README.openbsd

If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
specifically designed to be readable as is.

=head1 NAME

perlopenbsd - Perl version 5 on OpenBSD systems

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document describes various features of OpenBSD that will affect how Perl
version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.

=head2 OpenBSD core dumps from getprotobyname_r and getservbyname_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 an incompatibility in
OpenBSD's C<getprotobyname_r> and C<getservbyname_r> function in versions 3.7
and later that will cause a SEGV when called without doing a C<bzero> on
their return structs prior to calling these functions.  Current Perl's
should handle this problem correctly.  Older threaded Perls (5.8.6 or earlier)
will run into this problem.  If you want to run a threaded Perl on OpenBSD
3.7 or higher, you will need to upgrade to at least Perl 5.8.7.

=head1 AUTHOR

Steve Peters <steve@fisharerojo.org>

Please report any errors, updates, or suggestions to F<perlbug@perl.org>.