NAME
README.beos - Perl version 5.8+ on BeOS
DESCRIPTION
This file contains instructions how to build Perl under BeOS and lists known problems.
BUILD AND INSTALL
Requirements
I have built and tested Perl 5.8.6 and 5.9.1 under BeOS R5 x86 net server.
I can't say anything with regard to PPC. Since Perl 5.8.0 had been released
for BeOS BONE, I suspect, there is a good chance, that it still compiles on
a BONE system. The only change I've made, that affects BONE systems is the
recognition of whether it is a BONE system or not in hints/beos.sh
. Now
network socket support should remain enabled on BONE systems. This might
as well break the build, though.
As more recent versions of autoconf require flock() support, I wrote a flock() emulation (flock_server) and released it on BeBits:
http://www.bebits.com/app/4030
If you want to build a Perl with flock() support, you have to install this package first.
Configure
With flock() support:
CFLAGS=-I/path/to/flock/server/headers ./configure.gnu \ --prefix=/boot/home/config
Replace /path/to/flock/server/headers
with the path to the directory
containing the flock.h
header.
Without flock() support:
./configure.gnu --prefix=/boot/home/config
Build
With flock() support:
make LDLOADLIBS="-lnet -lflock"
Without flock() support:
make LDLOADLIBS="-lnet"
-lnet
is needed on net server systems only and if the compiler doesn't
add it automatically (Be's R5 gcc does, Oliver Tappe's gcc 2.95.3 does not).
Install
Install all perl files:
make install
Create a symlink for libperl:
cd ~/config/lib; ln -s perl5/5.8.6/BePC-beos/CORE/libperl.so .
Replace 5.8.6
with your respective version of Perl.
KNOWN PROBLEMS
-
Network socket support is disabled for BeOS R5 net server. I didn't dare yet to try enabling it and see what problems occur.
-
The LFS (large file support) tests (
t/op/lfs
andxt/Fcntl/t/syslfs
) are disabled as seeking beyond 2 GB is broken according to jhi@iki.fi who was the last one checking the BeOS port and updating this file before me. Haven't checked this myself. -
The
t/io/fflush
test fails at #6. As far as I can tell, this is caused by a bug in the BeOS pipes implementation that occurs when starting other child processes. In the particular test case asystem("perl -e 0")
flushes the stdout pipe of another child process. -
The
ext/POSIX/t/waitpid
test fails at #1. After all child processes are gone BeOS' waitpid(-1,...) returns 0 instead of -1 (as it should). No idea how to fix this.
CONTACT
For BeOS specifics problems feel free to mail to: Ingo Weinhold <bonefish@cs.tu-berlin.de>
Last update: 2004-12-16