NAME
staticperl - perl, libc, 100 modules, all in one standalone 500kb file
SYNOPSIS
staticperl help # print the embedded documentation
staticperl fetch # fetch and unpack perl sources
staticperl configure # fetch and then configure perl
staticperl build # configure and then build perl
staticperl install # build and then install perl
staticperl clean # clean most intermediate files (restart at configure)
staticperl distclean # delete everything installed by this script
staticperl perl ... # invoke the perlinterpreter
staticperl cpan # invoke CPAN shell
staticperl instsrc path... # install unpacked modules
staticperl instcpan modulename... # install modules from CPAN
staticperl mkbundle <bundle-args...> # see documentation
staticperl mkperl <bundle-args...> # see documentation
staticperl mkapp appname <bundle-args...> # see documentation
Typical Examples:
staticperl install # fetch, configure, build and install perl
staticperl cpan # run interactive cpan shell
staticperl mkperl -MConfig_heavy.pl # build a perl that supports -V
staticperl mkperl -MAnyEvent::Impl::Perl -MAnyEvent::HTTPD -MURI -MURI::http
# build a perl with the above modules linked in
staticperl mkapp myapp --boot mainprog mymodules
# build a binary "myapp" from mainprog and mymodules
DESCRIPTION
This script helps you to create single-file perl interpreters or
applications, or embedding a perl interpreter in your applications.
Single-file means that it is fully self-contained - no separate shared
objects, no autoload fragments, no .pm or .pl files are needed. And when
linking statically, you can create (or embed) a single file that
contains perl interpreter, libc, all the modules you need, all the
libraries you need and of course your actual program.
With uClibc and upx on x86, you can create a single 500kb binary that
contains perl and 100 modules such as POSIX, AnyEvent, EV, IO::AIO, Coro
and so on. Or any other choice of modules (and some other size :).
To see how this turns out, you can try out smallperl and bigperl, two
pre-built static and compressed perl binaries with many and even more
modules: just follow the links at <http://staticperl.schmorp.de/>.
The created files do not need write access to the file system (like PAR
does). In fact, since this script is in many ways similar to
PAR::Packer, here are the differences:
* The generated executables are much smaller than PAR created ones.
Shared objects and the perl binary contain a lot of extra info,
while the static nature of staticperl allows the linker to remove
all functionality and meta-info not required by the final
executable. Even extensions statically compiled into perl at build
time will only be present in the final executable when needed.
In addition, staticperl can strip perl sources much more effectively
than PAR.
* The generated executables start much faster.
There is no need to unpack files, or even to parse Zip archives
(which is slow and memory-consuming business).
* The generated executables don't need a writable filesystem.
staticperl loads all required files directly from memory. There is
no need to unpack files into a temporary directory.
* More control over included files, more burden.
PAR tries to be maintenance and hassle-free - it tries to include
more files than necessary to make sure everything works out of the
box. It mostly succeeds at this, but he extra files (such as the
unicode database) can take substantial amounts of memory and file
size.
With staticperl, the burden is mostly with the developer - only
direct compile-time dependencies and AutoLoader are handled
automatically. This means the modules to include often need to be
tweaked manually.
All this does not preclude more permissive modes to be implemented
in the future, but right now, you have to resolve hidden
dependencies manually.
* PAR works out of the box, staticperl does not.
Maintaining your own custom perl build can be a pain in the ass, and
while staticperl tries to make this easy, it still requires a custom
perl build and possibly fiddling with some modules. PAR is likely to
produce results faster.
Ok, PAR never has worked for me out of the box, and for some people,
staticperl does work out of the box, as they don't count "fiddling
with module use lists" against it, but nevertheless, staticperl is
certainly a bit more difficult to use.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Simple: staticperl downloads, compile and installs a perl version of
your choice in ~/.staticperl. You can add extra modules either by
letting staticperl install them for you automatically, or by using CPAN
and doing it interactively. This usually takes 5-10 minutes, depending
on the speed of your computer and your internet connection.
It is possible to do program development at this stage, too.
Afterwards, you create a list of files and modules you want to include,
and then either build a new perl binary (that acts just like a normal
perl except everything is compiled in), or you create bundle files
(basically C sources you can use to embed all files into your project).
This step is very fast (a few seconds if PPI is not used for stripping,
or the stripped files are in the cache), and can be tweaked and repeated
as often as necessary.
THE STATICPERL SCRIPT
This module installs a script called staticperl into your perl binary
directory. The script is fully self-contained, and can be used without
perl (for example, in an uClibc chroot environment). In fact, it can be
extracted from the "App::Staticperl" distribution tarball as
bin/staticperl, without any installation. The newest (possibly alpha)
version can also be downloaded from
<http://staticperl.schmorp.de/staticperl>.
staticperl interprets the first argument as a command to execute,
optionally followed by any parameters.
There are two command categories: the "phase 1" commands which deal with
installing perl and perl modules, and the "phase 2" commands, which deal
with creating binaries and bundle files.
PHASE 1 COMMANDS: INSTALLING PERL
The most important command is install, which does basically everything.
The default is to download and install perl 5.12.3 and a few modules
required by staticperl itself, but all this can (and should) be changed
- see CONFIGURATION, below.
The command
staticperl install
is normally all you need: It installs the perl interpreter in
~/.staticperl/perl. It downloads, configures, builds and installs the
perl interpreter if required.
