PERLFREEBSD(1)   Perl Programmers Reference Guide  PERLFREEBSD(1)



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 ver-
       sions.  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 ask-
       ing 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 , collating wisdom supplied
       by Slaven Rezic and Tim Bunce.

       Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perl-
       bug@perl.org.



perl v5.8.8                 2006-01-07             PERLFREEBSD(1)