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PERLSOLARIS(1)          Perl Programmers Reference Guide         PERLSOLARIS(1)

NAME
       perlsolaris - Perl version 5 on Solaris systems

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes various features of Sun's Solaris operating
       system that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just perl) is
       compiled and/or runs.  Some issues relating to the older SunOS 4.x are
       also discussed, though they may be out of date.

       For the most part, everything should just work.

       Starting with Solaris 8, perl5.00503 (or higher) is supplied with the
       operating system, so you might not even need to build a newer version of
       perl at all.  The Sun-supplied version is installed in /usr/perl5 with
       /usr/bin/perl pointing to /usr/perl5/bin/perl.  Do not disturb that
       installation unless you really know what you are doing.  If you remove
       the perl supplied with the OS, you will render some bits of your system
       inoperable.  If you wish to install a newer version of perl, install it
       under a different prefix from /usr/perl5.  Common prefixes to use are
       /usr/local and /opt/perl.

       You may wish to put your version of perl in the PATH of all users by
       changing the link /usr/bin/perl.  This is probably OK, as most perl
       scripts shipped with Solaris use an explicit path.  (There are a few
       exceptions, such as /usr/bin/rpm2cpio and /etc/rcm/scripts/README, but
       these are also sufficiently generic that the actual version of perl
       probably doesn't matter too much.)

       Solaris ships with a range of Solaris-specific modules.  If you choose
       to install your own version of perl you will find the source of many of
       these modules is available on CPAN under the Sun::Solaris:: namespace.

       Solaris may include two versions of perl, e.g. Solaris 9 includes both
       5.005_03 and 5.6.1.  This is to provide stability across Solaris
       releases, in cases where a later perl version has incompatibilities with
       the version included in the preceding Solaris release.  The default perl
       version will always be the most recent, and in general the old version
       will only be retained for one Solaris release.  Note also that the
       default perl will NOT be configured to search for modules in the older
       version, again due to compatibility/stability concerns.  As a
       consequence if you upgrade Solaris, you will have to rebuild/reinstall
       any additional CPAN modules that you installed for the previous Solaris
       version.  See the CPAN manpage under 'autobundle' for a quick way of
       doing this.

       As an interim measure, you may either change the #! line of your scripts
       to specifically refer to the old perl version, e.g. on Solaris 9 use
       #!/usr/perl5/5.00503/bin/perl to use the perl version that was the
       default for Solaris 8, or if you have a large number of scripts it may
       be more convenient to make the old version of perl the default on your
       system.  You can do this by changing the appropriate symlinks under
       /usr/perl5 as follows (example for Solaris 9):

        # cd /usr/perl5
        # rm bin man pod
        # ln -s ./5.00503/bin
        # ln -s ./5.00503/man
        # ln -s ./5.00503/lib/pod
        # rm /usr/bin/perl
        # ln -s ../perl5/5.00503/bin/perl /usr/bin/perl

       In both cases this should only be considered to be a temporary measure -
       you should upgrade to the later version of perl as soon as is
       practicable.

       Note also that the perl command-line utilities (e.g. perldoc) and any
       that are added by modules that you install will be under /usr/perl5/bin,
       so that directory should be added to your PATH.

   Solaris Version Numbers
       For consistency with common usage, perl's Configure script performs some
       minor manipulations on the operating system name and version number as
       reported by uname.  Here's a partial translation table:

                 Sun:                      perl's Configure:
        uname    uname -r   Name           osname     osvers
        SunOS    4.1.3     Solaris 1.1     sunos      4.1.3
        SunOS    5.6       Solaris 2.6     solaris    2.6
        SunOS    5.8       Solaris 8       solaris    2.8
        SunOS    5.9       Solaris 9       solaris    2.9
        SunOS    5.10      Solaris 10      solaris    2.10

       The complete table can be found in the Sun Managers' FAQ
       <ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq> under "9.1) Which Sun
       models run which versions of SunOS?".

RESOURCES
       There are many, many sources for Solaris information.  A few of the
       important ones for perl:

       Solaris FAQ
           The         Solaris         FAQ        is        available        at
           <http://www.science.uva.nl/pub/solaris/solaris2.html>.