Most of the following staticperl subcommands simply run one or more
steps of this sequence.
If it fails, then most commonly because the compiler options I selected
are not supported by your compiler - either edit the staticperl script
yourself or create ~/.staticperl shell script where your set working
"PERL_CCFLAGS" etc. variables.
To force recompilation or reinstallation, you need to run staticperl
distclean first.
staticperl version
Prints some info about the version of the staticperl script you are
using.
staticperl fetch
Runs only the download and unpack phase, unless this has already
happened.
staticperl configure
Configures the unpacked perl sources, potentially after downloading
them first.
staticperl build
Builds the configured perl sources, potentially after automatically
configuring them.
staticperl install
Wipes the perl installation directory (usually ~/.staticperl/perl)
and installs the perl distribution, potentially after building it
first.
staticperl perl [args...]
Invokes the compiled perl interpreter with the given args. Basically
the same as starting perl directly (usually via
~/.staticperl/bin/perl), but beats typing the path sometimes.
Example: check that the Gtk2 module is installed and loadable.
staticperl perl -MGtk2 -e0
staticperl cpan [args...]
Starts an interactive CPAN shell that you can use to install further
modules. Installs the perl first if necessary, but apart from that,
no magic is involved: you could just as well run it manually via
~/.staticperl/perl/bin/cpan, except that staticperl additionally
sets the environment variable $PERL to the path of the perl
interpreter, which is handy in subshells.
Any additional arguments are simply passed to the cpan command.
staticperl instcpan module...
Tries to install all the modules given and their dependencies, using
CPAN.
Example:
staticperl instcpan EV AnyEvent::HTTPD Coro
staticperl instsrc directory...
In the unlikely case that you have unpacked perl modules around and
want to install from these instead of from CPAN, you can do this
using this command by specifying all the directories with modules in
them that you want to have built.
staticperl clean
Deletes the perl source directory (and potentially cleans up other
intermediate files). This can be used to clean up files only needed
for building perl, without removing the installed perl interpreter.
At the moment, it doesn't delete downloaded tarballs.
The exact semantics of this command will probably change.
staticperl distclean
This wipes your complete ~/.staticperl directory. Be careful with
this, it nukes your perl download, perl sources, perl distribution
and any installed modules. It is useful if you wish to start over
"from scratch" or when you want to uninstall staticperl.
PHASE 2 COMMANDS: BUILDING PERL BUNDLES
Building (linking) a new perl binary is handled by a separate script. To
make it easy to use staticperl from a chroot, the script is embedded
into staticperl, which will write it out and call for you with any
arguments you pass:
staticperl mkbundle mkbundle-args...
In the oh so unlikely case of something not working here, you can run
the script manually as well (by default it is written to
~/.staticperl/mkbundle).
mkbundle is a more conventional command and expect the argument syntax
commonly used on UNIX clones. For example, this command builds a new
perl binary and includes Config.pm (for perl -V), AnyEvent::HTTPD, URI
and a custom httpd script (from eg/httpd in this distribution):
# first make sure we have perl and the required modules
staticperl instcpan AnyEvent::HTTPD
# now build the perl
staticperl mkperl -MConfig_heavy.pl -MAnyEvent::Impl::Perl \
-MAnyEvent::HTTPD -MURI::http \
--add 'eg/httpd httpd.pm'
# finally, invoke it
./perl -Mhttpd
As you can see, things are not quite as trivial: the Config module has a
hidden dependency which is not even a perl module (Config_heavy.pl),
AnyEvent needs at least one event loop backend that we have to specify
manually (here AnyEvent::Impl::Perl), and the URI module (required by
AnyEvent::HTTPD) implements various URI schemes as extra modules - since
AnyEvent::HTTPD only needs "http" URIs, we only need to include that
module. I found out about these dependencies by carefully watching any
error messages about missing modules...
Instead of building a new perl binary, you can also build a standalone
application:
# build the app
staticperl mkapp app --boot eg/httpd \
-MAnyEvent::Impl::Perl -MAnyEvent::HTTPD -MURI::http
# run it
./app
Here are the three phase 2 commands:
staticperl mkbundle args...
The "default" bundle command - it interprets the given bundle
options and writes out bundle.h, bundle.c, bundle.ccopts and
bundle.ldopts files, useful for embedding.
staticperl mkperl args...
Creates a bundle just like staticperl mkbundle (in fact, it's the
same as invoking staticperl mkbundle --perl args...), but then
compiles and links a new perl interpreter that embeds the created
bundle, then deletes all intermediate files.
staticperl mkapp filename args...
Does the same as staticperl mkbundle (in fact, it's the same as
invoking staticperl mkbundle --app filename args...), but then
compiles and links a new standalone application that simply
initialises the perl interpreter.
The difference to staticperl mkperl is that the standalone
application does not act like a perl interpreter would - in fact, by
default it would just do nothing and exit immediately, so you should
specify some code to be executed via the --boot option.
OPTION PROCESSING
All options can be given as arguments on the command line (typically
using long (e.g. "--verbose") or short option (e.g. "-v") style). Since
specifying a lot of options can make the command line very long and
unwieldy, you can put all long options into a "bundle specification
file" (one option per line, with or without "--" prefix) and specify
this bundle file instead.
