of SAM.
When using the GUI version of SAM, click on the Kernel Configuration icon, then the Configurable
Parameters icon. Scroll down and select the maxdsiz line. From the Actions menu, select the Modify
Configurable Parameter item. Insert the new formula into the Formula/Value box. Then follow the
instructions to rebuild your kernel and reboot your system.
In general, a value of 256MB (or "256*1024*1024") is sufficient for Perl to compile at maximum opti-
mization.
nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
You may get a bus error core dump from the op/pwent or op/grent tests. If compiled with -g you will
see a stack trace much like the following:
#0 0xc004216c in () from /usr/lib/libc.2
#1 0xc00d7550 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
#2 0xc00d7768 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
#3 0xc00d78a8 in nss_delete () from /usr/lib/libc.2
#4 0xc01126d8 in endpwent () from /usr/lib/libc.2
#5 0xd1950 in Perl_pp_epwent () from ./perl
#6 0x94d3c in Perl_runops_standard () from ./perl
#7 0x23728 in S_run_body () from ./perl
#8 0x23428 in perl_run () from ./perl
#9 0x2005c in main () from ./perl
The key here is the "nss_delete" call. One workaround for this bug seems to be to create add to the
file /etc/nsswitch.conf (at least) the following lines
group: files
passwd: files
Whether you are using NIS does not matter. Amazingly enough, the same bug also affects Solaris.
AUTHOR
Jeff Okamoto <okamoto@corp.hp.com> H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
With much assistance regarding shared libraries from Marc Sabatella.
DATE
Version 0.7.6: 2005-12-20
perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLHPUX(1)
|