           The      Sun      Managers'      FAQ      is      available       at
           <ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/faq>

       Precompiled Binaries
           Precompiled  binaries,  links to many sites, and much, much more are
           available        at        <http://www.sunfreeware.com/>         and
           <http://www.blastwave.org/>.

       Solaris Documentation
           All     Solaris    documentation    is    available    on-line    at
           <http://docs.sun.com/>.

SETTING UP
   File Extraction Problems on Solaris
       Be sure to use a tar program compiled under Solaris (not SunOS  4.x)  to
       extract  the  perl-5.x.x.tar.gz  file.   Do not use GNU tar compiled for
       SunOS4 on Solaris.  (GNU tar compiled for Solaris should be fine.)  When
       you run SunOS4 binaries on Solaris, the run-time system magically alters
       pathnames matching m#lib/locale#  so  that  when  tar  tries  to  create
       lib/locale.pm,  a  file named lib/oldlocale.pm gets created instead.  If
       you found this advice too late and used a  SunOS4-compiled  tar  anyway,
       you  must  find  the  incorrectly  renamed  file  and  move  it  back to
       lib/locale.pm.

   Compiler and Related Tools on Solaris
       You must use an ANSI C compiler to build perl.   Perl  can  be  compiled
       with  either  Sun's  add-on C compiler or with gcc.  The C compiler that
       shipped with SunOS4 will not do.

       Include /usr/ccs/bin/ in your PATH

       Several tools needed to build perl are located  in  /usr/ccs/bin/:   ar,
       as, ld, and make.  Make sure that /usr/ccs/bin/ is in your PATH.

       On  all  the released versions of Solaris (8, 9 and 10) you need to make
       sure the following packages are installed (this info is  extracted  from
       the Solaris FAQ):

       for  tools  (sccs,  lex,  yacc,  make,  nm,  truss,  ld, as): SUNWbtool,
       SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo

       for  libraries  &  headers:  SUNWhea,  SUNWarc,   SUNWlibm,   SUNWlibms,
       SUNWdfbh, SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc

       Additionally, on Solaris 8 and 9 you also need:

       for  64  bit  development:  SUNWarcx,  SUNWbtoox,  SUNWdplx,  SUNWscpux,
       SUNWsprox, SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUNWlibCx

       And only on Solaris 8 you also need:

       for libraries & headers: SUNWolinc

       If you are in doubt which package contains a file you are  missing,  try
       to find an installation that has that file. Then do a

        $ grep /my/missing/file /var/sadm/install/contents

       This will display a line like this:

       /usr/include/sys/errno.h  f  none  0644  root  bin  7471 37605 956241356
       SUNWhea

       The last item listed (SUNWhea in this example) is the package you need.

       Avoid /usr/ucb/cc

       You don't need to have /usr/ucb/ in your PATH to  build  perl.   If  you
       want  /usr/ucb/  in your PATH anyway, make sure that /usr/ucb/ is NOT in
       your PATH before the directory containing the right C compiler.

       Sun's C Compiler

       If you use Sun's C compiler, make sure the  correct  directory  (usually
       /opt/SUNWspro/bin/) is in your PATH (before /usr/ucb/).

       GCC

       If  you  use  gcc,  make  sure your installation is recent and complete.
       perl versions since 5.6.0 build fine with gcc > 2.8.1 on Solaris >= 2.6.

       You must Configure perl with

        $ sh Configure -Dcc=gcc

       If you don't, you may experience strange build errors.

       If you have updated your Solaris version, you may also  have  to  update
       your  gcc.   For example, if you are running Solaris 2.6 and your gcc is
       installed under /usr/local, check  in  /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib  and  make
       sure  you  have  the  appropriate  directory,  sparc-sun-solaris2.6/  or
       i386-pc-solaris2.6/.  If gcc's directory is for a different  version  of
       Solaris than you are running, then you will need to rebuild gcc for your
       new version of Solaris.

       You     can     get     a    precompiled    version    of    gcc    from
       <http://www.sunfreeware.com/> or <http://www.blastwave.org/>. Make  sure
       you pick up the package for your Solaris release.