For example, the command given earlier to link a new perl could also
look like this:
staticperl mkperl httpd.bundle
With all options stored in the httpd.bundle file (one option per line,
everything after the option is an argument):
use "Config_heavy.pl"
use AnyEvent::Impl::Perl
use AnyEvent::HTTPD
use URI::http
add eg/httpd httpd.pm
All options that specify modules or files to be added are processed in
the order given on the command line.
BUNDLE CREATION WORKFLOW / STATICPERL MKBUNDLE OPTIONS
staticperl mkbundle works by first assembling a list of candidate files
and modules to include, then filtering them by include/exclude patterns.
The remaining modules (together with their direct dependencies, such as
link libraries and AutoLoader files) are then converted into bundle
files suitable for embedding. staticperl mkbundle can then optionally
build a new perl interpreter or a standalone application.
Step 0: Generic argument processing.
The following options influence staticperl mkbundle itself.
"--verbose" | "-v"
Increases the verbosity level by one (the default is 1).
"--quiet" | "-q"
Decreases the verbosity level by one.
any other argument
Any other argument is interpreted as a bundle specification
file, which supports all options (without extra quoting), one
option per line, in the format "option" or "option argument".
They will effectively be expanded and processed as if they were
directly written on the command line, in place of the file name.
Step 1: gather candidate files and modules
In this step, modules, perl libraries (.pl files) and other files
are selected for inclusion in the bundle. The relevant options are
executed in order (this makes a difference mostly for "--eval",
which can rely on earlier "--use" options to have been executed).
"--use" module | "-M"module
Include the named module or perl library and trace direct
dependencies. This is done by loading the module in a subprocess
and tracing which other modules and files it actually loads.
Example: include AnyEvent and AnyEvent::Impl::Perl.
staticperl mkbundle --use AnyEvent --use AnyEvent::Impl::Perl
Sometimes you want to load old-style "perl libraries" (.pl
files), or maybe other weirdly named files. To support this, the
"--use" option actually tries to do what you mean, depending on
the string you specify:
a possibly valid module name, e.g. common::sense, Carp,
Coro::Mysql.
If the string contains no quotes, no / and no ., then
"--use" assumes that it is a normal module name. It will
create a new package and evaluate a "use module" in it, i.e.
it will load the package and do a default import.
The import step is done because many modules trigger more
dependencies when something is imported than without.
anything that contains / or . characters, e.g. utf8_heavy.pl,
Module/private/data.pl.
The string will be quoted and passed to require, as if you
used "require $module". Nothing will be imported.
"path" or 'path', e.g. "utf8_heavy.pl".
If you enclose the name into single or double quotes, then
the quotes will be removed and the resulting string will be
passed to require. This syntax is form compatibility with
older versions of staticperl and should not be used anymore.
Example: "use" AnyEvent::Socket, once using "use" (importing the
symbols), and once via "require", not importing any symbols. The
first form is preferred as many modules load some extra
dependencies when asked to export symbols.
staticperl mkbundle -MAnyEvent::Socket # use + import
staticperl mkbundle -MAnyEvent/Socket.pm # require only
Example: include the required files for perl -V to work in all
its glory (Config.pm is included automatically by the dependency
tracker).
# shell command
staticperl mkbundle -MConfig_heavy.pl
# bundle specification file
use Config_heavy.pl
The "-M"module syntax is included as a convenience that might be
easier to remember than "--use" - it's the same switch as perl
itself uses to load modules. Or maybe it confuses people. Time
will tell. Or maybe not. Sigh.
"--eval" "perl code" | "-e" "perl code"
Sometimes it is easier (or necessary) to specify dependencies
using perl code, or maybe one of the modules you use need a
special use statement. In that case, you can use "--eval" to
execute some perl snippet or set some variables or whatever you
need. All files "require"'d or "use"'d while executing the
snippet are included in the final bundle.
Keep in mind that mkbundle will not import any symbols from the
modules named by the "--use" option, so do not expect the
symbols from modules you "--use"'d earlier on the command line
to be available.
Example: force AnyEvent to detect a backend and therefore
include it in the final bundle.
staticperl mkbundle --eval 'use AnyEvent; AnyEvent::detect'
# or like this
staticperl mkbundle -MAnyEvent --eval 'AnyEvent::detect'
Example: use a separate "bootstrap" script that "use"'s lots of
modules and also include this in the final bundle, to be
executed automatically when the interpreter is initialised.
staticperl mkbundle --eval 'do "bootstrap"' --boot bootstrap
"--boot" filename
Include the given file in the bundle and arrange for it to be
executed (using "require") before the main program when the new
perl is initialised. This can be used to modify @INC or do
similar modifications before the perl interpreter executes
scripts given on the command line (or via "-e"). This works even
in an embedded interpreter - the file will be executed during
interpreter initialisation in that case.
"--incglob" pattern
This goes through all standard library directories and tries to
match any .pm and .pl files against the extended glob pattern
(see below). If a file matches, it is added. The pattern is
matched against the full path of the file (sans the library
directory prefix), e.g. Sys/Syslog.pm.
This is very useful to include "everything":
--incglob '*'
It is also useful for including perl libraries, or trees of
those, such as the unicode database files needed by some perl
built-ins, the regex engine and other modules.
--incglob '/unicore/**.pl'
"--add" file | "--add" "file alias"
Adds the given (perl) file into the bundle (and optionally call
it "alias"). The file is either an absolute path or a path
relative to the current directory. If an alias is specified,
then this is the name it will use for @INC searches, otherwise
the path file will be used as the internal name.
