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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL V6.5
HP-UX Specific
TO BE READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE NORMAL FAQ
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current maintainer: Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us)
original author: Tom Lane (tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us)
Questions covered here:
1.1) What do I need to install PostgreSQL on HP-UX?
1.2) Anything special about the build/install procedure?
1.3) yacc dies trying to process src/backend/parser/gram.y.
1.4) Linking the main postgres executable fails, complaining that
there's no "alloca" function.
1.5) OK, it seemed to build and install, but the regression test fails.
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Section 1: Installing PostgreSQL
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1.1) What do I need to install PostgreSQL on HP-UX?
PostgreSQL 6.5 is known to build and pass regression test on HPUX 9.03,
9.05, and 10.20, given appropriate system patch levels and build tools.
It should work on other HPUX 9.* and 10.* releases for Series 700/800
machines, too. I have heard nonspecific reports of problems on HPUX 11;
more info and/or patches would be appreciated!
Aside from the PostgreSQL source distribution, you will need GNU make
(HP's make will not do), and either GNU gcc or HP's full ANSI C compiler.
You must also get flex (GNU lex) 2.5.4 or later --- all versions of
HP's lex fail on the Postgres lexer files.
I'd also recommend making sure you are fairly up-to-date on HP patches,
particularly if you are using HPUX 9. At a minimum, if you are on HPUX 9,
you *must* have PHSS_4630 (libm update) or a successor patch; otherwise
Postgres' date/time functions will misbehave. On general principles you
should be current on libc and ld/dld patches, as well as compiler patches
if you are using HP's C compiler. (The only other presently known failure
from out-of-date system libraries is that on HPUX 10.10, the backend will
crash after the second error message in a session unless you have upgraded
libc to PHCO_16722 or later.)
See HP's support websites, such as http://us-support.external.hp.com/,
for free copies of their latest patches.
PostgreSQL 6.3.2 and earlier required quite a few small tweaks to
install on HPUX, so I recommend you not bother with anything older
than 6.4.
1.2) Anything special about the build/install procedure?
When you run configure, you will want to explicitly select either the
hpux_cc or hpux_gcc template depending on which compiler you plan to
use:
for GNU gcc. (If you omit --with-template, configure may either
default to hpux_cc or give up entirely, depending on which HPUX and
PostgreSQL releases you have.)
You may want to tweak the CFLAGS setting in template/hpux_[g]cc before
you configure. The distributed copy of hpux_cc contains neither -O nor -g
switches, which is hardly optimal for any situation. As of Postgres 6.5,
hpux_gcc sets CFLAGS to -O2, which is fine unless you want to do debugging;
in that case you may want -g as well (or instead).
The default install target location is /usr/local/pgsql, which
(particularly on HPUX 10) you might want to change to something under
/opt. If so, use the --prefix switch to configure.
If you have both HP and GNU C++ compilers in your PATH, keep an eye on
whether configure picks the right one --- you want the HP c++ if you are
using HP C, or g++ if you are using gcc. Mixing HP and GNU compilers
won't work. You may need to provide a --with-CXX=compiler switch to
force configure to pick the matching C++ compiler, or even say
--without-CXX if you have a C++ compiler but it doesn't match the C
compiler you want to use.
Otherwise the standard build/install procedure described in the
PostgreSQL documentation works fine.
1.3) yacc dies trying to process src/backend/parser/gram.y.
HP's yacc doesn't create its tables large enough to handle the Postgres
grammar (a lot of other vendors' yaccs have this problem too). There
are three possible workarounds:
1. The quickest answer is just to "touch" src/backend/parser/gram.c
and src/backend/parser/parse.h and repeat the build. Any PostgreSQL
distribution file should have up-to-date copies of those files included,
so you shouldn't need to run yacc on gram.y at all ... but sometimes
gram.y mistakenly has a newer timestamp in the distribution than the
derived files do. (If you fetched the PostgreSQL sources from the CVS
server, then you won't have these files anyway; see next choices.)
2. Increase yacc's table sizes enough to cope. With a pre-6.4
PostgreSQL grammar, I was able to get HPUX 9's yacc to work by
setting YFLAGS to
-d -Np2000 -Ns3000 -Nm100000 -Nl2000 -Na30000 -Nc10000
(You can edit YFLAGS either in the template file before running
configure, or in src/Makefile.global afterwards.) Future PostgreSQL
releases might require even larger tables, but this should do for
a starting point.
3. Install "bison" (GNU yacc) and reconfigure. Bison doesn't have a
problem with large grammars. Note this is not the right choice if you
are using HP's cc on HPUX 9 --- see next item.
1.4) Linking the main postgres executable fails, complaining that
there's no "alloca" function.
If you're using HP's cc on HPUX 9, it's right: there's no alloca function.
The only places in PostgreSQL that use alloca are the parser files, and
those do so only if they were generated with GNU bison. Unfortunately the
prebuilt copies of gram.c and preproc.c are made with bison. There are
several possible answers:
1. Remake the files with HP's yacc: configure to use yacc with the
above-mentioned switch settings, and remove these files before
starting the build:
src/backend/parser/gram.c
src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/preproc.c
2. Build with gcc, which treats alloca as a compiled-in-line function.
3. Install HPUX 10, which has alloca. You're gonna have to do that
before Y2K anyway...
1.5) OK, it seemed to build and install, but the regression test fails.
There are several "expected failures" due to differences between HPUX
and the regression test reference platform used by the PostgreSQL group.
A look at the textual differences between the expected and actual
outputs will usually reveal that the differences are minor. You should
expect these differences:
int2, int4: pg_atoi generates a differently worded error
message for integer overflow.
float8, geometry: Lots of differences in the last digit or two
because of different roundoff errors in floating
arithmetic. Also, HPUX does not distinguish
-0 from 0 during printout, but the reference
platform does.
float8: In 6.4, float8 shows some differences due to
different handling of overflow/underflow errors in
exp() and pow(). This is fixed in 6.4.1 and later.
horology: HPUX time library does not know about daylight
savings time before 1970, so there are some
places in horology where a time will be shown
in PST instead of PDT.
The int8 regression test will fail massively on HPUX 9 with Postgres 6.4,
because sprintf/sscanf don't cope with long long int. This is fixed in
Postgres 6.5 by not depending on the system versions of those routines.