       If  you  wish  to  use gcc to build add-on modules for use with the perl
       shipped with Solaris, you should use the Solaris::PerlGcc  module  which
       is available from CPAN.  The perl shipped with Solaris is configured and
       built with the Sun compilers, and the compiler configuration information
       stored  in  Config.pm  is  therefore only relevant to the Sun compilers.
       The Solaris:PerlGcc module contains  a  replacement  Config.pm  that  is
       correct for gcc - see the module for details.

       GNU as and GNU ld

       The  following  information  applies  to  gcc  version 2.  Volunteers to
       update it as appropriately for gcc version 3 would be appreciated.

       The versions of as and ld supplied with Solaris work fine  for  building
       perl.   There is normally no need to install the GNU versions to compile
       perl.

       If you decide to ignore this advice and use  the  GNU  versions  anyway,
       then  be  sure that they are relatively recent.  Versions newer than 2.7
       are apparently new enough.  Older versions may have trouble with dynamic
       loading.

       If you wish to use GNU ld, then you need to pass  it  the  -Wl,-E  flag.
       The  hints/solaris_2.sh  file  tries to do this automatically by setting
       the following Configure variables:

        ccdlflags="$ccdlflags -Wl,-E"
        lddlflags="$lddlflags -Wl,-E -G"

       However, over the years, changes in gcc, GNU ld,  and  Solaris  ld  have
       made  it  difficult  to  automatically  detect  which ld ultimately gets
       called.  You may have to manually edit  config.sh  and  add  the  -Wl,-E
       flags yourself, or else run Configure interactively and add the flags at
       the appropriate prompts.

       If  your  gcc is configured to use GNU as and ld but you want to use the
       Solaris  ones  instead  to  build  perl,  then  you'll   need   to   add
       -B/usr/ccs/bin/  to the gcc command line.  One convenient way to do that
       is with

        $ sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'

       Note that the trailing slash is required.   This  will  result  in  some
       harmless warnings as Configure is run:

        gcc: file path prefix `/usr/ccs/bin/' never used

       These  messages  may safely be ignored.  (Note that for a SunOS4 system,
       you must use -B/bin/ instead.)

       Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment  variable  to
       ensure  that  Sun's  as and ld are used.  Consult your gcc documentation
       for further  information  on  the  -B  option  and  the  GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
       variable.

       Sun and GNU make

       The  make  under /usr/ccs/bin works fine for building perl.  If you have
       the Sun C compilers, you will also  have  a  parallel  version  of  make
       (dmake).   This  works  fine  to  build  perl,  but  can sometimes cause
       problems when running 'make test'  due  to  underspecified  dependencies
       between  the  different  test  harness files.  The same problem can also
       affect the building of some add-on modules, so  in  those  cases  either
       specify  '-m serial' on the dmake command line, or use /usr/ccs/bin/make
       instead.  If you wish to use GNU make, be sure that the set-group-id bit
       is not set.  If it is, then arrange your PATH so that  /usr/ccs/bin/make
       is  before  GNU  make  or else have the system administrator disable the
       set-group-id bit on GNU make.

       Avoid libucb

       Solaris     provides     some     BSD-compatibility     functions     in
       /usr/ucblib/libucb.a.   Perl  will not build and run correctly if linked
       against -lucb since it contains routines that are incompatible with  the
       standard Solaris libc.  Normally this is not a problem since the solaris
       hints  file  prevents  Configure  from  even  looking in /usr/ucblib for
       libraries, and also explicitly omits -lucb.

   Environment for Compiling perl on Solaris
       PATH

       Make sure your PATH includes the compiler (/opt/SUNWspro/bin/ if  you're
       using  Sun's  compiler)  as  well  as /usr/ccs/bin/ to pick up the other
       development tools (such as make, ar, as, and ld).  Make sure  your  path
       either  doesn't  include  /usr/ucb  or  that  it  includes  it after the
       compiler and compiler tools and other standard Solaris directories.  You
       definitely don't want /usr/ucb/cc.

       LD_LIBRARY_PATH

       If you have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable set, be  sure  that
       it  does  NOT  include  /lib  or  /usr/lib.   If  you  will  be building
       extensions that call third-party shared  libraries  (e.g.  Berkeley  DB)
       then  make  sure that your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes
       the directory with that library (e.g. /usr/local/lib).

