Read the FAQs and documentation specific to the port of perl to your operating system (eg, perlvms, perlplan9, ...). These should contain more detailed information on the vagaries of your perl.
The "exec" function's job is to turn your process into another command and never to return. If that's not what you want to do, don't use "exec". :)
If you want to run an external command and still keep your Perl process going, look at a piped "open", "fork", or "system".
Term::Cap Standard perl distribution
Term::ReadKey CPAN
Term::ReadLine::Gnu CPAN
Term::ReadLine::Perl CPAN
Term::Screen CPAN
Term::Cap Standard perl distribution
Curses CPAN
Term::ANSIColor CPAN
Tk CPAN
Wx CPAN
Gtk2 CPAN
Qt4 kdebindings4 package
Some of these specific cases are shown as examples in other answers in this section of the perlfaq.
use Term::ANSIColor;
print color("red"), "Stop!\n", color("reset");
print color("green"), "Go!\n", color("reset");
Or like this:
use Term::ANSIColor qw(:constants);
print RED, "Stop!\n", RESET;
print GREEN, "Go!\n", RESET;
open(TTY, "+</dev/tty") or die "no tty: $!";
system "stty cbreak </dev/tty >/dev/tty 2>&1";
$key = getc(TTY); # perhaps this works
# OR ELSE
sysread(TTY, $key, 1); # probably this does
system "stty -cbreak </dev/tty >/dev/tty 2>&1";
The Term::ReadKey module from CPAN offers an easy-to-use interface that should be more efficient than shelling out to stty for each key. It even includes limited support for Windows.
use Term::ReadKey;
ReadMode('cbreak');
$key = ReadKey(0);
ReadMode('normal');
However, using the code requires that you have a working C compiler and can use it to build and install a CPAN module. Here's a solution using the standard POSIX module, which is already on your system (assuming your system supports POSIX).
use HotKey;
$key = readkey();
And here's the "HotKey" module, which hides the somewhat mystifying calls to manipulate the POSIX termios structures.
# HotKey.pm
package HotKey;
use strict;
use warnings;
use parent 'Exporter';
our @EXPORT = qw(cbreak cooked readkey);
use POSIX qw(:termios_h);
my ($term, $oterm, $echo, $noecho, $fd_stdin);
$fd_stdin = fileno(STDIN);
$term = POSIX::Termios->new();
$term->getattr($fd_stdin);
$oterm = $term->getlflag();
$echo = ECHO | ECHOK | ICANON;
$noecho = $oterm & ~$echo;
sub cbreak {
$term->setlflag($noecho); # ok, so i don't want echo either
$term->setcc(VTIME, 1);
$term->setattr($fd_stdin, TCSANOW);
}
sub cooked {
$term->setlflag($oterm);
$term->setcc(VTIME, 0);
$term->setattr($fd_stdin, TCSANOW);
}
sub readkey {
my $key = '';
cbreak();
sysread(STDIN, $key, 1);
cooked();
return $key;
}
END { cooked() }
1;
use Term::ReadKey;
ReadMode('cbreak');
if (defined (my $char = ReadKey(-1)) ) {
# input was waiting and it was $char
} else {
# no input was waiting
}
ReadMode('normal'); # restore normal tty settings
To clear the screen, you just have to print the special sequence that tells the terminal to clear the screen. Once you have that sequence, output it when you want to clear the screen.