This switch is used to include extra files into the bundle.
Example: embed the file httpd in the current directory as
httpd.pm when creating the bundle.
staticperl mkperl --add "httpd httpd.pm"
# can be accessed via "use httpd"
Example: add a file initcode from the current directory.
staticperl mkperl --add 'initcode &initcode'
# can be accessed via "do '&initcode'"
Example: add local files as extra modules in the bundle.
# specification file
add file1 myfiles/file1.pm
add file2 myfiles/file2.pm
add file3 myfiles/file3.pl
# then later, in perl, use
use myfiles::file1;
require myfiles::file2;
my $res = do "myfiles/file3.pl";
"--binadd" file | "--binadd" "file alias"
Just like "--add", except that it treats the file as binary and
adds it without any postprocessing (perl files might get
stripped to reduce their size).
If you specify an alias you should probably add a "/" prefix to
avoid clashing with embedded perl files (whose paths never start
with "/"), and/or use a special directory prefix, such as
"/res/name".
You can later get a copy of these files by calling "static::find
"alias"".
An alternative way to embed binary files is to convert them to
perl and use "do" to get the contents - this method is a bit
cumbersome, but works both inside and outside of a staticperl
bundle, without extra ado:
# a "binary" file, call it "bindata.pl"
<<'SOME_MARKER'
binary data NOT containing SOME_MARKER
SOME_MARKER
# load the binary
chomp (my $data = do "bindata.pl");
"--allow-dynamic"
By default, when mkbundle hits a dynamic perl extension (e.g. a
.so or .dll file), it will stop with a fatal error.
When this option is enabled, mkbundle packages the shared object
into the bundle instead, with a prefix of ! (e.g.
!auto/List/Util/Util.so). What you do with that is currently up
to you, staticperl has no special support for this at the
moment, apart from working around the lack of availability of
PerlIO::scalar while bootstrapping, at a speed cost.
One way to deal with this is to write all files starting with !
into some directory and then "unshift" that path onto @INC.
#TODO: example
Step 2: filter all files using "--include" and "--exclude" options.
After all candidate files and modules are added, they are *filtered*
by a combination of "--include" and "--exclude" patterns (there is
an implicit "--include *" at the end, so if no filters are
specified, all files are included).
All that this step does is potentially reduce the number of files
that are to be included - no new files are added during this step.
"--include" pattern | "-i" pattern | "--exclude" pattern | "-x"
pattern
These specify an include or exclude pattern to be applied to the
candidate file list. An include makes sure that the given files
will be part of the resulting file set, an exclude will exclude
remaining files. The patterns are "extended glob patterns" (see
below).
The patterns are applied "in order" - files included via earlier
"--include" specifications cannot be removed by any following
"--exclude", and likewise, and file excluded by an earlier
"--exclude" cannot be added by any following "--include".
For example, to include everything except "Devel" modules, but
still include Devel::PPPort, you could use this:
--incglob '*' -i '/Devel/PPPort.pm' -x '/Devel/**'
Step 3: add any extra or "hidden" dependencies.
staticperl currently knows about three extra types of depdendencies
that are added automatically. Only one (.packlist files) is
currently optional and can be influenced, the others are always
included:
"--usepacklists"
Read .packlist files for each distribution that happens to match
a module name you specified. Sounds weird, and it is, so expect
semantics to change somehow in the future.
The idea is that most CPAN distributions have a .pm file that
matches the name of the distribution (which is rather reasonable
after all).
If this switch is enabled, then if any of the .pm files that
have been selected match an install distribution, then all .pm,
.pl, .al and .ix files installed by this distribution are also
included.
For example, using this switch, when the URI module is
specified, then all URI submodules that have been installed via
the CPAN distribution are included as well, so you don't have to
manually specify them.
AutoLoader splitfiles
Some modules use AutoLoader - less commonly (hopefully) used
functions are split into separate .al files, and an index (.ix)
file contains the prototypes.
Both .ix and .al files will be detected automatically and added
to the bundle.
link libraries (.a files)
Modules using XS (or any other non-perl language extension
compiled at installation time) will have a static archive
(typically .a). These will automatically be added to the linker
options in bundle.ldopts.
Should staticperl find a dynamic link library (typically .so) it
will warn about it - obviously this shouldn't happen unless you
use staticperl on the wrong perl, or one (probably wrongly)
configured to use dynamic loading.
extra libraries (extralibs.ld)
Some modules need linking against external libraries - these are
found in extralibs.ld and added to bundle.ldopts.
Step 4: write bundle files and optionally link a program
At this point, the select files will be read, processed (stripped)
and finally the bundle files get written to disk, and staticperl
mkbundle is normally finished. Optionally, it can go a step further
and either link a new perl binary with all selected modules and
files inside, or build a standalone application.
Both the contents of the bundle files and any extra linking is
controlled by these options:
"--strip" "none"|"pod"|"ppi"
Specify the stripping method applied to reduce the file of the
perl sources included.
The default is "pod", which uses the Pod::Strip module to remove
all pod documentation, which is very fast and reduces file size
a lot.
The "ppi" method uses PPI to parse and condense the perl
sources. This saves a lot more than just Pod::Strip, and is
generally safer, but is also a lot slower (some files take
almost a minute to strip - staticperl maintains a cache of
stripped files to speed up subsequent runs for this reason).