       If you get an error message

        dlopen: stub interception failed

       it  is  probably  because  your  LD_LIBRARY_PATH  environment   variable
       includes a directory which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).  The
       reason  this  causes  a  problem is quite subtle.  The file libdl.so.1.0
       actually *only* contains functions  which  generate  'stub  interception
       failed'    errors!     The    runtime   linker   intercepts   links   to
       "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementations  of  those
       functions instead.  [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]

RUN CONFIGURE
       See  the INSTALL file for general information regarding Configure.  Only
       Solaris-specific issues  are  discussed  here.   Usually,  the  defaults
       should be fine.

   64-bit perl on Solaris
       See  the INSTALL file for general information regarding 64-bit compiles.
       In general, the defaults should be fine for most people.

       By default, perl-5.6.0 (or later) is compiled as  a  32-bit  application
       with largefile and long-long support.

       General 32-bit vs. 64-bit issues

       Solaris  7  and  above will run in either 32 bit or 64 bit mode on SPARC
       CPUs, via a reboot. You can build 64 bit apps whilst running 32 bit mode
       and vice-versa. 32 bit apps will run under Solaris running in either  32
       or 64 bit mode.  64 bit apps require Solaris to be running 64 bit mode.

       Existing 32 bit apps are properly known as LP32, i.e. Longs and Pointers
       are  32  bit.   64-bit  apps  are  more  properly  known  as  LP64.  The
       discriminating feature of a LP64 bit app is its  ability  to  utilise  a
       64-bit  address  space.  It is perfectly possible to have a LP32 bit app
       that supports both 64-bit integers (long long) and largefiles  (>  2GB),
       and this is the default for perl-5.6.0.

       For  a  more  complete  explanation  of  64-bit issues, see the "Solaris
       64-bit Developer's Guide" at <http://docs.sun.com/>

       You can detect the OS mode using "isainfo -v", e.g.

        $ isainfo -v   # Ultra 30 in 64 bit mode
        64-bit sparcv9 applications
        32-bit sparc applications

       By default, perl will be compiled as a 32-bit application.   Unless  you
       want  to  allocate  more than ~ 4GB of memory inside perl, or unless you
       need more than 255 open file descriptors, you probably don't  need  perl
       to be a 64-bit app.

       Large File Support

       For  Solaris  2.6  and  onwards, there are two different ways for 32-bit
       applications to manipulate large files (files whose size is  >  2GByte).
       (A  64-bit  application  automatically has largefile support built in by
       default.)

       First  is  the  "transitional  compilation  environment",  described  in
       lfcompile64(5).  According to the man page,

        The transitional compilation  environment  exports  all  the
        explicit 64-bit functions (xxx64()) and types in addition to
        all the regular functions (xxx()) and types. Both xxx()  and
        xxx64()  functions  are  available to the program source.  A
        32-bit application must use the xxx64() functions in  order
        to  access  large  files.  See the lf64(5) manual page for a
        complete listing of the 64-bit transitional interfaces.

       The  transitional compilation environment is obtained with the following
       compiler and linker flags:

        getconf LFS64_CFLAGS        -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
        getconf LFS64_LDFLAG        # nothing special needed
        getconf LFS64_LIBS          # nothing special needed

       Second  is  the  "large  file  compilation  environment",  described  in
       lfcompile(5).  According to the man page,

        Each interface named xxx() that needs to access 64-bit entities
        to  access  large  files maps to a xxx64() call in the
        resulting binary. All relevant data types are defined to  be
        of correct size (for example, off_t has a typedef definition
        for a 64-bit entity).

        An application compiled in this environment is able  to  use
        the  xxx()  source interfaces to access both large and small
        files, rather than having to explicitly utilize the  transitional
        xxx64()  interface  calls to access large files.

       Two  exceptions are fseek() and ftell().  32-bit applications should use
       fseeko(3C) and ftello(3C).   These  will  get  automatically  mapped  to
       fseeko64() and ftello64().

       The large file compilation environment is obtained with

        getconf LFS_CFLAGS      -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
        getconf LFS_LDFLAGS     # nothing special needed
        getconf LFS_LIBS        # nothing special needed

       By  default, perl uses the large file compilation environment and relies
       on Solaris to do the underlying mapping of interfaces.

