PERLMACOSX(1)

📦
version 5.42.3 · 22 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

💖 perlmacosx — Perl under Mac OS X 💖

okay so this is the perlmacosx manual page, bestie, and it's the one you open when you're like "how do I get Perl living its best life on a Mac?" spoiler: it's honestly so chill. 🍓

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

This doc is a quick little tour of Perl under Mac OS X. Like, the whole vibe in one screen:

curl -O https://www.cpan.org/src/perl-5.42.3.tar.gz
tar -xzf perl-5.42.3.tar.gz
cd perl-5.42.3
./Configure -des -Dprefix=/usr/local/
make
make test
sudo make install

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The latest Perl release (5.42.3 as of this writing, no cap) builds with zero changes under literally every version of Mac OS X from 10.3 "Panther" onwards. Not a single patch. She just works. 💅

So if you wanna build your own version of Perl you're gonna need make, which comes bundled in Apple's developer tools — aka Xcode. From Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" onwards, you can also just grab it separately as the 'Command Line Tools' bundle straight from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ (heads up: you need a free account to log in), or as part of the whole Xcode suite, which is free on the App Store. Now — Xcode is a pretty big app, so unless you already have it or genuinely want it, take my advice and get the 'Command Line Tools' bundle separately from that link up there. 🫶 And if you're determined to do it from inside Xcode, go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads and tick the 'Command Line Tools' option.

Fun lore moment: between Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and 10.6 "Snow Leopard", the 'Command Line Tools' bundle was actually called 'unix tools', and it usually came on the Mac OS install DVDs. Retro. 💀

Now for the ancient history girlies: earlier Mac OS X releases (10.2 "Jaguar" and older) did not include a completely thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported there. Also, those earlier releases shipped a buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests are known to fail on them. Not our fault, we're just the messengers. 😭

🎀 Installation Prefix 🎀

The default install location for this release uses the classic traditional UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended spot for most users, and the whole point is that it leaves the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules completely undisturbed. Untouched. Unbothered. Flourishing. ✨

If you instead use an installation prefix of /usr, you'll get a directory layout that mirrors Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in /System/Library/Perl/${version}, CPAN modules stored in /Library/Perl/${version}, and /Network/Library/Perl/${version} added to @INC for modules that live on a file server and get used by a bunch of Macs at once. Very network-core of you. 🌈

🦋 SDK support 🦋

First things first, export the path to the SDK into the build environment:

export SDK=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk

Please please please make sure the SDK version (i.e. the numbers right before .sdk) matches your system's — in this case, Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" — because it is totally possible to have more than one SDK installed and then it's giving chaos. 🙈 Also make sure that path actually exists on your system, and if it doesn't, go make sure the SDK is properly installed, since it should come with the 'Command Line Tools' bundle we mentioned above. And finally: if you have an older Mac OS X (10.6 "Snow Leopard" and below) running Xcode 4.2 or lower, the SDK path might be something like /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.9.sdk.

You can use the SDK by exporting some additions to Perl's ccflags and ..flags config variables:

    ./Configure -Accflags="-nostdinc -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc \
                           -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include \
                           -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks" \
                -Aldflags="-Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK" \
                -de

💜 Universal Binary support 💜

Note: From Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" onwards, Apple only supports Intel-based hardware. Which means you can safely skip this section unless you have an older Apple computer running on ppc or you specifically wish to create a perl binary with backwards compatibility. 🧚

You can compile perl as a universal binary (built for both ppc and intel). In Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", you must export the 'u' variant of the SDK:

    export SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk

Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and above do not require the 'u' variant. Lucky them. 💅

In addition to the compiler flags used to select the SDK, also add the flags for creating a universal binary:

 ./Configure -Accflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -nostdinc               \
                         -B$SDK/usr/include/gcc                      \
                        -B$SDK/usr/lib/gcc -isystem$SDK/usr/include  \
                        -F$SDK/System/Library/Frameworks"            \
             -Aldflags="-arch i686 -arch ppc -Wl,-syslibroot,$SDK"   \
             -de

Keep in mind that these compiler and linker settings will also be used when building CPAN modules. For XS modules to be compiled as a universal binary, any libraries it links to must also be universal binaries. The system libraries that Apple includes with the 10.4u SDK are all universal, but user-installed libraries may need to be re-installed as universal binaries. So like... reinstall your whole library ecosystem, bestie. It's fine. It's giving commitment. 😭

👑 64-bit PPC support 👑

Follow the instructions in INSTALL to build perl with support for 64-bit integers ("use64bitint") or both 64-bit integers and 64-bit addressing ("use64bitall"). In the latter case, the resulting binary will run only on G5-based hosts. Exclusive. 💅

Support for 64-bit addressing is experimental: some aspects of Perl may be omitted or buggy. Note the messages output by Configure for further information. Please use https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues to submit a problem report in the event that you encounter difficulties. We want the receipts. 📝

