Mailing List Archive

>From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
>
>This is going to sound like a dumb question...
>
>Could someone please tell me the exact build steps for getting GDBM and
>Berkeley DB binding set up? Let's assume that the libraries have been
>ftp'd properly. Does it require special Makefile.PL files? Can Configure
>find them if you're building perl from scratch? etc.

If libgdbm.a is present and found by Configure, then GDBM_File will be
compiled and installed with make/make install.

If you get gdbm at a later date than perl is built and installed, you
still can cd to ext/GDBM_File and run the usual
perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

Same for berkeley db.

The question, if Configure finds them is a bit too difficult for
me. Usually it finds the libraries. If it doesn't, well, we have to
check quite a few variables in config.sh.

A small nit comes to mind: If you build perl without gdbm and add gdbm
later, you won't be able to run the test script in t/lib/gdbm.t,
because tht script looks at $Config{xxxlibs} to determine if you have
it. It's on makemaker's todo list to have some improvement there, but
currently no time available.

>
>thanks,
>
>--tom
>


Regards,
andreas

On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, Tom Christiansen wrote:

> Could someone please tell me the exact build steps for getting GDBM and
> Berkeley DB binding set up? Let's assume that the libraries have been
> ftp'd properly. Does it require special Makefile.PL files? Can Configure
> find them if you're building perl from scratch? etc.

First, build & install GDBM and DB. I'll presume that you install both in
/usr/local/{lib,include}, and that you're building on a common system with
dyanmic loading (i.e. you expect Configure's going to get everything right
except, perhaps, the GDBM and DB paths).

Then
cd /wherever/perl5.001m
sh Configure -de -Dccflags="-I/usr/local/include" \
-Dldflags="-L/usr/local/lib" \
-Dlddlflags="-L/usr/local/lib"
make
make test

ought to work.

If you run Configure interactively, then it will explicitly prompt you for
-I/whatever flags. The ldflags prompt doesn't explicitly mention
-L flags, though it should. The lddlflags prompt reminds you that
if you used any -Lflags before, you should do so again.

The -I flag is not needed if you run gcc, and gcc was configured with
the default setting of --local-prefix. The -L flags are needed with
either gcc or cc. The fact that gcc searches /usr/local/include but
doesn't tell the linker to look in /usr/local/lib could be construed as a
gcc bug.

I should probably put the above info into some sort of INSTALL file.

Changing Configure to automatically guess the right -I and -L flags is one of
the most-requested Configure enhancements, though no one has found the time
and energy to do anything about it. Just in case someone really wants to do
this, I have previously posted all of the metaconfig units and files needed
to build perl5.001m. I have a few ideas, but little time to follow up on
them.

Good luck,

Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu