man > perlfreebsd(1)

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

NAME
       perlfreebsd - 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 <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=30631>) which has been
       integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.

   $^X doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD
       perl 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 using "sysctl" with "KERN_PROC_PATHNAME" if
       that is supported, else by reading the symlink /proc/curproc/file. FreeBSD 7 and earlier has
       a bug where either approach sometimes returns an incorrect value (see
       <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35703>).  In these cases perl will fall
       back to the old behaviour of using C's "argv[0]" value for $^X.

AUTHOR
       Nicholas Clark <nick AT ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven Rezic and Tim Bunce.

       Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.

perl v5.38.2                                 2026-08-18                               PERLFREEBSD(1)