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README.solaris(1)





NAME

       README.solaris - 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       also discussed, though they may be out of date.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 preceeding 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 practi-
       cable.

       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 num-
       ber 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.sci-
           ence.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.blast-
           wave.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 cre-
       ate 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 any-
       way, 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.

       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, SUN-
       Wsprot, SUNWtoo

       for libraries & headers: SUNWhea, SUNWarc, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms, SUN-
       Wdfbh, SUNWcg6h, SUNWxwinc, SUNWolinc

       for 64 bit development: SUNWarcx, SUNWbtoox, SUNWdplx, SUNWscpux, SUN-
       Wsprox, SUNWtoox, SUNWlmsx, SUNWlmx, SUNWlibCx

       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 SUN-
       Whea

       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.sunfree-
       ware.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 infor-
       mation stored in Config.pm is therefore only relevant to the Sun com-
       pilers.  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 appropropriate 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 vari-
       able.

       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 prob-
       lems 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 adminis-
       trator 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 com-
       piler 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 exten-
       sions 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 Point-
       ers are 32 bit.  64-bit apps are more properly known as LP64.  The dis-
       criminating 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 lfcom-
       pile(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 Com-
       piler, 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/SPE-
       CIFIC 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 direc-
           tory 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 situa-
       tions.

       nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent

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


PREBUILT BINARIES OF PERL FOR SOLARIS.

       You can pick up prebuilt binaries for Solaris from <http://www.sunfree-
       ware.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 insur-
       mountable 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 dis-
       cussion.

       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::Pro-
       cessTable 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 Docu-
       ment ID27606 entitled "Differing /dev/random support requirements
       within Solaris[TM] Operating Environments", available at http://sun-
       solve.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
       lib/Tie/File/t/09_gen_rs 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 draw-
       ing 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 perlbug@perl.org.

perl v5.8.8                       2006-06-14                    PERLSOLARIS(1)

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