You can use the Term::ANSIScreen module to get the special sequence. Import the "cls" function (or the ":screen" tag):
use Term::ANSIScreen qw(cls);
my $clear_screen = cls();
print $clear_screen;
The Term::Cap module can also get the special sequence if you want to deal with the low-level details of terminal control. The "Tputs" method returns the string for the given capability:
use Term::Cap;
my $terminal = Term::Cap->Tgetent( { OSPEED => 9600 } );
my $clear_screen = $terminal->Tputs('cl');
print $clear_screen;
On Windows, you can use the Win32::Console module. After creating an object for the output filehandle you want to affect, call the "Cls" method:
Win32::Console;
my $OUT = Win32::Console->new(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
my $clear_string = $OUT->Cls;
print $clear_screen;
If you have a command-line program that does the job, you can call it in backticks to capture whatever it outputs so you can use it later:
my $clear_string = `clear`;
print $clear_string;
use Term::ReadKey;
my ($wchar, $hchar, $wpixels, $hpixels) = GetTerminalSize();
This is more portable than the raw "ioctl", but not as illustrative:
require './sys/ioctl.ph';
die "no TIOCGWINSZ " unless defined &TIOCGWINSZ;
open(my $tty_fh, "+</dev/tty") or die "No tty: $!";
unless (ioctl($tty_fh, &TIOCGWINSZ, $winsize='')) {
die sprintf "$0: ioctl TIOCGWINSZ (%08x: $!)\n", &TIOCGWINSZ;
}
my ($row, $col, $xpixel, $ypixel) = unpack('S4', $winsize);
print "(row,col) = ($row,$col)";
print " (xpixel,ypixel) = ($xpixel,$ypixel)" if $xpixel || $ypixel;
print "\n";
There's an example of this in ``crypt'' in perlfunc. First, you put the terminal into ``no echo'' mode, then just read the password normally. You may do this with an old-style "ioctl()" function, POSIX terminal control (see POSIX or its documentation the Camel Book), or a call to the stty program, with varying degrees of portability.
You can also do this for most systems using the Term::ReadKey module from CPAN, which is easier to use and in theory more portable.
use Term::ReadKey;
ReadMode('noecho');
my $password = ReadLine(0);
print DEV "atv1\012"; # wrong, for some devices
print DEV "atv1\015"; # right, for some devices
Even though with normal text files a ``\n'' will do the trick, there is still no unified scheme for terminating a line that is portable between Unix, DOS/Win, and Macintosh, except to terminate ALL line ends with ``\015\012'', and strip what you don't need from the output. This applies especially to socket I/O and autoflushing, discussed next.
my $old_handle = select($dev_fh);
$| = 1;
select($old_handle);
You'll also see code that does this without a temporary variable, as in
select((select($deb_handle), $| = 1)[0]);
Or if you don't mind pulling in a few thousand lines of code just because you're afraid of a little $| variable:
use IO::Handle;
$dev_fh->autoflush(1);
As mentioned in the previous item, this still doesn't work when using socket I/O between Unix and Macintosh. You'll need to hard code your line terminators, in that case.
While trying to read from his caller-id box, the notorious Jamie Zawinski "<jwz@netscape.com>", after much gnashing of teeth and fighting with "sysread", "sysopen", POSIX's "tcgetattr" business, and various other functions that go bump in the night, finally came up with this:
sub open_modem {
use IPC::Open2;
my $stty = `/bin/stty -g`;
open2( \*MODEM_IN, \*MODEM_OUT, "cu -l$modem_device -s2400 2>&1");
# starting cu hoses /dev/tty's stty settings, even when it has
# been opened on a pipe...
system("/bin/stty $stty");
$_ = <MODEM_IN>;
chomp;
if ( !m/^Connected/ ) {
print STDERR "$0: cu printed `$_' instead of `Connected'\n";
}
}
Seriously, you can't if they are Unix password files---the Unix password system employs one-way encryption. It's more like hashing than encryption. The best you can do is check whether something else hashes to the same string. You can't turn a hash back into the original string. Programs like Crack can forcibly (and intelligently) try to guess passwords, but don't (can't) guarantee quick success.
If you're worried about users selecting bad passwords, you should proactively check when they try to change their password (by modifying passwd(1), for example).
There's not a single way to run code in the background so you don't have to wait for it to finish before your program moves on to other tasks. Process management depends on your particular operating system, and many of the techniques are covered in perlipc.
Several CPAN modules may be able to help, including IPC::Open2 or IPC::Open3, IPC::Run, Parallel::Jobs, Parallel::ForkManager, POE, Proc::Background, and Win32::Process. There are many other modules you might use, so check those namespaces for other options too.
