[Tfug] compiling vim with the :perldo option

[Robert Hunter]

Building vim 7.0 on debian sarge also had problems, specifically with
finding the perl library, even though it was installed.  Here is a
script of the build..

1) Get the source and look at options...

>tar xfj vim-7.0.tar.bz2
>cd vim70/
>./configure --help

2) Now configure

>./configure --prefix=$PWD/installhere --enable-perlinterp

3) But something went wrong according to the configure script

checking --enable-perlinterp argument... yes
checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl
checking Perl version... OK
checking if compile and link flags for Perl are sane... no: PERL DISABLED

4) Let's look at the log file for more details

>less src/auto/config.log

configure:3953: checking if compile and link flags for Perl are sane
configure:3977: gcc -o conftest -g -O2  -D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE
-DTHREADS_HAVE_PIDS -DDEBIAN  -I/usr/local/include -D_LAR\
GEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64  -I/usr/lib/perl/5.8/CORE
-Wl,-E  -L/usr/local/lib conftest.c  -Wl,-E  -L/usr/local/lib \
/usr/lib/perl/5.8/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
-L/usr/lib/perl/5.8/CORE -lperl -ldl -lm -lpthread -lcrypt \
>&5
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lperl
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
configure:3983: $? = 1
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h.  */
|
| #define PACKAGE_NAME ""
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME ""
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION ""
| #define PACKAGE_STRING ""
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT ""
| #define UNIX 1
| #define FEAT_NORMAL 1
| #define USE_XSMP_INTERACT 1
| /* end confdefs.h.  */
|
| int
| main ()
| {
|
|   ;
|   return 0;
| }
configure:4004: result: no: PERL DISABLED

5) The offending line is "/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lperl".  The
linker can't find the perl library.

>dpkg -l | grep libperl
ii  libperl5.6     5.6.1-8.9      Shared Perl library.
ii  libperl5.8     5.8.4-8sarge3  Shared Perl library

>dpkg -L libperl5.8
/.
/usr
/usr/lib
/usr/lib/libperl.so.5.8.4
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/lib/libperl.so.5.8
/usr/share/doc/libperl5.8

6) But wait, libperl is installed on my system, so why can't the build
find it?  The linker is probably looking for something like
"libperl.so" or "libperl.a", so there is a symlink missing.  Let's
test that theory, by creating a symlink in the current directory, and
then setting LDFLAGS environment variable ( which the configure script
will use ).

>ln -s /usr/lib/libperl.so.5.8.4 libperl.so
>export LDFLAGS=-L$PWD
>make distclean
>./configure --prefix=$PWD/installhere --enable-perlinterp

7) Now the configure script is happy.

checking --enable-perlinterp argument... yes
checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl
checking Perl version... OK
checking if compile and link flags for Perl are sane... yes

8) Finish up with 'make && make install'.



Hope it helps.

-- 
Rob