       Building an LP64 perl

       To compile a 64-bit application on  an  UltraSparc  with  a  recent  Sun
       Compiler,  you  need  to use the flag "-xarch=v9".  getconf(1) will tell
       you this, e.g.

        $ getconf -a | grep v9
        XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:         -xarch=v9
        XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
        XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
        XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
        XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
        XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:    -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_CFLAGS:        -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LDFLAGS:       -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LP64_OFF64_LINTFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_CFLAGS:      -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LDFLAGS:     -xarch=v9
        _XBS5_LPBIG_OFFBIG_LINTFLAGS:   -xarch=v9

       This flag is supported in Sun WorkShop Compilers 5.0  and  onwards  (now
       marketed  under  the  name  Forte)  when  used  on Solaris 7 or later on
       UltraSparc systems.

       If you are using gcc, you would need to use -mcpu=v9 -m64 instead.  This
       option is not yet supported as of gcc 2.95.2; from  install/SPECIFIC  in
       that release:

        GCC version 2.95 is not able to compile code correctly for sparc64
        targets. Users of the Linux kernel, at least, can use the sparc32
        program to start up a new shell invocation with an environment that
        causes configure to recognize (via uname -a) the system as sparc-*-*
        instead.

       All  this  should  be  handled  automatically  by  the  hints  file,  if
       requested.

       Long Doubles

       As of 5.8.1, long doubles are working  if  you  use  the  Sun  compilers
       (needed for additional math routines not included in libm).

   Threads in perl on Solaris
       It  is  possible  to  build  a threaded version of perl on Solaris.  The
       entire perl thread implementation is  still  experimental,  however,  so
       beware.

   Malloc Issues with perl on Solaris
       Starting  from  perl  5.7.1 perl uses the Solaris malloc, since the perl
       malloc breaks when dealing with more than 2GB of memory, and the Solaris
       malloc also seems to be faster.

       If you for some reason (such as binary  backward  compatibility)  really
       need  to  use  perl's  malloc, you can rebuild perl from the sources and
       Configure the build with

        $ sh Configure -Dusemymalloc

       You should not use perl's malloc if you are building  with  gcc.   There
       are  reports  of  core dumps, especially in the PDL module.  The problem
       appears to go away under -DDEBUGGING, so it has been difficult to  track
       down.   Sun's compiler appears to be okay with or without perl's malloc.
       [XXX further investigation is needed here.]

MAKE PROBLEMS
       Dynamic Loading Problems With GNU as and GNU ld
           If you have problems with dynamic loading  using  gcc  on  SunOS  or
           Solaris,  and  you are using GNU as and GNU ld, see the section "GNU
           as and GNU ld" above.

       ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
           If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're  using  gcc,
           it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item "GNU
           as and GNU ld".

       dlopen: stub interception failed
           The  primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message
           is  that  the  LD_LIBRARY_PATH  environment  variable   includes   a
           directory  which  is  a  symlink  to  /usr/lib  (such as /lib).  See
           "LD_LIBRARY_PATH" above.

       #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
           This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with
           a gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1.   The  Solaris  header
           files changed, so you need to update your gcc installation.  You can
           either rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity
           to update your gcc installation.

       sh: ar: not found
           This  is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
           was not found.  You need to check your PATH environment variable  to
           make  sure  that  it  includes  the directory with the 'ar' command.
           This  is  a  common  problem  on  Solaris,  where  'ar'  is  in  the
           /usr/ccs/bin/ directory.

MAKE TEST
   op/stat.t test 4 in Solaris
       op/stat.t  test 4 may fail if you are on a tmpfs of some sort.  Building
       in /tmp sometimes shows this behavior.  The test suite  detects  if  you
       are  building  in  /tmp,  but  it  may  not  be  able to catch all tmpfs
       situations.

   nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
       See "nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent" in perlhpux.

CROSS-COMPILATION
       Nothing too unusual here.  You can easily do this if you have  a  cross-
       compiler  available;   A  usual  Configure  invocation when targetting a
       Solaris x86 looks something like this:

           sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
               -Dcc=i386-pc-solaris2.11-gcc      \
               -Dsysroot=$SYSROOT                \
               -Alddlflags=" -Wl,-z,notext"      \
               -Dtargethost=... # The usual cross-compilation options

       The lddlflags addition is the only abnormal bit.

