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 <nick@ccl4.org>, collating wisdom supplied by Slaven
    Rezic and Tim Bunce.

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