If you are on a Unix-like system, you might be able to get away with a system call where you put an "&" on the end of the command:
system("cmd &")
You can also try using "fork", as described in perlfunc (although this is the same thing that many of the modules will do for you).
$SIG{CHLD} = sub { wait };
$SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
You can also use a double fork. You immediately "wait()" for your first child, and the init daemon will "wait()" for your grandchild once it exits.
unless ($pid = fork) {
unless (fork) {
exec "what you really wanna do";
die "exec failed!";
}
exit 0;
}
waitpid($pid, 0);
See ``Signals'' in perlipc for other examples of code to do this. Zombies are not an issue with "system("prog &")".
You can set the values of the %SIG hash to be the functions you want to handle the signal. After perl catches the signal, it looks in %SIG for a key with the same name as the signal, then calls the subroutine value for that key.
# as an anonymous subroutine
$SIG{INT} = sub { syswrite(STDERR, "ouch\n", 5 ) };
# or a reference to a function
$SIG{INT} = \&ouch;
# or the name of the function as a string
$SIG{INT} = "ouch";
Perl versions before 5.8 had in its C source code signal handlers which would catch the signal and possibly run a Perl function that you had set in %SIG. This violated the rules of signal handling at that level causing perl to dump core. Since version 5.8.0, perl looks at %SIG after the signal has been caught, rather than while it is being caught. Previous versions of this answer were incorrect.
However, if all you want to do is change your time zone, you can probably get away with setting an environment variable:
$ENV{TZ} = "MST7MDT"; # Unixish
$ENV{'SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL'}="-5" # vms
system('trn', 'comp.lang.perl.misc');
The Time::HiRes module (part of the standard distribution as of Perl 5.8) measures time with the "gettimeofday()" system call, which returns the time in microseconds since the epoch. If you can't install Time::HiRes for older Perls and you are on a Unixish system, you may be able to call gettimeofday(2) directly. See ``syscall'' in perlfunc.
For example, you can use this to make sure your filter program managed to finish its output without filling up the disk:
END {
close(STDOUT) || die "stdout close failed: $!";
}
The "END" block isn't called when untrapped signals kill the program, though, so if you use "END" blocks you should also use
use sigtrap qw(die normal-signals);
Perl's exception-handling mechanism is its "eval()" operator. You can use "eval()" as "setjmp" and "die()" as "longjmp". For details of this, see the section on signals, especially the time-out handler for a blocking "flock()" in ``Signals'' in perlipc or the section on ``Signals'' in Programming Perl.
If exception handling is all you're interested in, use one of the many CPAN modules that handle exceptions, such as Try::Tiny.
If you want the "atexit()" syntax (and an "rmexit()" as well), try the "AtExit" module available from CPAN.
Note that even though SunOS and Solaris are binary compatible, these values are different. Go figure.
Remember to check the modules that came with your distribution, and CPAN as well---someone may already have written a module to do it. On Windows, try Win32::API. On Macs, try Mac::Carbon. If no module has an interface to the C function, you can inline a bit of C in your Perl source with Inline::C.
1. Become the super-user
2. cd /usr/include
3. h2ph *.h */*.h
If your system supports dynamic loading, for reasons of portability and sanity you probably ought to use h2xs (also part of the standard perl distribution). This tool converts C header files to Perl extensions. See perlxstut for how to get started with h2xs.
If your system doesn't support dynamic loading, you still probably ought to use h2xs. See perlxstut and ExtUtils::MakeMaker for more information (in brief, just use make perl instead of a plain make to rebuild perl with a new static extension).
You may also use the IPC::Open3 module (part of the standard perl distribution), but be warned that it has a different order of arguments from IPC::Open2 (see IPC::Open3).
my $exit_status = system("mail-users");
my $output_string = `ls`;
system $cmd; # using system()
my $output = `$cmd`; # using backticks (``)
open (my $pipe_fh, "$cmd |"); # using open()
With "system()", both STDOUT and STDERR will go the same place as the script's STDOUT and STDERR, unless the "system()" command redirects them. Backticks and "open()" read only the STDOUT of your command.
