On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 11:07, Rex <perlici...@gmail.com> wrote: > Pardon me, if this has been already raised. I have experience in > ActivePerl from Activestate. However, I have a Cygwin for Windows, > where Perl 5.10 is installed. I am not familiar with CPAN. I did go > through some stuff at the CPAN site. But, I really want to get started > on some basic tasks that has to do with Perl on Cygwin. > > 1) How should I install new modules? (in ActivePerl, I do "ppm install DBI")
cpan DBI an important difference from ppm, the name you give is the actual module name: cpan DBD::SQLite vs ppm install DBD-SQLite > 2) How do I know about the modules already installed? (in ActivePerl, > I do, "ppm query") perl -MModule::Name -e 0 If you get an error then the module isn't installed > 3) What is this "install" or "make" or "test" that seems to be the > norm in CPAN? When I tried to do "install DBI", it bombed on a fatal > error saying the DLL cannot be installed or something like that. Is > this how I install a new module? Unlike ppm, CPAN modules need to be made. This can be either a trivial or lengthy process depending on the module. The standard process for making a module (which is automated by the cpan command) is 1. perl Makefile.PL 2. make 3. make test 4. make install Step 1 checks to see if all of the module's dependencies are installed and writes a Makefile. Makefiles are instructions to a utility named make that tell it how to build the module, which is why running make is step two. Makefiles contain targets. When you run make with no arguments it builds the default target (the module), but there are other targets. In the case of step 3, you are asking make to build the test target. This target traditionally will run through a set of tests to make sure the code works. Finally, if the tests succeed, you tell make to build the install target which installs the module in the directory that was specified during step 1 or one of the default directories. If you get an error building a module from CPAN, either contact the author or post the error to this list. -- Chas. Owens wonkden.net The most important skill a programmer can have is the ability to read. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
