{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "PERLMACOSX",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PERLMACOSX/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-05-30T06:10:34Z",
    "synopsis": "This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.\ncurl -O https://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.34.0.tar.gz\ntar -xzf perl-5.34.0.tar.gz\ncd perl-5.34.0\n./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/\nmake\nmake test\nsudo make install",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "This document briefly describes Perl under Mac OS X.\n\ncurl -O https://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.34.0.tar.gz\ntar -xzf perl-5.34.0.tar.gz\ncd perl-5.34.0\n./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/\nmake\nmake test\nsudo make install\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "The latest Perl release (5.34.0 as of this writing) builds without changes under all versions\nof Mac OS X from 10.3 \"Panther\" onwards.\n\nIn order to build your own version of Perl you will need 'make', which is part of Apple's\ndeveloper tools - also known as Xcode. From Mac OS X 10.7 \"Lion\" onwards, it can be\ndownloaded separately as the 'Command Line Tools' bundle directly from\n<https://developer.apple.com/downloads/> (you will need a free account to log in), or as a\npart of the Xcode suite, freely available at the App Store. Xcode is a pretty big app, so\nunless you already have it or really want it, you are advised to get the 'Command Line Tools'\nbundle separately from the link above. If you want to do it from within Xcode, go to Xcode ->\nPreferences -> Downloads and select the 'Command Line Tools' option.\n\nBetween Mac OS X 10.3 \"Panther\" and 10.6 \"Snow Leopard\", the 'Command Line Tools' bundle was\ncalled 'unix tools', and was usually supplied with Mac OS install DVDs.\n\nEarlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 \"Jaguar\" and older) did not include a completely thread-safe\nlibc, so threading is not fully supported. Also, earlier releases included a buggy libdb, so\nsome of the DBFile tests are known to fail on those releases.\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Installation Prefix",
                    "content": "The default installation location for this release uses the traditional UNIX directory layout\nunder /usr/local. This is the recommended location for most users, and will leave the Apple-\nsupplied Perl and its modules undisturbed.\n\nUsing an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout that mirrors that of\nApple's default Perl, with core modules stored in '/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN\nmodules stored in '/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of\n'/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored on a file server and\nused by many Macs.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "SDK support",
                    "content": "First, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:\n\nexport SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk\n\nPlease make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before '.sdk') matches your system's\n(in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 \"Mountain Lion\"), as it is possible to have more than one SDK\ninstalled. Also make sure the path exists in your system, and if it doesn't please make sure\nthe SDK is properly installed, as it should come with the 'Command Line Tools' bundle\nmentioned above. Finally, if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6 \"Snow Leopard\" and below)\nrunning Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path might be something like\n'/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk'.\n\nYou can use the SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's 'ccflags' and '..flags' config\nvariables:\n\n./Configure -Accflags=\"-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \\\n-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \\\n-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks\" \\\n-Aldflags=\"-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK\" \\\n-de\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Universal Binary support",
                    "content": "Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 \"Snow Leopard\" onwards, Apple only supports Intel-based hardware.\nThis means you can safely skip this section unless you have an older Apple computer running\non ppc or wish to create a perl binary with backwards compatibility.\n\nYou can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel).  In Mac OS X 10.4\n\"Tiger\", you must export the 'u' variant of the SDK:\n\nexport SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk\n\nMac OS X 10.5 \"Leopard\" and above do not require the 'u' variant.\n\nIn addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags for creating a\nuniversal binary:\n\n./Configure -Accflags=\"-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc               \\\n-B$SDK/usr/include/gcc                      \\\n-B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include  \\\n-F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks\"            \\\n-Aldflags=\"-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK\"   \\\n-de\n\nKeep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when building CPAN\nmodules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any libraries it links to must\nalso be universal binaries. The system libraries that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are\nall universal, but user-installed libraries may need to be re-installed as universal\nbinaries.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "64-bit PPC support",
                    "content": "Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for 64-bit integers\n(\"use64bitint\") or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing (\"use64bitall\"). In the latter\ncase, the resulting binary will run only on G5-based hosts.\n\nSupport for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may be omitted or buggy.\nNote the messages output by Configure for further information. Please use\n<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> to submit a problem report in the event that you\nencounter difficulties.\n\nWhen building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that linked external\nlibraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they do not, module building may appear\nto succeed, but attempts to use the module will result in run-time dynamic linking errors,\nand subsequent test failures.  You can use \"file\" to discover the architectures supported by\na library:\n\n$ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib\nlibgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures\nlibgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc):      Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc\nlibgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64):    Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64\n\nNote that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific CPAN modules\n(\"Mac::*\"), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64 support. Similarly,\ndownloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide 64-bit support; the libraries must\nbe rebuilt from source with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further\ninformation, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at\n<https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/transition/transition.html>.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "libperl and Prebinding",
