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README.freebsd - Perl version 5 on FreeBSD systems
This document describes various features of FreeBSD that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.
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 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=misc/30631 )
which has been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.
perl 5.8.0 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 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.
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.
Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven Rezic and Tim Bunce.
Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perlbug@perl.org.