You can also use the "open3()" function from IPC::Open3. Benjamin Goldberg provides some sample code:
To capture a program's STDOUT, but discard its STDERR:
use IPC::Open3;
use File::Spec;
my $in = '';
open(NULL, ">", File::Spec->devnull);
my $pid = open3($in, \*PH, ">&NULL", "cmd");
while( <PH> ) { }
waitpid($pid, 0);
To capture a program's STDERR, but discard its STDOUT:
use IPC::Open3;
use File::Spec;
my $in = '';
open(NULL, ">", File::Spec->devnull);
my $pid = open3($in, ">&NULL", \*PH, "cmd");
while( <PH> ) { }
waitpid($pid, 0);
To capture a program's STDERR, and let its STDOUT go to our own STDERR:
use IPC::Open3;
my $in = '';
my $pid = open3($in, ">&STDERR", \*PH, "cmd");
while( <PH> ) { }
waitpid($pid, 0);
To read both a command's STDOUT and its STDERR separately, you can redirect them to temp files, let the command run, then read the temp files:
use IPC::Open3;
use IO::File;
my $in = '';
local *CATCHOUT = IO::File->new_tmpfile;
local *CATCHERR = IO::File->new_tmpfile;
my $pid = open3($in, ">&CATCHOUT", ">&CATCHERR", "cmd");
waitpid($pid, 0);
seek $_, 0, 0 for \*CATCHOUT, \*CATCHERR;
while( <CATCHOUT> ) {}
while( <CATCHERR> ) {}
But there's no real need for both to be tempfiles... the following should work just as well, without deadlocking:
use IPC::Open3;
my $in = '';
use IO::File;
local *CATCHERR = IO::File->new_tmpfile;
my $pid = open3($in, \*CATCHOUT, ">&CATCHERR", "cmd");
while( <CATCHOUT> ) {}
waitpid($pid, 0);
seek CATCHERR, 0, 0;
while( <CATCHERR> ) {}
And it'll be faster, too, since we can begin processing the program's stdout immediately, rather than waiting for the program to finish.
With any of these, you can change file descriptors before the call:
open(STDOUT, ">logfile");
system("ls");
or you can use Bourne shell file-descriptor redirection:
$output = `$cmd 2>some_file`;
open (PIPE, "cmd 2>some_file |");
You can also use file-descriptor redirection to make STDERR a duplicate of STDOUT:
$output = `$cmd 2>&1`;
open (PIPE, "cmd 2>&1 |");
Note that you cannot simply open STDERR to be a dup of STDOUT in your Perl program and avoid calling the shell to do the redirection. This doesn't work:
open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT");
$alloutput = `cmd args`; # stderr still escapes
This fails because the "open()" makes STDERR go to where STDOUT was going at the time of the "open()". The backticks then make STDOUT go to a string, but don't change STDERR (which still goes to the old STDOUT).
Note that you must use Bourne shell (sh(1)) redirection syntax in backticks, not csh(1)! Details on why Perl's "system()" and backtick and pipe opens all use the Bourne shell are in the versus/csh.whynot article in the ``Far More Than You Ever Wanted To Know'' collection in <http://www.cpan.org/misc/olddoc/FMTEYEWTK.tgz> . To capture a command's STDERR and STDOUT together:
$output = `cmd 2>&1`; # either with backticks
$pid = open(PH, "cmd 2>&1 |"); # or with an open pipe
while (<PH>) { } # plus a read
To capture a command's STDOUT but discard its STDERR:
$output = `cmd 2>/dev/null`; # either with backticks
$pid = open(PH, "cmd 2>/dev/null |"); # or with an open pipe
while (<PH>) { } # plus a read
To capture a command's STDERR but discard its STDOUT:
$output = `cmd 2>&1 1>/dev/null`; # either with backticks
$pid = open(PH, "cmd 2>&1 1>/dev/null |"); # or with an open pipe
while (<PH>) { } # plus a read
To exchange a command's STDOUT and STDERR in order to capture the STDERR but leave its STDOUT to come out our old STDERR:
$output = `cmd 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 3>&-`; # either with backticks
$pid = open(PH, "cmd 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 3>&-|");# or with an open pipe
while (<PH>) { } # plus a read
To read both a command's STDOUT and its STDERR separately, it's easiest to redirect them separately to files, and then read from those files when the program is done:
system("program args 1>program.stdout 2>program.stderr");
Ordering is important in all these examples. That's because the shell processes file descriptor redirections in strictly left to right order.
