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



NAME
       README.freebsd - 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 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=misc/30631 ) which has
       been integrated into FreeBSD 4.6.

   $^X doesn't always contain a full path in FreeBSD
       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.

   Perl will no longer be part of "base FreeBSD"
       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.

AUTHOR
       Nicholas Clark <nickATccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven Rezic and Tim Bunce.

       Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to perlbugATperl.org.



perl v5.12.4                                               2011-06-07                                             PERLFREEBSD(1)