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   1  If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
   2  see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
   3  specially designed to be readable as is.
   4  
   5  =head1 NAME
   6  
   7  README.machten - Perl version 5 on Power MachTen systems
   8  
   9  =head1 DESCRIPTION
  10  
  11  This document describes how to build Perl 5 on Power MachTen systems,
  12  and discusses a few wrinkles in the implementation.
  13  
  14  =head2 Perl version 5.8.x and greater not supported
  15  
  16  B<Power MachTen is not supported by versions of Perl later than
  17  5.6.x.>
  18  If you wish to build a version from the 5.6 track, please
  19  obtain a source distribution from the archive at
  20  L<http://cpan.org/src/5.0/> and follow the instructions in its
  21  README.machten file.
  22  
  23  MachTen is no longer supported by its developers, Tenon Intersystems.
  24  A UNIX environment hosted on Mac OS Classic, MachTen has been
  25  superseded by Mac OS X and by BSD and Linux implementations for Macintosh
  26  hardware.
  27  The final version of Power MachTen, 4.1.4, lacks many features found in
  28  modern implementations of UNIX, and has a number of bugs.
  29  These shortcomings prevent recent versions of Perl from being able to use
  30  extensions on MachTen, and cause numerous test suite failures in the
  31  perl core.
  32  
  33  In September 2003, a discussion on the MachTen mailing list determined
  34  that there was no interest in making a later version of Perl build
  35  successfully on MachTen.
  36  Consequently, support for building Perl under MachTen has been suppressed
  37  in Perl distributions published after February 2004.
  38  The hints file, F<hints/machten.sh>, remains a part of the
  39  distributions for reference purposes.
  40  
  41  =head2 Compiling Perl 5.6.x on MachTen
  42  
  43  To compile perl 5.6.x under MachTen 4.1.4 (and probably earlier versions):
  44  
  45    ./Configure -de
  46    make
  47    make test
  48    make install
  49  
  50  This builds and installs a statically-linked perl; MachTen's dynamic
  51  linking facilities are not adequate to support Perl's use of
  52  dynamically linked libraries.  (See F<hints/machten.sh> for more
  53  information.)
  54  
  55  You should have at least 32 megabytes of free memory on your
  56  system before running the C<make> command.
  57  
  58  For much more information on building perl -- for example, on how to
  59  change the default installation directory -- see F<INSTALL>.
  60  
  61  =head2 Failures during C<make test> on MachTen
  62  
  63  =over 4
  64  
  65  =item op/lexassign.t
  66  
  67  This test may fail when first run after building perl.  It does not
  68  fail subsequently.  The cause is unknown.
  69  
  70  =item pragma/warnings.t
  71  
  72  Test 257 fails due to a failure to warn about attempts to read from a
  73  filehandle which is a duplicate of stdout when stdout is attached to a
  74  pipe.  The output of the test contains a block comment which discusses
  75  a different failure, not applicable to MachTen.
  76  
  77  The root of the problem is that Machten does not assign a file type to
  78  either end of a pipe (see L<stat>), resulting, among other things
  79  in Perl's C<-p> test failing on file descriptors belonging to pipes.
  80  As a result, perl becomes confused, and the test for reading from a
  81  write-only file fails.  I am reluctant to patch perl to get around
  82  this, as it's clearly an OS bug (about which Tenon has been informed),
  83  and limited in its effect on practical Perl programs.
  84  
  85  =back
  86  
  87  =head2 Building external modules on MachTen
  88  
  89  To add an external module to perl, build in the normal way, which
  90  is documented in L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, or which can be driven
  91  automatically by the CPAN module (see L<CPAN>), which is part of the
  92  standard distribution.  If you want to install a module which
  93  contains XS code (C or C++ source which compiles to object code
  94  for linking with perl), you will have to replace your perl binary with
  95  a new version containing the new statically-linked object module.  The
  96  build process tells you how to do this.
  97  
  98  There is a gotcha, however, which users usually encounter immediately
  99  they respond to CPAN's invitation to C<install Bundle::CPAN>. When
 100  installing a I<bundle> -- a group of modules which together achieve
 101  some particular purpose, the installation process for later modules in
 102  the bundle tends to assume that earlier modules have been fully
 103  installed and are available for use.  This is not true on a
 104  statically-linked system for earlier modules which contain XS code.
 105  As a result the installation of the bundle fails.  The work-around is
 106  not to install the bundle as a one-shot operation, but instead to see
 107  what modules it contains, and install these one-at-a-time by hand in
 108  the order given.
 109  
 110  =head1 AUTHOR
 111  
 112  Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org>
 113  
 114  =head1 DATE
 115  
 116  Version 1.1.0 2004-02-13