| TOC | |
| === | |
| - Notes on Perl | |
| - Notes on Perl on Windows | |
| - Notes on Perl modules we use | |
| - Notes on installing a perl module | |
| Notes on Perl | |
| ------------- | |
| For our scripts, we rely quite a bit on Perl, and increasingly on | |
| some core Perl modules. These Perl modules are part of the Perl | |
| source, so if you build Perl on your own, you should be set. | |
| However, if you install Perl as binary packages, the outcome might | |
| differ, and you may have to check that you do get the core modules | |
| installed properly. We do not claim to know them all, but experience | |
| has told us the following: | |
| - on Linux distributions based on Debian, the package 'perl' will | |
| install the core Perl modules as well, so you will be fine. | |
| - on Linux distributions based on RPMs, you will need to install | |
| 'perl-core' rather than just 'perl'. | |
| You MUST have at least Perl version 5.10.0 installed. This minimum | |
| requirement is due to our use of regexp backslash sequence \R among | |
| other features that didn't exist in core Perl before that version. | |
| Notes on Perl on Windows | |
| ------------------------ | |
| There are a number of build targets that can be viewed as "Windows". | |
| Indeed, there are VC-* configs targeting VisualStudio C, as well as | |
| MinGW and Cygwin. The key recommendation is to use "matching" Perl, | |
| one that matches build environment. For example, if you will build | |
| on Cygwin be sure to use the Cygwin package manager to install Perl. | |
| For MSYS builds use the MSYS provided Perl. For VC-* builds we | |
| recommend ActiveState Perl, available from | |
| http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl. | |
| Notes on Perl on VMS | |
| -------------------- | |
| You will need to install Perl separately. One way to do so is to | |
| download the source from http://perl.org/, unpacking it, reading | |
| README.vms and follow the instructions. Another way is to download a | |
| .PCSI file from http://www.vmsperl.com/ and install it using the | |
| POLYCENTER install tool. | |
| Notes on Perl modules we use | |
| ---------------------------- | |
| We make increasing use of Perl modules, and do our best to limit | |
| ourselves to core Perl modules to keep the requirements down. There | |
| are just a few exceptions: | |
| Test::More We require the minimum version to be 0.96, which | |
| appeared in Perl 5.13.4, because that version was | |
| the first to have all the features we're using. | |
| This module is required for testing only! If you | |
| don't plan on running the tests, you don't need to | |
| bother with this one. | |
| Text::Template This module is not part of the core Perl modules. | |
| As a matter of fact, the core Perl modules do not | |
| include any templating module to date. | |
| This module is absolutely needed, configuration | |
| depends on it. | |
| To avoid unnecessary initial hurdles, we have bundled a copy of the | |
| following modules in our source. They will work as fallbacks if | |
| these modules aren't already installed on the system. | |
| Text::Template | |
| Notes on installing a perl module | |
| --------------------------------- | |
| There are a number of ways to install a perl module. In all | |
| descriptions below, Text::Template will serve as an example. | |
| 1. for Linux users, the easiest is to install with the use of your | |
| favorite package manager. Usually, all you need to do is search | |
| for the module name and to install the package that comes up. | |
| On Debian based Linux distributions, it would go like this: | |
| $ apt-cache search Text::Template | |
| ... | |
| libtext-template-perl - perl module to process text templates | |
| $ sudo apt-get install libtext-template-perl | |
| Perl modules in Debian based distributions use package names like | |
| the name of the module in question, with "lib" prepended and | |
| "-perl" appended. | |
| 2. Install using CPAN. This is very easy, but usually requires root | |
| access: | |
| $ cpan -i Text::Template | |
| Note that this runs all the tests that the module to be installed | |
| comes with. This is usually a smooth operation, but there are | |
| platforms where a failure is indicated even though the actual tests | |
| were successful. Should that happen, you can force an | |
| installation regardless (that should be safe since you've already | |
| seen the tests succeed!): | |
| $ cpan -f -i Text::Template | |
| Note: on VMS, you must quote any argument that contains uppercase | |
| characters, so the lines above would be: | |
| $ cpan -i "Text::Template" | |
| and: | |
| $ cpan -f -i "Text::Template" |