PERLFREEBSD(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFREEBSD(1)
NAME
perlfreebsd - Perl version 5 on FreeBSD systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of FreeBSD that will affect how
Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
FreeBSD core dumps from readdir_r with ithreads
When perl is configured to use ithreads, it will use re-entrant library
calls in preference to non-re-entrant versions. There is a bug in
FreeBSD's "readdir_r" function in versions 4.5 and earlier that can
cause a SEGV when reading large directories. A patch for FreeBSD libc is
available (see
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=30631>) which has
been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.
$^X doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD
perl sets $^X where possible to a full path by asking the operating
system. On FreeBSD the full path of the perl interpreter is found by
using "sysctl" with "KERN_PROC_PATHNAME" if that is supported, else by
reading the symlink /proc/curproc/file. FreeBSD 7 and earlier has a bug
where either approach sometimes returns an incorrect value (see
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35703>). In these
cases perl will fall back to the old behaviour of using C's "argv[0]"
value for $^X.
AUTHOR
Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven
Rezic and Tim Bunce.
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to
<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 PERLFREEBSD(1)
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