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.
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 systems is a K&R com
piler 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 advan
tage 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 README
file for more gcc-specific details.
PA-RISC
HP's current Unix systems run on its own Precision Archi
tecture (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.
PA-RISC 1.0
The original version of PA-RISC, HP no longer sells any
system with this chip.
The following systems contain 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, 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, DZO, 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, S724, 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 follow
ing systems contain PA-RISC 2.0 chips (this is very likely
to be out of date):
700, 780, 781, 782, 783, 785, 802, 804, 810, 820, 861, 871, 879, 889, 893,
895, 896, 898, 899, B1000, C130, C140, C160, C180, C180+, C180-XP, C200+,
C400+, C3000, C360, CB260, D270, D280, D370, D380, D390, D650, J220, J2240,
J280, J282, J400, J410, J5000, J7000, K250, K260, K260-EG, K270, K360,
K370, K380, K450, K460, K460-EG, K460-XP, K470, K570, K580, L1000, L2000,
N4000, R380, R390, T540, T600, V2000, V2200, V2250, V2500
A complete list of models at the time the OS was built is
in the file /opt/langtools/lib/sched.models. The first
column corresponds to the output of the "uname -m" command
(without the leading "9000/"). The second column is the
PA-RISC version and the third column is the exact chip
type used.
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 run
ning the same version of HP-UX. If you are building Perl
on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform and want that Perl to 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 executa
bles on either the PA-RISC 1.1 or 2.0 platforms.
Building Dynamic Extensions on HP-UX
HP-UX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared
libraries). Shared libraries end with the suffix .sl.
Shared libraries created on a platform using a particular
PA-RISC version are not usable on platforms using an ear
lier 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).
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.
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 sym
bol" 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 depen
dent 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 modules (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.
It is no longer possible to link PA-RISC 1.0 shared
libraries.
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).
Using Large Files with Perl
Beginning with HP-UX version 10.20, files larger than 2GB
(2^31 bytes) may be created and manipulated. Three sepa
rate methods of doing this are available. Of these meth
ods, 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 support 64-bit operations.)
There are some drawbacks to this approach. One is that
any extension which calls any file-manipulating 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, freopen, fsetpos, fstat,
fstatvfs, fstatvfsdev, ftruncate,
ftw, lockf, lseek,
lstat, mmap, nftw, open, preal
loc, stat, statvfs, statvfsdev, tmpfile, trun
cate, 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
It is possible to compile a version of threaded Perl on
any version of HP-UX before 10.30, but it is strongly sug
gested 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.
As of the date of this document, Perl threads are not
fully supported on HP-UX.
HP-UX versions before 10.30 require a seperate installa
tion of a POSIX threads library package. Two examples are
the HP DCE package, available on "HP-UX Hardware Exten
sions 3.0, Install and Core OS, Release 10.20, April 1999
(B3920-13941)" or the Freely available PTH package, avail
able though worldwide HP-UX mirrors of precompiled pack
ages (e.g. http://hpux.tn.tudelft.nl/hppd/hpux/alpha.html)
64-bit Perl
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).
Work is being performed on Perl to make it 64-bit compli
ant on all versions of Unix. Once this is complete,
scalar variables will be able to hold numbers larger than
2^32 with complete precision.
As of the date of this document, Perl is not 64-bit com
pliant on HP-UX.
Should a user wish to experiment with compiling Perl in
the LP64 environment, use the -Duse64bitall flag to Con
figure. This will force Perl to be compiled in a pure
LP64 environment (via the +DD64 flag).
You can also use the -Duse64bitint flag to Configure.
Although there are some minor differences between compil
ing Perl with this flag versus the -Duse64bitall flag,
they should not be noticeable from a Perl user's perspec
tive.
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.
(Note that these Configure flags 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 sup
port 64-bit operations.)
GDBM and Threads
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)
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 //
In HP-UX Perl is compiled with flags that will cause prob
lems 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!!;
AUTHOR
Jeff Okamoto <okamoto@corp.hp.com>
With much assistance regarding shared libraries from Marc
Sabatella.
DATE
Version 0.6.2: 2001-02-02
2001-03-03 perl v5.6.1 PERLHPUX(1)