Note that this method doesn't optimise for raw file size, but
for best compression (that means that the uncompressed file size
is a bit larger, but the files compress better, e.g. with upx).
Last not least, if you need accurate line numbers in error
messages, or in the unlikely case where "pod" is too slow, or
some module gets mistreated, you can specify "none" to not
mangle included perl sources in any way.
"--perl"
After writing out the bundle files, try to link a new perl
interpreter. It will be called perl and will be left in the
current working directory. The bundle files will be removed.
This switch is automatically used when staticperl is invoked
with the "mkperl" command instead of "mkbundle".
Example: build a new ./perl binary with only common::sense
inside - it will be even smaller than the standard perl
interpreter as none of the modules of the base distribution
(such as Fcntl) will be included.
staticperl mkperl -Mcommon::sense
"--app" name
After writing out the bundle files, try to link a new standalone
program. It will be called "name", and the bundle files get
removed after linking it.
This switch is automatically used when staticperl is invoked
with the "mkapp" command instead of "mkbundle".
The difference to the (mutually exclusive) "--perl" option is
that the binary created by this option will not try to act as a
perl interpreter - instead it will simply initialise the perl
interpreter, clean it up and exit.
This means that, by default, it will do nothing but burn a few
CPU cycles - for it to do something useful you *must* add some
boot code, e.g. with the "--boot" option.
Example: create a standalone perl binary called ./myexe that
will execute appfile when it is started.
staticperl mkbundle --app myexe --boot appfile
"--ignore-env"
Generates extra code to unset some environment variables before
initialising/running perl. Perl supports a lot of environment
variables that might alter execution in ways that might be
undesirablre for standalone applications, and this option
removes those known to cause trouble.
Specifically, these are removed:
"PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG" and "PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS" can cause
undesirable output, "PERL5OPT", "PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL",
"PERL_HASH_SEED" and "PERL_SIGNALS" can alter execution
significantly, and "PERL_UNICODE", "PERLIO_DEBUG" and "PERLIO"
can affect input and output.
The variables "PERL_LIB" and "PERL5_LIB" are always ignored
because the startup code used by staticperl overrides @INC in
all cases.
This option will not make your program more secure (unless you
are running with elevated privileges), but it will reduce the
surprise effect when a user has these environment variables set
and doesn't expect your standalone program to act like a perl
interpreter.
"--static"
Add "-static" to bundle.ldopts, which means a fully static (if
supported by the OS) executable will be created. This is not
immensely useful when just creating the bundle files, but is
most useful when linking a binary with the "--perl" or "--app"
options.
The default is to link the new binary dynamically (that means
all perl modules are linked statically, but all external
libraries are still referenced dynamically).
Keep in mind that Solaris doesn't support static linking at all,
and systems based on GNU libc don't really support it in a very
usable fashion either. Try uClibc if you want to create fully
statically linked executables, or try the "--staticlib" option
to link only some libraries statically.
"--staticlib" libname
When not linking fully statically, this option allows you to
link specific libraries statically. What it does is simply
replace all occurrences of "-llibname" with the GCC-specific
"-Wl,-Bstatic -llibname -Wl,-Bdynamic" option.
This will have no effect unless the library is actually linked
against, specifically, "--staticlib" will not link against the
named library unless it would be linked against anyway.
Example: link libcrypt statically into the final binary.
staticperl mkperl -MIO::AIO --staticlib crypt
# ldopts might now contain:
# -lm -Wl,-Bstatic -lcrypt -Wl,-Bdynamic -lpthread
EXTENDED GLOB PATTERNS
Some options of staticperl mkbundle expect an *extended glob pattern*.
This is neither a normal shell glob nor a regex, but something in
between. The idea has been copied from rsync, and there are the current
matching rules:
Patterns starting with / will be a anchored at the root of the library
tree.
That is, /unicore will match the unicore directory in @INC, but
nothing inside, and neither any other file or directory called
unicore anywhere else in the hierarchy.
Patterns not starting with / will be anchored at the end of the path.
That is, idna.pl will match any file called idna.pl anywhere in the
hierarchy, but not any directories of the same name.
A * matches anything within a single path component.
That is, /unicore/*.pl would match all .pl files directly inside
"/unicore", not any deeper level .pl files. Or in other words, *
will not match slashes.
A ** matches anything.
That is, /unicore/**.pl would match all .pl files under /unicore, no
matter how deeply nested they are inside subdirectories.
A ? matches a single character within a component.
That is, /Encode/??.pm matches /Encode/JP.pm, but not the
hypothetical /Encode/J/.pm, as ? does not match /.
STATICPERL CONFIGURATION AND HOOKS
During (each) startup, staticperl tries to source some shell files to
allow you to fine-tune/override configuration settings.
In them you can override shell variables, or define shell functions
("hooks") to be called at specific phases during installation. For
example, you could define a "postinstall" hook to install additional
modules from CPAN each time you start from scratch.
If the env variable $STATICPERLRC is set, then staticperl will try to
source the file named with it only. Otherwise, it tries the following
shell files in order:
/etc/staticperlrc
~/.staticperlrc
$STATICPERL/rc
Note that the last file is erased during staticperl distclean, so
generally should not be used.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
Variables you *should* override
"EMAIL"
The e-mail address of the person who built this binary. Has no good
default, so should be specified by you.
"CPAN"
The URL of the CPAN mirror to use (e.g.
