Re: Adding to @INC

On Jan 8, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Sam Seaver wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Sherm Pendley <[email protected] 
> > wrote:
>> On Jan 7, 2009, at 10:36 PM, Vic Norton wrote:
>>
>>> Another curiosity. I just checked out the Perl5.8.8 files in /usr/ 
>>> bin and
>>> /opt/local/bin. The /usr/bin one came with Leopard, which I bought  
>>> from
>>> Apple a week or so ago. It was created on Dec 7, 2007, and it  
>>> weighs 48 KB.
>>> The MacPorts perl was created on Sep 5, 2008, and weighs 1.1 MB.  
>>> Why, I
>>> wonder, should one Perl5.8.8 be 25 times as big as another?
>>
>> MacPorts' perl is probably built with a static libperl. Apple's is  
>> built
>> with a dynamic libperl.
>
> Would this mean that one version is 'faster' than the other?

Apple has build-time information from building the entire OS that  
allows them to use prebinding on their libperl. That made a big  
difference on pre-Tiger releases, where non-prebound dynamic libraries  
carried a hefty performance penalty. Since most of us don't have the  
info that Apple has, Perl defaults to building a static libperl on  
Darwin. Apple overrides the default with "-Duseshrplib" for their build.

In Tiger and newer, the dynamic loader is much improved and the  
reliance on prebinding eliminated. But Perl still defaults to building  
a static libperl, basically out of inertia.

sherm--