system("prog args 1>tmpfile 2>&1");
system("prog args 2>&1 1>tmpfile");
The first command sends both standard out and standard error to the temporary file. The second command sends only the old standard output there, and the old standard error shows up on the old standard out.
If there are no shell metacharacters in the argument of "open()", Perl runs the command directly, without using the shell, and can correctly report whether the command started.
Writing backticks in your program sends a clear message to the readers of your code that you wanted to collect the output of the command. Why send a clear message that isn't true?
Consider this line:
`cat /etc/termcap`;
You forgot to check $? to see whether the program even ran correctly. Even if you wrote
print `cat /etc/termcap`;
this code could and probably should be written as
system("cat /etc/termcap") == 0
or die "cat program failed!";
which will echo the cat command's output as it is generated, instead of waiting until the program has completed to print it out. It also checks the return value.
"system" also provides direct control over whether shell wildcard processing may take place, whereas backticks do not.
@ok = `grep @opts '$search_string' @filenames`;
As of Perl 5.8.0, you can use "open()" with multiple arguments. Just like the list forms of "system()" and "exec()", no shell escapes happen.
open( GREP, "-|", 'grep', @opts, $search_string, @filenames );
chomp(@ok = <GREP>);
close GREP;
You can also:
my @ok = ();
if (open(GREP, "-|")) {
while (<GREP>) {
chomp;
push(@ok, $_);
}
close GREP;
} else {
exec 'grep', @opts, $search_string, @filenames;
}
Just as with "system()", no shell escapes happen when you "exec()" a list. Further examples of this can be found in ``Safe Pipe Opens'' in perlipc.
Note that if you're using Windows, no solution to this vexing issue is even possible. Even though Perl emulates "fork()", you'll still be stuck, because Windows does not have an argc/argv-style API.
my $where = tell($log_fh);
seek($log_fh, $where, 0);
If all you want to do is pretend to be telnet but don't need the initial telnet handshaking, then the standard dual-process approach will suffice:
use IO::Socket; # new in 5.004
my $handle = IO::Socket::INET->new('www.perl.com:80')
or die "can't connect to port 80 on www.perl.com $!";
$handle->autoflush(1);
if (fork()) { # XXX: undef means failure
select($handle);
print while <STDIN>; # everything from stdin to socket
} else {
print while <$handle>; # everything from socket to stdout
}
close $handle;
exit;
To actually alter the visible command line, you can assign to the variable $0 as documented in perlvar. This won't work on all operating systems, though. Daemon programs like sendmail place their state there, as in:
$0 = "orcus [accepting connections]";
fork && exit;
The Proc::Daemon module, available from CPAN, provides a function to perform these actions for you.
This is a difficult question to answer, and the best answer is only a guess.
What do you really want to know? If you merely want to know if one of your filehandles is connected to a terminal, you can try the "-t" file test:
if( -t STDOUT ) {
print "I'm connected to a terminal!\n";
}
However, you might be out of luck if you expect that means there is a real person on the other side. With the Expect module, another program can pretend to be a person. The program might even come close to passing the Turing test.
The IO::Interactive module does the best it can to give you an answer. Its "is_interactive" function returns an output filehandle; that filehandle points to standard output if the module thinks the session is interactive. Otherwise, the filehandle is a null handle that simply discards the output:
use IO::Interactive;
print { is_interactive } "I might go to standard output!\n";
This still doesn't guarantee that a real person is answering your prompts or reading your output.