PREBUILT BINARIES OF PERL FOR SOLARIS
       You   can   pick    up    prebuilt    binaries    for    Solaris    from
       <http://www.sunfreeware.com/>,  <http://www.blastwave.org>,  ActiveState
       <http://www.activestate.com/>,  and  <http://www.perl.com/>  under   the
       Binaries  list at the top of the page.  There are probably other sources
       as well.  Please note that these sites are under the  control  of  their
       respective owners, not the perl developers.

RUNTIME ISSUES FOR PERL ON SOLARIS
   Limits on Numbers of Open Files on Solaris
       The  stdio(3C)  manpage notes that for LP32 applications, only 255 files
       may be opened using fopen(), and only file descriptors 0 through 255 can
       be used in a stream.  Since perl calls open() and then  fdopen(3C)  with
       the  resulting file descriptor, perl is limited to 255 simultaneous open
       files,  even  if  sysopen()  is  used.   If  this  proves   to   be   an
       insurmountable  problem, you can compile perl as a LP64 application, see
       "Building an LP64  perl"  for  details.   Note  also  that  the  default
       resource  limit for open file descriptors on Solaris is 255, so you will
       have to modify your ulimit or rctl (Solaris 9 onwards) appropriately.

SOLARIS-SPECIFIC MODULES
       See the modules under the Solaris:: and Sun::Solaris namespaces on CPAN,
       see         <http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Solaris/>         and
       <http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Sun/>.

SOLARIS-SPECIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MODULES
   Proc::ProcessTable on Solaris
       Proc::ProcessTable does not compile on Solaris with perl5.6.0 and higher
       if  you have LARGEFILES defined.  Since largefile support is the default
       in 5.6.0 and later, you have to take special steps to use this module.

       The problem is that various structures visible via procfs use off_t, and
       if you compile with largefile support these change from 32  bits  to  64
       bits.   Thus  what  you  get  back from procfs doesn't match up with the
       structures in perl, resulting  in  garbage.   See  proc(4)  for  further
       discussion.

       A  fix  for  Proc::ProcessTable is to edit Makefile to explicitly remove
       the largefile flags from the ones MakeMaker  picks  up  from  Config.pm.
       This  will  result  in  Proc::ProcessTable being built under the correct
       environment.  Everything should then be OK as long as Proc::ProcessTable
       doesn't try to share off_t's with the rest of perl, or if it  does  they
       should be explicitly specified as off64_t.

   BSD::Resource on Solaris
       BSD::Resource  versions earlier than 1.09 do not compile on Solaris with
       perl 5.6.0 and higher,  for  the  same  reasons  as  Proc::ProcessTable.
       BSD::Resource  versions  starting  from  1.09  have a workaround for the
       problem.

   Net::SSLeay on Solaris
       Net::SSLeay requires a  /dev/urandom  to  be  present.  This  device  is
       available  from Solaris 9 onwards.  For earlier Solaris versions you can
       either get the package  SUNWski  (packaged  with  several  Sun  software
       products,  for  example  the Sun WebServer, which is part of the Solaris
       Server Intranet Extension,  or  the  Sun  Directory  Services,  part  of
       Solaris    for   ISPs)   or   download   the   ANDIrand   package   from
       <http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~andi/>. If you use SUNWski, make a  symbolic
       link  /dev/urandom  pointing  to  /dev/random.   For  more  details, see
       Document ID27606 entitled "Differing  /dev/random  support  requirements
       within     Solaris[TM]    Operating    Environments",    available    at
       <http://sunsolve.sun.com> .

       It may be possible to use  the  Entropy  Gathering  Daemon  (written  in
       Perl!), available from <http://www.lothar.com/tech/crypto/>.

SunOS 4.x
       In  SunOS  4.x  you most probably want to use the SunOS ld, /usr/bin/ld,
       since the more recent versions of GNU ld (like 2.13) do not seem to work
       for building Perl anymore.  When linking the extensions, the GNU ld gets
       very unhappy and spews a lot of errors like this

         ... relocation truncated to fit: BASE13 ...

       and dies.  Therefore the SunOS 4.1 hints file explicitly sets the ld  to
       be /usr/bin/ld.

