Manual installation of a Perl Module

Question

I have downloaded the module Digest::SHA1 and extracted it to a directory (../Digest-SHA1-2.13/) , then copied all the SHA1.* files into (../Digest-SHA1-2.13/Di

Answer 1

Any reason why you can't use local::lib?

create and use a local lib/ for perl modules with PERL5LIB

It is basically a tool to help you use a private (non-systemwide) directory as your Perl library directory.

After setting it up, you could run a command like

perl -MCPAN -Mlocal::lib -e 'CPAN::install(Algorithm::CouponCode)'

and then your script would use your locally installed copy of Algorithm::CouponCode).

Answer 2

Use this recipe for manually installing perl modules:

tar zxf Digest-SHA1-2.13.tar.gz
cd Digest-SHA1-2.13
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Note that some distributions will have a Build.PL file instead of Makefile.PL. In that case use this recipe:

tar zxf ...
cd ...
perl Build.PL
./Build
./Build test
./Build install

(You may be able to get by with just running make install and ./Build install.)

If you need to alter the installation dir then use:

perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=...

or

perl Build.PL --install_base ...

depending on the kind of module.

For more info see the perldoc for ExtUtils::MakeMaker::FAQ and Module::Build

Answer 3

There are two kinds of Perl module: pure-Perl and XS. Pure-Perl modules are written entirely in Perl, and can usually be installed just by copying the .pm files to an appropriate directory. XS modules are written in both Perl and C (XS is processed into C code by the ExtUtils::ParseXS module) and require a C compiler to install them.

As dsolimano said, the easiest way to install Perl modules for the system Perl when you don't have root access is to use local::lib. (You could do the same things that local::lib does yourself, but why bother?)

The reason why Digest::SHA1 works by itself but not when you're using Algorithm::CouponCode is that the system Perl already has version 2.11 of Digest::SHA1 installed. When you use -I ../Digest-SHA1-2.13/Digest, then use Digest::SHA1 picks up the Perl code from ../Digest-SHA1-2.13/Digest, but the shared library that would be built from the XS code is not in the corresponding location.