If you want to know how to handle automated testing for your distribution, you can check the environment. The CPAN Testers, for instance, set the value of "AUTOMATED_TESTING":
unless( $ENV{AUTOMATED_TESTING} ) {
print "Hello interactive tester!\n";
}
The "alarm()" function is not implemented on all versions of Windows. Check the documentation for your specific version of Perl.
Use the BSD::Resource module from CPAN. As an example:
use BSD::Resource;
setrlimit(RLIMIT_CPU,10,20) or die $!;
This sets the soft and hard limits to 10 and 20 seconds, respectively. After 10 seconds of time spent running on the CPU (not ``wall'' time), the process will be sent a signal (XCPU on some systems) which, if not trapped, will cause the process to terminate. If that signal is trapped, then after 10 more seconds (20 seconds in total) the process will be killed with a non-trappable signal.
See the BSD::Resource and your systems documentation for the gory details.
Other modules provide more specific access: Win32::ODBC, Alzabo, "iodbc", and others found on CPAN Search: <https://metacpan.org/> .
$rc = system($cmd);
if ($rc & 127) { die "signal death" }
use Fcntl;
sysopen(my $fh, "/foo/somefile", O_WRONLY|O_NDELAY|O_CREAT, 0644)
or die "can't open /foo/somefile: $!":
When you run a Perl script, something else is running the script for you, and that something else may output error messages. The script might emit its own warnings and error messages. Most of the time you cannot tell who said what.
You probably cannot fix the thing that runs perl, but you can change how perl outputs its warnings by defining a custom warning and die functions.
Consider this script, which has an error you may not notice immediately.
#!/usr/locl/bin/perl
print "Hello World\n";
I get an error when I run this from my shell (which happens to be bash). That may look like perl forgot it has a "print()" function, but my shebang line is not the path to perl, so the shell runs the script, and I get the error.
$ ./test
./test: line 3: print: command not found
A quick and dirty fix involves a little bit of code, but this may be all you need to figure out the problem.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
BEGIN {
$SIG{__WARN__} = sub{ print STDERR "Perl: ", @_; };
$SIG{__DIE__} = sub{ print STDERR "Perl: ", @_; exit 1};
}
$a = 1 + undef;
$x / 0;
__END__
The perl message comes out with ``Perl'' in front. The "BEGIN" block works at compile time so all of the compilation errors and warnings get the ``Perl:'' prefix too.
Perl: Useless use of division (/) in void context at ./test line 9.
Perl: Name "main::a" used only once: possible typo at ./test line 8.
Perl: Name "main::x" used only once: possible typo at ./test line 9.
Perl: Use of uninitialized value in addition (+) at ./test line 8.
Perl: Use of uninitialized value in division (/) at ./test line 9.
Perl: Illegal division by zero at ./test line 9.
Perl: Illegal division by zero at -e line 3.
If I don't see that ``Perl:'', it's not from perl.
You could also just know all the perl errors, and although there are some people who may know all of them, you probably don't. However, they all should be in the perldiag manpage. If you don't find the error in there, it probably isn't a perl error.
Looking up every message is not the easiest way, so let perl to do it for you. Use the diagnostics pragma with turns perl's normal messages into longer discussions on the topic.
use diagnostics;
If you don't get a paragraph or two of expanded discussion, it might not be perl's message.
The easiest way is to have a module also named CPAN do it for you by using the "cpan" command that comes with Perl. You can give it a list of modules to install:
$ cpan IO::Interactive Getopt::Whatever
If you prefer "CPANPLUS", it's just as easy:
$ cpanp i IO::Interactive Getopt::Whatever
If you want to install a distribution from the current directory, you can tell "CPAN.pm" to install "." (the full stop):
$ cpan .
See the documentation for either of those commands to see what else you can do.
If you want to try to install a distribution by yourself, resolving all dependencies on your own, you follow one of two possible build paths.
For distributions that use Makefile.PL:
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make test install
For distributions that use Build.PL:
$ perl Build.PL
$ ./Build test
$ ./Build install
Some distributions may need to link to libraries or other third-party code and their build and installation sequences may be more complicated. Check any README or INSTALL files that you may find.