                    "content": "Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for this release is to\ncompile a static libperl. The reason for this is pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-\nbound to a specific address in memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs\nto be aware of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple collects this\ninformation as part of their overall OS build process, and thus has easy access to it when\nbuilding Perl, but ordinary users would need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the\ninformation needed for pre-binding.\n\nYou can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish\n(Configure ... -Duseshrplib).\n\nWith Mac OS X 10.4 \"Tiger\" and newer, there is almost no performance penalty for non-prebound\nlibraries. Earlier releases will suffer a greater load time than either the static library,\nor Apple's pre-bound dynamic library.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Updating Apple's Perl",
                    "content": "In a word - don't, at least not without a *very* good reason. Your scripts can just as easily\nbegin with \"#!/usr/local/bin/perl\" as with \"#!/usr/bin/perl\". Scripts supplied by Apple and\nother third parties as part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested\nwith the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple.\n\nIf you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth keeping in mind is\nthe question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you upgrade using the default static\nlibperl, you will find that the dynamic libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If\nboth libraries are present when an application that links against libperl is built, ld will\nlink against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replace Apple's dynamic\nlibperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to delete the older dynamic library after\nyou've installed the update.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Known problems",
                    "content": "If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink (in other words, you have\nlibraries under /sw/lib), or libdlcompat to /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra careful\nwhen running Configure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries to use.\nBeing confused will show up for example as \"dyld\" errors about symbol problems, for example\nduring \"make test\". The safest bet is to run Configure as\n\nConfigure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib\n\nto make Configure look only into the system libraries.  If you have some extra library\ndirectories that you really want to use (such as newer Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther\nsystems), add those to the libpth:\n\nConfigure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'\n\nThe default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex applications like Tk:\nin that case consider building shared Perl\n\nConfigure ... -Duseshrplib\n\nbut remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above \"libperl and\nPrebinding\").\n\nStarting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for the euES locale\n(Basque-Spain).  In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in failures in the lib/locale\ntest. These failures have been suppressed in the current release of Perl by making the test\nignore the broken locale.  If you need to use the euES locale, you should contact Apple\nsupport.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Cocoa",
                    "content": "There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge module, included with Mac\nOS X, can be used by standalone scripts to access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and\nobjects.\n\nAn alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both Foundation and AppKit\nclasses and objects, so that full GUI applications can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be\nfound on SourceForge, at <https://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Starting From Scratch",
                    "content": "Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's Mac OS X Perl rather\nseverely.  If all else fails and you want to really, REALLY, start from scratch and remove\neven your Apple Perl installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following\ninstructions should do it.  Please think twice before following these instructions: they are\nmuch like conducting brain surgery to yourself.  Without anesthesia.  We will not come to fix\nyour system if you do this.\n\nFirst, get rid of the libperl.dylib:\n\n# cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE\n# rm libperl.dylib\n\nThen delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders:\n\n/System/Library/Perl\n/Library/Perl\n\nYou can find them for example by\n\n# find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print\n\nAfter this you can either copy Perl from your operating system media (you will need at least\nthe /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), or rebuild Perl from the source code with\n\"Configure -Dprefix=/usr -Duseshrplib\" NOTE: the \"-Dprefix=/usr\" to replace the system Perl\nworks much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the settings were not quite right.\n\n\"Pacifist\" from CharlesSoft (<https://www.charlessoft.com/>) is a nice way to extract the\nPerl binaries from the OS media, without having to reinstall the entire OS.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "AUTHOR": {
            "content": "This README was written by Sherm Pendley <sherm@dot-app.org>, and subsequently updated by\nDominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> and Breno G. de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org>. The \"Starting\nFrom Scratch\" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand <montbriand@apple.com>.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DATE": {
            "content": "Last modified 2013-04-29.\n\n\n\nperl v5.34.0                                 2025-07-25                                PERLMACOSX(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "perlmacosx - Perl under Mac OS X",
    "flags": [],
    "examples": [],
    "see_also": []
}