PERLMACOSX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLMACOSX(1)
NAME
perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS
This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.
curl -O https://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.40.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf perl-5.40.1.tar.gz
cd perl-5.40.1
./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
make
make test
sudo make install
DESCRIPTION
The latest Perl release (5.40.1 as of this writing) builds without
changes under all versions of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards.
In order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make', which
is part of Apple's developer tools - also known as Xcode. From Mac OS X
10.7 "Lion" onwards, it can be downloaded separately as the 'Command
Line Tools' bundle directly from
<https://developer.apple.com/downloads/> (you will need a free account
to log in), or as a part of the Xcode suite, freely available at the App
Store. Xcode is a pretty big app, so unless you already have it or
really want it, you are advised to get the 'Command Line Tools' bundle
separately from the link above. If you want to do it from within Xcode,
go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads and select the 'Command Line
Tools' option.
Between Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard", the 'Command
Line Tools' bundle was called 'unix tools', and was usually supplied
with Mac OS install DVDs.
Earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a
completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported. Also,
earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests
are known to fail on those releases.
Installation Prefix
The default installation location for this release uses the traditional
UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended location
for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules
undisturbed.
Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout
that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in
'/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in
'/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of
'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored
on a file server and used by many Macs.
SDK support
First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:
export SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk
Please make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before '.sdk')
matches your system's (in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"), as
it is possible to have more than one SDK installed. Also make sure the
path exists in your system, and if it doesn't please make sure the SDK
is properly installed, as it should come with the 'Command Line Tools'
bundle mentioned above. Finally, if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6
"Snow Leopard" and below) running Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path might
be something like '/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk'.
You can use the SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and
'..flags' config variables:
./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Universal Binary support
Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" onwards, Apple only supports
Intel-based hardware. This means you can safely skip this section unless
you have an older Apple computer running on ppc or wish to create a perl
binary with backwards compatibility.
You can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and
intel). In Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", you must export the 'u' variant of
the SDK:
export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk
Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and above do not require the 'u' variant.
In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the
flags for creating a universal binary:
./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc \
-B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
-Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
-de
Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used
when building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal
binary, any libraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The
system libraries that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all
universal, but user-installed libraries may need to be re-installed as
universal binaries.
64-bit PPC support
Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for 64-bit
integers ("use64bitint") or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing
("use64bitall"). In the latter case, the resulting binary will run only
on G5-based hosts.
Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may
be omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by Configure for further
information. Please use <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> to submit
a problem report in the event that you encounter difficulties.
When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that
linked external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they
do not, module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use the
module will result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent
test failures. You can use "file" to discover the architectures
supported by a library:
$ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64
Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific
CPAN modules ("Mac::*"), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide
PPC64 support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports are
unlikely to provide 64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from
source with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further
information, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at
<https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/transition/transition.html>.
libperl and Prebinding
Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for
this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is pre-
binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in
memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware
of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple
collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and
thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users would
need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed
for pre-binding.
You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish
(Configure ... -Duseshrplib).
With Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, there is almost no performance
penalty for non-prebound libraries. Earlier releases will suffer a
greater load time than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound
dynamic library.
Updating Apple's Perl
In a word - don't, at least not without a *very* good reason. Your
scripts can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with
"#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as
part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested
with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.
If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth
keeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you
upgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the dynamic
libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries are
present when an application that links against libperl is built, ld will
link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replace
Apple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to
delete the older dynamic library after you've installed the update.
Known problems
If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink (in
other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib), or libdlcompat to
/usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra careful when running Configure
to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries to use.
Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors about symbol
problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run
Configure as
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib
to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If you have some
extra library directories that you really want to use (such as newer
Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth:
Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'
The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex
applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl
Configure ... -Duseshrplib
but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above
"libperl and Prebinding").
Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files
for the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this
resulted in failures in the lib/locale test. These failures have been
suppressed in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the
broken locale. If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact
Apple support.
Cocoa
There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge
module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to
access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects.
An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both
Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applications
can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at
<https://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>.
Starting From Scratch
Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's Mac
OS X Perl rather severely. If all else fails and you want to really,
REALLY, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl installation
(which has become corrupted somehow), the following instructions should
do it. Please think twice before following these instructions: they are
much like conducting brain surgery to yourself. Without anesthesia. We
will not come to fix your system if you do this.
First, get rid of the libperl.dylib:
# cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
# rm libperl.dylib
Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders:
/System/Library/Perl
/Library/Perl
You can find them for example by
# find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print
After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media
(you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or
rebuild Perl from the source code with "Configure -Dprefix=/usr
-Duseshrplib" NOTE: the "-Dprefix=/usr" to replace the system Perl works
much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the settings were
not quite right.
"Pacifist" from CharlesSoft (<https://www.charlessoft.com/>) is a nice
way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media, without having to
reinstall the entire OS.
AUTHOR
This README was written by Sherm Pendley <sherm@dot-app.org>, and
subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> and Breno G.
de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org>. The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was
contributed by John Montbriand <montbriand@apple.com>.
DATE
Last modified 2013-04-29.
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 PERLMACOSX(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 07:43:01 CEST 2026.