On Oct 8, 2004, at 6:01 PM, John Delacour wrote:
If I had just "upgraded" and had such a configuration then I might upgrade again in a different way, but if I were you I would download Perl 5.8.5 and install it in the standard location.
Imagine if advice like that were given to a student driver...
Student Driver: I'm having trouble using a clutch, can someone help?
John: If I were you I'd install an automatic transmission.
Seriously - installing a new Perl is not a trivial task. Suggesting that a self-described "newbie" should be required to attempt it is ridiculous.
At this page:
<http://developer.apple.com/internet/opensource/perl.html>
At that page, you'll find some old out-of-date instructions that were once relevant to updating Jaguar's Perl. They're of interest to historians perhaps, but of no use now. Perl's default directory layout is now the traditional layout under /usr/local, not the badly broken layout under /Library/Perl that used to give people nightmares.
# you want to install Perl the same way Apple did:
./Configure -de -Dprefix=/usr [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Another way to describe that is "if you want to overwrite the Perl that Apple supplied, and make it difficult to revert to the factory-installed Perl, do this."
Don't do that. Install Perl the safe way, using a different -Dprefix option to install it in a completely separate location, or omit that option entirely to install in the default /usr/local. You can rename /usr/bin/perl, and replace it with a symbolic link that points to your new one. That way, if something goes badly wrong with the new Perl, you can easily delete the entire directory you specified in -Dprefix, delete the /usr/bin/perl symlink, and move the factory Perl back into place with no lasting harm done.
It's worth reading the file carefully to make sure.
You might do well to follow your own advice, and read the readme.macosx carefully yourself. One of the pieces of advice you'll find there is to think twice before overwriting Apple's Perl.
sherm--