<http://mirror.netcologne.de/cpan/>).
"EXTRA_MODULES"
Additional modules installed during staticperl install. Here you can
set which modules you want have to installed from CPAN.
Example: I really really need EV, AnyEvent, Coro and AnyEvent::AIO.
EXTRA_MODULES="EV AnyEvent Coro AnyEvent::AIO"
Note that you can also use a "postinstall" hook to achieve this, and
more.
Variables you might *want* to override
"STATICPERL"
The directory where staticperl stores all its files (default:
~/.staticperl).
"DLCACHE"
The path to a directory (will be created if it doesn't exist) where
downloaded perl sources are being cached, to avoid downloading them
again. The default is empty, which means there is no cache.
"PERL_VERSION"
The perl version to install - default is currently 5.12.3, but 5.8.9
is also a good choice (5.8.9 is much smaller than 5.12.3, while
5.10.1 is about as big as 5.12.3).
"PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT", "EV_EXTRA_DEFS", ...
Usually set to 1 to make modules "less inquisitive" during their
installation. You can set (and export!) any environment variable you
want - some modules (such as Coro or EV) use environment variables
for further tweaking.
"PERL_PREFIX"
The prefix where perl gets installed (default: $STATICPERL/perl),
i.e. where the bin and lib subdirectories will end up.
"PERL_CONFIGURE"
Additional Configure options - these are simply passed to the perl
Configure script. For example, if you wanted to enable dynamic
loading, you could pass "-Dusedl". To enable ithreads (Why would you
want that insanity? Don't! Use forks instead!) you would pass
"-Duseithreads" and so on.
More commonly, you would either activate 64 bit integer support
("-Duse64bitint"), or disable large files support (-Uuselargefiles),
to reduce filesize further.
"PERL_CC", "PERL_CCFLAGS", "PERL_OPTIMIZE", "PERL_LDFLAGS", "PERL_LIBS"
These flags are passed to perl's Configure script, and are generally
optimised for small size (at the cost of performance). Since they
also contain subtle workarounds around various build issues,
changing these usually requires understanding their default values -
best look at the top of the staticperl script for more info on
these, and use a ~/.staticperlrc to override them.
Most of the variables override (or modify) the corresponding
Configure variable, except "PERL_CCFLAGS", which gets appended.
The default for "PERL_OPTIMIZE" is "-Os" (assuming gcc), and for
"PERL_LIBS" is "-lm -lcrypt", which should be good for most (but not
all) systems.
For other compilers or more customised optimisation settings, you
need to adjust these, e.g. in your ~/.staticperlrc.
With gcc on x86 and amd64, you can get more space-savings by using:
-Os -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -finline-limit=8 -mpush-args
-mno-inline-stringops-dynamically -mno-align-stringops
And on x86 and pentium3 and newer (basically everything you might
ever want to run on), adding these is even better for space-savings
(use -mtune=core2 or something newer for much faster code, too):
-fomit-frame-pointer -march=pentium3 -mtune=i386
Variables you probably *do not want* to override
"MAKE"
The make command to use - default is "make".
"MKBUNDLE"
Where staticperl writes the "mkbundle" command to (default:
$STATICPERL/mkbundle).
"STATICPERL_MODULES"
Additional modules needed by "mkbundle" - should therefore not be
changed unless you know what you are doing.
OVERRIDABLE HOOKS
In addition to environment variables, it is possible to provide some
shell functions that are called at specific times. To provide your own
commands, just define the corresponding function.
The actual order in which hooks are invoked during a full install from
scratch is "preconfigure", "patchconfig", "postconfigure", "postbuild",
"postinstall".
Example: install extra modules from CPAN and from some directories at
staticperl install time.
postinstall() {
rm -rf lib/threads* # weg mit Schaden
instcpan IO::AIO EV
instsrc ~/src/AnyEvent
instsrc ~/src/XML-Sablotron-1.0100001
instcpan Anyevent::AIO AnyEvent::HTTPD
}
preconfigure
Called just before running ./Configure in the perl source directory.
Current working directory is the perl source directory.
This can be used to set any "PERL_xxx" variables, which might be
costly to compute.
patchconfig
Called after running ./Configure in the perl source directory to
create ./config.sh, but before running ./Configure -S to actually
apply the config. Current working directory is the perl source
directory.
Can be used to tailor/patch config.sh or do any other modifications.
postconfigure
Called after configuring, but before building perl. Current working
directory is the perl source directory.
postbuild
Called after building, but before installing perl. Current working
directory is the perl source directory.
I have no clue what this could be used for - tell me.
postinstall
Called after perl and any extra modules have been installed in
$PREFIX, but before setting the "installation O.K." flag.
The current working directory is $PREFIX, but maybe you should not
rely on that.
This hook is most useful to customise the installation, by deleting
files, or installing extra modules using the "instcpan" or "instsrc"
functions.
The script must return with a zero exit status, or the installation
will fail.
ANATOMY OF A BUNDLE
When not building a new perl binary, "mkbundle" will leave a number of
files in the current working directory, which can be used to embed a
perl interpreter in your program.
Intimate knowledge of perlembed and preferably some experience with
embedding perl is highly recommended.
