This file does NOT explain how to install nsPerl; those instructions
are in the README several levels up, adjacent to nsPerl*/bin and lib.

This README explains how to create an nsPerl distribution; that is,
how to create a compressed archive file which other people can use
to install a copy of dynamic Perl on their systems.  Installation
requires a compatible operating system version but (unlike standard
Perl) not `make` or a C compiler.

1. Install Perl, the usual way.  Follow the instructions in Perl's
   README, especially the one for your platform (e.g. README.win32).
   Among the many options, choose these:

   $prefixexp=/LOCAL/nsPerlN.nnn_nn or D:\LOCAL\nsPerlN.nnn_nn
   $instbin=  "$prefixexp/bin"      or "$prefixexp\bin"
   $instlib=  "$prefixexp/lib"      or "$prefixexp\lib"
   $sitelib=  "$prefixexp/lib/site" or "$prefixexp\lib\site"

   No version numbers in pathnames (except $prefixexp).
   Not binary compatible with Perl 5.003.
   Dynamic loading.
   Build a shared Perl library (libperl.so).
   Don't use -lcrypt (to avoid export restrictions).
   Don't use the malloc that comes with perl5 on Unix
       (to avoid ugly bugs when Perl is embedded).
   Use /bin/more instead of /usr/local/bin/less (it's more portable).
   
   On Solaris:
       setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`; before running `make`

   On Linux:
       Shared library suffix is .so (not .sa).
       With gcc, build shared libraries with -shared (not -r).

   Your config.sh should not differ significantly from the examples
   in this directory.  Different $prefixexp values are not a problem.

2. (optional) I suggest removing the HTML documentation (lib/pod/html)
   from Perl.  This saves a lot of disk space.  Users can get a copy
   of the current (stable Perl version) documentation from CPAN.

3. Make the `perl` you installed run Package.pl (in this directory):

   % $prefixexp/bin/perl ./Package.pl

   It should create a compressed archive, in the end.  If it doesn't,
   fix bugs until it does.  (When you get it fixed, please contribute
   your fixes to the community.  Send me some email.  Netscape people
   can commit fixes into CVS, but I should probably review them first.)

- John Kristian <kristian@netscape.com>