When building 64-bit modules, it is your responsibility to ensure that linked external libraries and frameworks provide 64-bit support: if they do not, module building may appear to succeed, but attempts to use the module will result in run-time dynamic linking errors, and subsequent test failures. Not a vibe. You can use "file" to discover the architectures supported by a library:

    $ file libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib
    libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
    libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc):      Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc
    libgdbm.3.0.0.dylib (for architecture ppc64):    Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library ppc64

Note that this issue precludes the building of many Macintosh-specific CPAN modules ("Mac::*"), as the required Apple frameworks do not provide PPC64 support. Similarly, downloads from Fink or Darwinports are unlikely to provide 64-bit support; the libraries must be rebuilt from source with the appropriate compiler and linker flags. For further information, see Apple's 64-Bit Transition Guide at https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/64bitPorting/transition/transition.html. It's giving ✨required reading✨.

🫶 libperl and Prebinding 🫶

Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for this release is to compile a static libperl. Why? Pre-binding, babes. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and thus has easy access to it when building Perl — but ordinary users would need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed for pre-binding. And honestly? Not worth it.

You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish (Configure ... -Duseshrplib). Live your truth. 💅

With Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and newer, there is almost no performance penalty for non-prebound libraries. Earlier releases will suffer a greater load time than either the static library, or Apple's pre-bound dynamic library. So on old systems it's giving "waiting". ⏳

🙈 Updating Apple's Perl 🙈

In a word — don't. At least not without a very good reason, and I mean very italicized. Your scripts can just as easily begin with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" as with "#!/usr/bin/perl". Scripts supplied by Apple and other third parties as part of installation packages and such have generally only been tested with the /usr/bin/perl that's installed by Apple. So like... they're not gonna pass the vibe check elsewhere.

If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, one issue worth keeping in mind is the question of static vs. dynamic libraries. If you upgrade using the default static libperl, you will find that the dynamic libperl supplied by Apple will not be deleted. If both libraries are present when an application that links against libperl is built, ld will link against the dynamic library by default. So, if you need to replace Apple's dynamic libperl with a static libperl, you need to be sure to delete the older dynamic library after you've installed the update. Otherwise you've got two libperls fighting in the group chat and only one of them is winning. 💀

😭 Known problems 😭

If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink (in other words, you have libraries under /sw/lib), or libdlcompat to /usr/local/lib, you may need to be extra careful when running Configure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries to use. And being confused will show up, for example, as "dyld" errors about symbol problems — like, during "make test". The safest bet is to run Configure as

    Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib

to make Configure look only into the system libraries. Tunnel vision. Focused. Iconic. ✨

If you have some extra library directories that you really want to use (such as newer Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth:

    Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib'

The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl

    Configure ... -Duseshrplib

but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above "libperl and Prebinding"). Everything's a tradeoff, bestie. 🌸

Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in failures in the lib/locale test. These failures have been suppressed in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken locale. If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support. Godspeed. 🫡

🎀 Cocoa 🎀

There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl, so pick your fighter.

Apple's PerlObjCBridge module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects. Chill, no windows required. 🍓

An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applications can be built in Perl. Main character energy fr fr. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at https://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/. 👑

to be continued, bestie — part 2 incoming 🦋

🧨 Starting From Scratch 🧨

okay bestie, sit down for this one, because it is genuinely, unbelievably easy to break your Mac OS X Perl beyond recognition 😭. And if literally all else has failed, and you're at the "burn it all down, I want to REALLY, REALLY start from scratch" stage — like, removing even your Apple Perl installation that somehow got corrupted — the following instructions should do it. Please think twice before following these instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery on yourself. Without anesthesia. 🧠🔪 And no, we will not come fix your system if you do this. Not a vibe, not a joke.

First up: get rid of the libperl.dylib:

# cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE
# rm libperl.dylib

Then: delete every .bundle file found anywhere in these folders:

  • /System/Library/Perl
  • /Library/Perl

You can find them, for example, by:

# find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print

After this you've got two options, pick your fighter ✨:

  1. Copy Perl from your operating system media — you will need at least /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl.
  2. Rebuild Perl from the source code with Configure -Dprefix=/usr -Duseshrplib.
NOTE: the -Dprefix=/usr that replaces the system Perl works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later — in Perl 5.8.0 the settings were not quite right. 💅

Also, Pacifist from CharlesSoft (https://www.charlessoft.com/) is a nice way to extract the Perl binaries from the OS media without having to reinstall your entire OS. genuinely iconic 🎀

👑 AUTHOR 👑

This README was written by Sherm Pendley <sherm@dot-app.org>, and subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org> and Breno G. de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org>. The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand <montbriand@apple.com>. legends only, no cap 🫶

📅 DATE 📅

Last modified 2013-04-29.

and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 this one is perl v5.42.3, it's dated 2026-08-03, and it answers to the name PERLMACOSX(1) — periodt 💖✨

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