"mkperl" (or the "--perl" option) basically does this to link the new
interpreter (it also adds a main program to bundle.):
$Config{cc} $(cat bundle.ccopts) -o perl bundle.c $(cat bundle.ldopts)
bundle.h
A header file that contains the prototypes of the few symbols
"exported" by bundle.c, and also exposes the perl headers to the
application.
staticperl_init (xs_init = 0)
Initialises the perl interpreter. You can use the normal perl
functions after calling this function, for example, to define
extra functions or to load a .pm file that contains some
initialisation code, or the main program function:
XS (xsfunction)
{
dXSARGS;
// now we have items, ST(i) etc.
}
static void
run_myapp(void)
{
staticperl_init (0);
newXSproto ("myapp::xsfunction", xsfunction, __FILE__, "$$;$");
eval_pv ("require myapp::main", 1); // executes "myapp/main.pm"
}
When your bootcode already wants to access some XS functions at
compiletime, then you need to supply an "xs_init" function
pointer that is called as soon as perl is initialised enough to
define XS functions, but before the preamble code is executed:
static void
xs_init (pTHX)
{
newXSproto ("myapp::xsfunction", xsfunction, __FILE__, "$$;$");
}
static void
run_myapp(void)
{
staticperl_init (xs_init);
}
staticperl_cleanup ()
In the unlikely case that you want to destroy the perl
interpreter, here is the corresponding function.
staticperl_xs_init (pTHX)
Sometimes you need direct control over "perl_parse" and
"perl_run", in which case you do not want to use
"staticperl_init" but call them on your own.
Then you need this function - either pass it directly as the
"xs_init" function to "perl_parse", or call it as one of the
first things from your own "xs_init" function.
PerlInterpreter *staticperl
The perl interpreter pointer used by staticperl. Not normally so
useful, but there it is.
bundle.ccopts
Contains the compiler options required to compile at least bundle.c
and any file that includes bundle.h - you should probably use it in
your "CFLAGS".
bundle.ldopts
The linker options needed to link the final program.
RUNTIME FUNCTIONALITY
Binaries created with "mkbundle"/"mkperl" contain extra functionality,
mostly related to the extra files bundled in the binary (the virtual
filesystem). All of this data is statically compiled into the binary,
and accessing means copying it from a read-only section of your binary.
Data pages in this way is usually freed by the operating system, as it
isn't use more the onace.
VIRTUAL FILESYSTEM
Every bundle has a virtual filesystem. The only information stored in it
is the path and contents of each file that was bundled.
LAYOUT
Any path starting with an ampersand (&) or exclamation mark (!) are
reserved by staticperl. They must only be used as described in this
section.
! All files that typically cannot be loaded from memory (such as
dynamic objects or shared libraries), but have to reside in the
filesystem, are prefixed with !. Typically these files get written
out to some (semi-)temporary directory shortly after program
startup, or before being used.
!boot
The bootstrap file, if specified during bundling.
!auto/
Shared objects or dlls corresponding to dynamically-linked perl
extensions are stored with an !auto/ prefix.
!lib/
External shared libraries are stored in this directory.
any letter
Any path starting with a letter is a perl library file. For example,
Coro/AIO.pm corresponds to the file loaded by "use Coro::AIO", and
Coro/jit.pl corresponds to "require "Coro/jit.pl"".
Obviously, module names shouldn't start with any other characters
than letters :)
FUNCTIONS
$file = static::find $path
Returns the data associated with the given $path (e.g.
"Digest/MD5.pm", "auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix").
Returns "undef" if the file isn't embedded.
@paths = static::list
Returns the list of all paths embedded in this binary.
EXTRA FEATURES
In addition, for the embedded loading of perl files to work, staticperl
overrides the @INC array.
FULLY STATIC BINARIES - UCLIBC AND BUILDROOT
To make truly static (Linux-) libraries, you might want to have a look
at buildroot (<http://buildroot.uclibc.org/>).
Buildroot is primarily meant to set up a cross-compile environment
(which is not so useful as perl doesn't quite like cross compiles), but
it can also compile a chroot environment where you can use staticperl.
To do so, download buildroot, and enable "Build options => development
files in target filesystem" and optionally "Build options => gcc
optimization level (optimize for size)". At the time of writing, I had
good experiences with GCC 4.4.x but not GCC 4.5.
To minimise code size, I used "-pipe -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections
-finline-limit=8 -fno-builtin-strlen -mtune=i386". The "-mtune=i386"
doesn't decrease codesize much, but it makes the file much more
compressible (and the execution a lot slower...).
If you don't need Coro or threads, you can go with "linuxthreads.old"
(or no thread support). For Coro, it is highly recommended to switch to
a uClibc newer than 0.9.31 (at the time of this writing, I used the
20101201 snapshot) and enable NPTL, otherwise Coro needs to be
configured with the ultra-slow pthreads backend to work around
linuxthreads bugs (it also uses twice the address space needed for
stacks).
If you use "linuxthreads.old", then you should also be aware that uClibc
shares "errno" between all threads when statically linking. See
<http://lists.uclibc.org/pipermail/uclibc/2010-June/044157.html> for a
workaround (and <https://bugs.uclibc.org/2089> for discussion).
"ccache" support is also recommended, especially if you want to play
around with buildroot options. Enabling the "miniperl" package will
probably enable all options required for a successful perl build.
staticperl itself additionally needs either "wget" (recommended, for
CPAN) or "curl".
As for shells, busybox should provide all that is needed, but the
default busybox configuration doesn't include comm which is needed by
perl - either make a custom busybox config, or compile coreutils.
