perlirix - Perl version 5 on Irix systems
This document describes various features of Irix that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
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.)
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.
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@beatrice.rutgers.edu>)
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@riotinto.com.au>)
Do not try to use Perl's malloc, this will lead into very mysterious errors (especially with -Duse64bitall).
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@hut.fi> for the IRIX
- pthreads patches information.
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.
Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perlbug@perl.org.