PERLOS400(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLOS400(1)
NAME
perlos400 - Perl version 5 on OS/400
DESCRIPTION
This document describes various features of IBM's OS/400 operating system that will affect how Perl version 5
(hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
By far the easiest way to build Perl for OS/400 is to use the PASE (Portable Application Solutions
Environment), for more information see <http://www.iseries.ibm.com/developer/factory/pase/index.html> This
environment allows one to use AIX APIs while programming, and it provides a runtime that allows AIX binaries
to execute directly on the PowerPC iSeries.
Compiling Perl for OS/400 PASE
The recommended way to build Perl for the OS/400 PASE is to build the Perl 5 source code (release 5.8.1 or
later) under AIX.
The trick is to give a special parameter to the Configure shell script when running it on AIX:
sh Configure -DPASE ...
The default installation directory of Perl under PASE is /QOpenSys/perl. This can be modified if needed with
Configure parameter -Dprefix=/some/dir.
Starting from OS/400 V5R2 the IBM Visual Age compiler is supported on OS/400 PASE, so it is possible to build
Perl natively on OS/400. The easier way, however, is to compile in AIX, as just described.
If you don't want to install the compiled Perl in AIX into /QOpenSys (for packaging it before copying it to
PASE), you can use a Configure parameter: -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/QOpenSys/perl. This will cause the "make
install" to install everything into that directory, while the installed files still think they are (will be)
in /QOpenSys/perl.
If building natively on PASE, please do the build under the /QOpenSys directory, since Perl is happier when
built on a case sensitive filesystem.
Installing Perl in OS/400 PASE
If you are compiling on AIX, simply do a "make install" on the AIX box. Once the install finishes, tar up the
/QOpenSys/perl directory. Transfer the tarball to the OS/400 using FTP with the following commands:
> binary
> site namefmt 1
> put perl.tar /QOpenSys
Once you have it on, simply bring up a PASE shell and extract the tarball.
If you are compiling in PASE, then "make install" is the only thing you will need to do.
The default path for perl binary is /QOpenSys/perl/bin/perl. You'll want to symlink /QOpenSys/usr/bin/perl to
this file so you don't have to modify your path.
Using Perl in OS/400 PASE
Perl in PASE may be used in the same manner as you would use Perl on AIX.
Scripts starting with #!/usr/bin/perl should work if you have /QOpenSys/usr/bin/perl symlinked to your perl
binary. This will not work if you've done a setuid/setgid or have environment variable
PASE_EXEC_QOPENSYS="N". If you have V5R1, you'll need to get the latest PTFs to have this feature. Scripts
starting with #!/QOpenSys/perl/bin/perl should always work.
d_fchdir='define'
to
d_fchdir='undef'
and then compile Perl. The places where fchdir() is used have alternatives for systems that do not have
fchdir() available.
Perl on ILE
There exists a port of Perl to the ILE environment. This port, however, is based quite an old release of
Perl, Perl 5.00502 (August 1998). (As of July 2002 the latest release of Perl is 5.8.0, and even 5.6.1 has
been out since April 2001.) If you need to run Perl on ILE, though, you may need this older port:
<http://www.cpan.org/ports/#os400> Note that any Perl release later than 5.00502 has not been ported to ILE.
If you need to use Perl in the ILE environment, you may want to consider using Qp2RunPase() to call the PASE
version of Perl.
AUTHORS
Jarkko Hietaniemi <[email protected]> Bryan Logan <[email protected]> David Larson <[email protected]>
perl v5.16.3 2013-03-04 PERLOS400(1)
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