For the latter route, you might find that bash has some bugs that keep
it from working properly in a chroot - either use dash (and link it to
/bin/sh inside the chroot) or link busybox to /bin/sh, using it's
built-in ash shell.
Finally, you need /dev/null inside the chroot for many scripts to work -
either cp /dev/null output/target/dev or bind-mounting your /dev will
provide this.
After you have compiled and set up your buildroot target, you can copy
staticperl from the "App::Staticperl" distribution or from your perl bin
directory (if you installed it) into the output/target filesystem,
chroot inside and run it.
RECIPES / SPECIFIC MODULES
This section contains some common(?) recipes and information about
problems with some common modules or perl constructs that require extra
files to be included.
MODULES
utf8
Some functionality in the utf8 module, such as swash handling (used
for unicode character ranges in regexes) is implemented in the
"utf8_heavy.pl" library:
-Mutf8_heavy.pl
Many Unicode properties in turn are defined in separate modules,
such as "unicore/Heavy.pl" and more specific data tables such as
"unicore/To/Digit.pl" or "unicore/lib/Perl/Word.pl". These tables
are big (7MB uncompressed, although staticperl contains special
handling for those files), so including them on demand by your
application only might pay off.
To simply include the whole unicode database, use:
--incglob '/unicore/**.pl'
AnyEvent
AnyEvent needs a backend implementation that it will load in a
delayed fashion. The AnyEvent::Impl::Perl backend is the default
choice for AnyEvent if it can't find anything else, and is usually a
safe fallback. If you plan to use e.g. EV (POE...), then you need to
include the AnyEvent::Impl::EV (AnyEvent::Impl::POE...) backend as
well.
If you want to handle IRIs or IDNs (AnyEvent::Util punycode and idn
functions), you also need to include "AnyEvent/Util/idna.pl" and
"AnyEvent/Util/uts46data.pl".
Or you can use "--usepacklists" and specify "-MAnyEvent" to include
everything.
Cairo
See Glib, same problem, same solution.
Carp
Carp had (in older versions of perl) a dependency on Carp::Heavy. As
of perl 5.12.2 (maybe earlier), this dependency no longer exists.
Config
The perl -V switch (as well as many modules) needs Config, which in
turn might need "Config_heavy.pl". Including the latter gives you
both.
Glib
Glib literally requires Glib to be installed already to build - it
tries to fake this by running Glib out of the build directory before
being built. staticperl tries to work around this by forcing
"MAN1PODS" and "MAN3PODS" to be empty via the "PERL_MM_OPT"
environment variable.
Gtk2
See Pango, same problems, same solution.
Pango
In addition to the "MAN3PODS" problem in Glib, Pango also routes
around ExtUtils::MakeMaker by compiling its files on its own.
staticperl tries to patch ExtUtils::MM_Unix to route around Pango.
Term::ReadLine::Perl
Also needs Term::ReadLine::readline, or "--usepacklists".
URI URI implements schemes as separate modules - the generic URL scheme
is implemented in URI::_generic, HTTP is implemented in URI::http.
If you need to use any of these schemes, you should include these
manually, or use "--usepacklists".
RECIPES
Just link everything in
To link just about everything installed in the perl library into a
new perl, try this (the first time this runs it will take a long
time, as a lot of files need to be parsed):
staticperl mkperl -v --strip ppi --incglob '*'
If you don't mind the extra megabytes, this can be a very effective
way of creating bundles without having to worry about forgetting any
modules.
You get even more useful variants of this method by first selecting
everything, and then excluding stuff you are reasonable sure not to
need - bigperl <http://staticperl.schmorp.de/bigperl.html> uses this
approach.
Getting rid of netdb functions
The perl core has lots of netdb functions ("getnetbyname",
"getgrent" and so on) that few applications use. You can avoid
compiling them in by putting the following fragment into a
"preconfigure" hook:
preconfigure() {
for sym in \
d_getgrnam_r d_endgrent d_endgrent_r d_endhent \
d_endhostent_r d_endnent d_endnetent_r d_endpent \
d_endprotoent_r d_endpwent d_endpwent_r d_endsent \
d_endservent_r d_getgrent d_getgrent_r d_getgrgid_r \
d_getgrnam_r d_gethbyaddr d_gethent d_getsbyport \
d_gethostbyaddr_r d_gethostbyname_r d_gethostent_r \
d_getlogin_r d_getnbyaddr d_getnbyname d_getnent \
d_getnetbyaddr_r d_getnetbyname_r d_getnetent_r \
d_getpent d_getpbyname d_getpbynumber d_getprotobyname_r \
d_getprotobynumber_r d_getprotoent_r d_getpwent \
d_getpwent_r d_getpwnam_r d_getpwuid_r d_getsent \
d_getservbyname_r d_getservbyport_r d_getservent_r \
d_getspnam_r d_getsbyname
# d_gethbyname
do
PERL_CONFIGURE="$PERL_CONFIGURE -U$sym"
done
}
This mostly gains space when linking statically, as the functions
will likely not be linked in. The gain for dynamically-linked
binaries is smaller.
Also, this leaves "gethostbyname" in - not only is it actually used
often, the Socket module also exposes it, so leaving it out usually
gains little. Why Socket exposes a C function that is in the core
already is anybody's guess.
AUTHOR
Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/staticperl.html