NAME
README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of gcc for AIX are widely available.
At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers, for which you have to pay: xlC and vac. If you decide to use either of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
subversions are not the same `latest' on all OS versions. For example, the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c, respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files. Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-specific details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development team.
OS level
Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
# oslevel
4.3.0.0
# lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
#
The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
# lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