Perl runs "require" statement at run-time. Once Perl loads, compiles, and runs the file, it doesn't do anything else. The "use" statement is the same as a "require" run at compile-time, but Perl also calls the "import" method for the loaded package. These two are the same:
use MODULE qw(import list);
BEGIN {
require MODULE;
MODULE->import(import list);
}
However, you can suppress the "import" by using an explicit, empty import list. Both of these still happen at compile-time:
use MODULE ();
BEGIN {
require MODULE;
}
Since "use" will also call the "import" method, the actual value for "MODULE" must be a bareword. That is, "use" cannot load files by name, although "require" can:
require "$ENV{HOME}/lib/Foo.pm"; # no @INC searching!
See the entry for "use" in perlfunc for more details.
If you want to install modules for your own use, the easiest way might be local::lib, which you can download from CPAN. It sets various installation settings for you, and uses those same settings within your programs.
If you want more flexibility, you need to configure your CPAN client for your particular situation.
For "Makefile.PL"-based distributions, use the INSTALL_BASE option when generating Makefiles:
perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=/mydir/perl
You can set this in your "CPAN.pm" configuration so modules automatically install in your private library directory when you use the CPAN.pm shell:
% cpan
cpan> o conf makepl_arg INSTALL_BASE=/mydir/perl
cpan> o conf commit
For "Build.PL"-based distributions, use the --install_base option:
perl Build.PL --install_base /mydir/perl
You can configure "CPAN.pm" to automatically use this option too:
% cpan
cpan> o conf mbuild_arg "--install_base /mydir/perl"
cpan> o conf commit
INSTALL_BASE tells these tools to put your modules into /mydir/perl/lib/perl5. See ``How do I add a directory to my include path (@INC) at runtime?'' for details on how to run your newly installed modules.
There is one caveat with INSTALL_BASE, though, since it acts differently from the PREFIX and LIB settings that older versions of ExtUtils::MakeMaker advocated. INSTALL_BASE does not support installing modules for multiple versions of Perl or different architectures under the same directory. You should consider whether you really want that and, if you do, use the older PREFIX and LIB settings. See the ExtUtils::Makemaker documentation for more details.
If you know the directory already, you can add it to @INC as you would for any other directory. You might "use lib" if you know the directory at compile time:
use lib $directory;
The trick in this task is to find the directory. Before your script does anything else (such as a "chdir"), you can get the current working directory with the "Cwd" module, which comes with Perl:
BEGIN {
use Cwd;
our $directory = cwd;
}
use lib $directory;
You can do a similar thing with the value of $0, which holds the script name. That might hold a relative path, but "rel2abs" can turn it into an absolute path. Once you have the
BEGIN {
use File::Spec::Functions qw(rel2abs);
use File::Basename qw(dirname);
my $path = rel2abs( $0 );
our $directory = dirname( $path );
}
use lib $directory;
The FindBin module, which comes with Perl, might work. It finds the directory of the currently running script and puts it in $Bin, which you can then use to construct the right library path:
use FindBin qw($Bin);
You can also use local::lib to do much of the same thing. Install modules using local::lib's settings then use the module in your program:
use local::lib; # sets up a local lib at ~/perl5
See the local::lib documentation for more details.
$ export PERLLIB=/path/to/my/dir
$ perl program.pl
$ export PERL5LIB=/path/to/my/dir
$ perl program.pl
$ perl -I/path/to/my/dir program.pl
use lib "$ENV{HOME}/myown_perllib";
use local::lib;
use local::lib "~/myown_perllib";
perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC,"")'
The same information is displayed at the end of the output from the command
perl -V
To find out where a module's source code is located, use
perldoc -l Encode
to display the path to the module. In some cases (for example, the "AutoLoader" module), this command will show the path to a separate "pod" file; the module itself should be in the same directory, with a 'pm' file extension.
This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples in this file are hereby placed into the public domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code in your own programs for fun or for profit as you see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit would be courteous but is not required.