CPAN install to many directories

1

When I install stuff locally (not as root) with CPAN, it ends up putting things in a multitude of places. So much so, that I have to set PERL5LIB to five directories!

Here's the CPAN settings where I tell it where to install to:

  'makepl_arg' => q[PREFIX=/home/user],
  'mbuildpl_arg' => q[--install_base /home/user],

Here's what I have to set PERL5LIB to:

/home/user/lib/perl:/home/user/lib/perl5:/home/user/lib/perl/5.10:/home/user/share/perl:/home/user/share/perl/5.10

There must be a cleaner way... I could symlink them all to the same place, but that just seems wrong.

This is on a debian lenny system running perl from debian squeeze.

Jayen

Posted 2011-11-13T01:59:33.877

Reputation: 443

Answers

1

Either local::lib or Perlbrew (or both) should be able to simplify things for you. Even more importantly, don't use CPAN to install modules; use cpanm.

My preference is simply to use Perlbrew to install non-system Perl interpreters in my $HOME directory. After that, each interpreter is self-contained and cpanm takes care of modules. Honestly, I never need to think about where modules end up. It just works.

Telemachus

Posted 2011-11-13T01:59:33.877

Reputation: 5 695

I'll take a look at those, but I don't want to install a perl interpreter, as /home is on a networked file system (with a quota), and for performance reasons, I'd like to use as much from /usr as I can. – Jayen – 2011-11-13T05:59:44.013

@Jayen With a set-up like that, I understand not wanting to install a new Perl interpreter. local::lib and cpanm should be able to simplify your modules, though, even without Perlbrew. – Telemachus – 2011-11-13T14:44:04.120

Asked: 2011-11-13T01:59:33.877

Viewed: 154 times

Active: 2011-11-13T02:18:43.880