NAME
perlirix - Perl version 5 on Irix systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of Irix that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
Building
32-bit Perl in Irix
Use
sh Configure -Dcc='cc -n32'
to compile Perl 32-bit. Don’t bother with -n32 unless you have 7.1 or later compilers (use cc -version to check).
(Building ’cc -n32’ is the default.)
Building
64-bit Perl in Irix
Use
sh Configure -Dcc='cc -64' -Duse64bitint
This requires require a 64-bit MIPS CPU (R8000, R10000, ...)
You can also use
sh Configure -Dcc='cc -64' -Duse64bitall
but that makes no difference compared with the -Duse64bitint because of the "cc -64".
You can also do
sh Configure -Dcc='cc -n32' -Duse64bitint
to use long longs for the 64-bit integer type, in case you don’t have a 64-bit CPU.
If you are using gcc, just
sh Configure -Dcc=gcc -Duse64bitint
should be enough, the Configure should automatically probe for the correct 64-bit settings.
About
Compiler Versions of Irix
Some Irix cc versions, e.g. 7.3.1.1m (try cc -version) have
been known to have issues (coredumps) when compiling perl.c.
If you’ve used -OPT:fast_io=ON and this happens, try
removing it. If that fails, or you didn’t use that,
then try adjusting other optimization options (-LNO,
-INLINE, -O3 to -O2, etcetera). The compiler bug has been
reported to SGI. (Allen Smith
<easmith [AT] beatrice.edu>)
Linker
Problems in Irix
If you get complaints about so_locations then search in the
file hints/irix_6.sh for "lddflags" and do the
suggested adjustments. (David Billinghurst
<David.Billinghurst [AT] riotinto.au>)
Malloc in
Irix
Do not try to use Perl’s malloc, this will lead into
very mysterious errors (especially with -Duse64bitall).
Building
with threads in Irix
Run Configure with -Duseithreads which will configure Perl
with the Perl 5.8.0 "interpreter threads", see
threads.
For Irix 6.2 with perl threads, you have to have the following patches installed:
1404 Irix 6.2 Posix 1003.1b man pages
1645 Irix 6.2 & 6.3 POSIX header file updates
2000 Irix 6.2 Posix 1003.1b support modules
2254 Pthread library fixes
2401 6.2 all platform kernel rollup
IMPORTANT : Without patch 2401, a kernel bug in Irix 6.2 will cause your machine to panic and crash when running threaded perl. Irix 6.3 and later are okay.
Thanks to Hannu Napari <Hannu.Napari [AT] hut.fi> for the IRIX pthreads patches information.
Irix 5.3
While running Configure and when building, you are likely to
get quite a few of these warnings:
ld:
The shared object /usr/lib/libm.so did not resolve any symbols.
You may want to remove it from your link line.
Ignore them: in IRIX 5.3 there is no way to quieten ld about this.
During compilation you will see this warning from toke.c:
uopt: Warning: Perl_yylex: this procedure not optimized because it
exceeds size threshold; to optimize this procedure, use -Olimit
option with value >= 4252.
Ignore the warning.
In IRIX 5.3 and with Perl 5.8.1 (Perl 5.8.0 didn’t compile in IRIX 5.3 ) the following failures are known.
Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List of Failed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
../ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t 0 139 ?? ?? % ??
../lib/Math/Trig.t 255 65280 29 12 41.38% 24-29
../lib/sort.t 0 138 119 72 60.50% 48-119
56 tests and 474 subtests skipped.
Failed 3/811 test scripts, 99.63% okay. 78/75813 subtests failed,
99.90% okay.
They are suspected to be compiler errors (at least the shuffle.t failure is known from some IRIX 6 setups) and math library errors (the Trig.t failure), but since IRIX 5 is long since end-of-lifed, further fixes for the IRIX are unlikely. If you can get gcc for 5.3, you could try that, too, since gcc in IRIX 6 is a known workaround for at least the shuffle.t and sort.t failures.
AUTHOR
Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi [AT] iki.fi>
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>;.