NAME
README.freebsd - 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 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=misc/30631
) which has been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.
$^X doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD
perl 5.8.0 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 reading the symlink
/proc/curproc/file. There is a bug on FreeBSD, where the
result of reading this symlink is can be wrong in certain
circumstances (see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=35703
). In these cases perl will fall back to the old behaviour of using
C's argv[0] value for $^X.
Perl will no longer be part of base FreeBSD
Not as bad as it sounds---what this means is that Perl
will no longer be part of the kernel build system of
FreeBSD. Perl will still very probably be part of the ``default
install'', and in any case the latest version will be in the ports
system. The first FreeBSD version this change will affect is 5.0,
all 4.n versions will keep the status quo.
AUTHOR
Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom
supplied by Slaven Rezic and Tim Bunce.
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to .