FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO INSTALL A PERL MODULE

abhishekisnot — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:45:29 +0000

Whether it is Perl or Java, I believe in reusability, so for something which already exists; you don’t have to invest your valuable time in reinventing the wheel. For Perl, on CPAN you can see how many of wheels are already invented for you out there.

Not everyone will allow you to have super-user or admin access to the target systems, so I prefer maintaining my own repository of installed modules. To keep the things working in long run (believe me this reduces lots of efforts required for system maintenance), I follow below directory structure for Perl modules installation:

~/abhishekisnot/

Under this I have a directory to hold all the tar.gz files I obtain mostly from CPAN

-- ~/abhishekisnot/downloads/   -

-- ~/abhishekisnot/install/

– A target directory to expand or install the modules

Let’s see how to install a Perl module on UNIX like systems. Follow

FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO INSTALL A PERL MODULE:

Step 1: scp/ftp the module to the target location.

scp sample.tar.gz usename@hostname:abhishekisnot/downloads

Step 2: Unzip & Untar the archive

gzip -dc sample.tar.gz | tar -xof –

Step 3: Ask build to build the module in your custom location, and build the module

perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~/abhishekisnot/install

make

make test

Step 4: Set the correct path for Perl to recognize your installation

export PERL5LIB=$PERL5LIB:~/abhishekisnot/install/

Step 5: Install the module

make install

And you are done. Congratulations

Nonetheless, if you are interested in more details on the topic, do visit What To Do Once You’ve Downloaded A Module, by Jon Orwant on CPAN.

Abhishek's Blog

FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO INSTALL A PERL MODULE