Installing Perl Modules

You may find that a module required for a lab must be installed. Here's how. (See also this site for detailed instructions.)

Installing Perl Modules on NT

Recent Perls come equipped with a module installer. Here's how to use it.

First, make sure the module you want has been ported to NT. Check the list of NT modules at www.activestate.com/packages/zips. If you see the module you want, proceed as follows.
Open a DOS (command prompt) window.
cd to the bin directory of your ActiveState Perl, e.g. C:\perl\bin.
Run ppm.pl.
To locate the desired module, type:
search ^G
Inside ppm, use the install command, e.g.
install Mail-Internet
or
install DBD-ODBC
Note that the :: in the module name is replaced by a hyphen in ppm.
Here's the ppm doc.
If your company uses a proxy server or firewall, you might have trouble running PPM. Some workarounds:
- One solution is offered in the ppm doc.
- Another solution: in your DOS window, type:
  set http-proxy=http//proxy-name:proxy-port
  Substitute for proxy-name and for proxy-type as appropriate for your site. Then type ppm.pl and proceed as above.
- A third solution:
  1. In your browser, go to www.activestate.com/packages/zips
  2. Choose: GD.zip or whichever module you need.
  3. Save to your temp directory.
  4. Open your file manager and cd to temp directory
  5. Double-click to unzip the file you just downloaded (assumes Winzip is installed)
  6. Open a DOS window
  7. cd to temp directory
  8. Type: ppm install gd.ppd (substitute your module's name for gd.ppd)
Professor Schmick writes:
Regarding the "firewalls make it choke" issue ...
PPM uses the LWP module to reach www.activestate.com. Like any HTTP client, if it's behind a firewall it'll need to be pointed at the corporate proxy server. This is described waaaay at the bottom of "perldoc ppm", in the section on environment variables. You need to set HTTP_proxy like so before running PPM:
set HTTP_proxy=http://proxy_server:proxy_port

This has worked for me at HP and Wells Fargo, but Schwab has a tricky, pac-file using proxy, so you need to point it at a non-pac proxy (I'll be sending Dan an update to the instructorsonly page for Schwab, using the proxy that a student told me about -- worked fine).

Installing Perl Modules on Unix

Go to CPAN and download the binary appropriate for your flavor of Unix, e.g. Linux, HP-UX, or Solaris.
Find your site_perl directory. Different system administrators put it in different places, e.g. /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
Place the binary file in this directory or, if the module name includes colons, in the appropriately-named sub-directory. For example, the Mail::Internet module would be placed in a sub-directory named Mail.
If the sub-directory doesn't exist, create it.
The above steps likely require root powers.
If a (pre-compiled) binary is not available on CPAN for your platform, you'll need to compile it yourself. Read the README file; these often provide instructions. The instructions usually consist of the following steps: Run perl on the Makefile.PL, then run make, make test, and make install.

Professor Nolan writes:

X-Sent-To: <sfpug@sf.pm.org>
From: John Nolan
Subject: Re: [sf-perl] FW: installing & using modules as non-root?
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 14:53:14 -0800 (PST)

> Easy question:  How do I install (XS based) modules if I don't have root
> access on the target machine?  {This topic seemed to be mentioned briefly in
> 'perldoc perlmodinstall', but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to
> do to install the perl module and the 'loadable object' correctly.)
> 
> The module I'm trying to install without root access is "Text::CSV_XS". I
> succeeded in building it, then copied what I thought were all the relevant
> files (CSV_XS*) into ~joshr/myperllibs/Text, but then when I try this in my
> perl script: 

The procedure for installing XS-based modules is not different
from the procdure for other modules.  If you are installing 
a private copy of a module, then start out with 
"perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/myarea/myperllib"
or something similar.  

Then run "make", "make test", "make install", and everything 
will be installed to the proper place in your lib dir. 

You *can* copy the stuff by hand if you want, but 
you have to know where every file belongs, and this is
not necessarily obvious, especially in the case of 
XS-based modules.  It's much easier to let "make install"
do the work for you.  You probably omitted some important
files when you copied this stuff by hand.  
Run "make install", and watch what it does. 

Here's the relevant snippet from perlmodinstall:

> Also note that these instructions are tailored for installing
> the module into your system's repository of Perl modules. But
> you can install modules into any directory you wish. For
> instance, where I say `perl Makefile.PL', you can substitute
> `perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/my/perl_directory' to install the
> modules into `/my/perl_directory'. Then you can use the modules
> from your Perl programs with `use lib
> "/my/perl_directory/lib/site_perl";' or sometimes just `use
> "/my/perl_directory";'.

#-------------------------
# John Nolan
#-------------------------

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Installing Perl Modules

Installing Perl Modules on NT

Installing Perl Modules on Unix

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