       As of Perl 5.8.1 the dynamic loading of libraries (DynaLoader, XSLoader)
       also seems to have become broken in in SunOS 4.x.  Therefore the default
       is to build Perl statically.

       Running  the  test  suite  in  SunOS  4.1  is  a  bit  tricky  since the
       dist/Tie-File/t/09_gen_rs.t test hangs  (subtest  #51,  FWIW)  for  some
       unknown  reason.   Just  stop  the  test  and  kill that particular Perl
       process.

       There are various other failures, that as of SunOS 4.1.4 and  gcc  3.2.2
       look  a  lot  like  gcc bugs.  Many of the failures happen in the Encode
       tests, where for example when the test expects "0" you get "&#48;" which
       should after a little squinting look very odd indeed.   Another  example
       is  earlier in t/run/fresh_perl where chr(0xff) is expected but the test
       fails because the result is chr(0xff).  Exactly.

       This is the "make test" result from the said combination:

         Failed 27 test scripts out of 745, 96.38% okay.

       Running the "harness" is painful because of the  many  failing  Unicode-
       related  tests  will  output  megabytes  of failure messages, but if one
       patiently waits, one gets these results:

        Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
        -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        ...
        ../ext/Encode/t/at-cn.t            4  1024    29    4  13.79%  14-17
        ../ext/Encode/t/at-tw.t           10  2560    17   10  58.82%  2 4 6 8 10 12
                                                                       14-17
        ../ext/Encode/t/enc_data.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../ext/Encode/t/enc_eucjp.t       29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../ext/Encode/t/enc_module.t      29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../ext/Encode/t/encoding.t        29  7424    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../ext/Encode/t/grow.t            12  3072    24   12  50.00%  2 4 6 8 10 12 14
                                                                       16 18 20 22 24
         Failed Test                     Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
        ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        ../ext/Encode/t/guess.t          255 65280    29   40 137.93%  10-29
        ../ext/Encode/t/jperl.t           29  7424    15   30 200.00%  1-15
        ../ext/Encode/t/mime-header.t      2   512    10    2  20.00%  2-3
        ../ext/Encode/t/perlio.t          22  5632    38   22  57.89%  1-4 9-16 19-20
                                                                       23-24 27-32
        ../ext/List/Util/t/shuffle.t       0   139    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../ext/PerlIO/t/encoding.t                    14    1   7.14%  11
        ../ext/PerlIO/t/fallback.t                     9    2  22.22%  3 5
        ../ext/Socket/t/socketpair.t       0     2    45   70 155.56%  11-45
        ../lib/CPAN/t/vcmp.t                          30    1   3.33%  25
        ../lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs.t      0    15    ??   ??       %  ??
        ../lib/Unicode/Collate/t/test.t              199   30  15.08%  7 26-27 71-75
                                                                       81-88 95 101
                                                                       103-104 106 108-
                                                                       109 122 124 161
                                                                       169-172
        ../lib/sort.t                      0   139   119   26  21.85%  107-119
        op/alarm.t                                     4    1  25.00%  4
        op/utfhash.t                                  97    1   1.03%  31
        run/fresh_perl.t                              91    1   1.10%  32
        uni/tr_7jis.t                                 ??   ??       %  ??
        uni/tr_eucjp.t                    29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
        uni/tr_sjis.t                     29  7424     6   12 200.00%  1-6
        56 tests and 467 subtests skipped.
        Failed 27/811 test scripts, 96.67% okay. 1383/75399 subtests failed,
          98.17% okay.

       The alarm() test failure  is  caused  by  system()  apparently  blocking
       alarm().  That is probably a libc bug, and given that SunOS 4.x has been
       end-of-lifed  years  ago, don't hold your breath for a fix.  In addition
       to that, don't try anything too Unicode-y, especially with  Encode,  and
       you should be fine in SunOS 4.x.

AUTHOR
       The  original  was  written  by  Andy  Dougherty  doughera@lafayette.edu
       drawing heavily on advice from  Alan  Burlison,  Nick  Ing-Simmons,  Tim
       Bunce, and many other Solaris users over the years.

       Please    report    any    errors,    updates,    or    suggestions   to
       <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.

perl v5.40.1                       2026-08-30                    PERLSOLARIS(1)

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