Ubuntu Manpage: local::lib - create and use a local lib/ for perl modules with PERL5LIB

Provided by: liblocal-lib-perl_1.008023-1_all

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

In code -

use local::lib; # sets up a local lib at ~/perl5

use local::lib '~/foo'; # same, but ~/foo

# Or...
use FindBin;
use local::lib "$FindBin::Bin/../support"; # app-local support library

From the shell -

# Install LWP and its missing dependencies to the '~/perl5' directory
perl -MCPAN -Mlocal::lib -e 'CPAN::install(LWP)'

# Just print out useful shell commands
$ perl -Mlocal::lib
export PERL_MB_OPT='--install_base /home/username/perl5'
export PERL_MM_OPT='INSTALL_BASE=/home/username/perl5'
export PERL5LIB='/home/username/perl5/lib/perl5/i386-linux:/home/username/perl5/lib/perl5'
export PATH="/home/username/perl5/bin:$PATH"

The bootstrapping technique
A typical way to install local::lib is using what is known as the "bootstrapping"
technique. You would do this if your system administrator hasn't already installed
local::lib. In this case, you'll need to install local::lib in your home directory.

Even if you do have administrative privileges, you will still want to set up your
environment variables, as discussed in step 4. Without this, you would still install the
modules into the system CPAN installation and also your Perl scripts will not use the lib/
path you bootstrapped with local::lib.

By default local::lib installs itself and the CPAN modules into ~/perl5.

Windows users must also see "Differences when using this module under Win32".

1. Download and unpack the local::lib tarball from CPAN (search for "Download" on the CPAN
page about local::lib). Do this as an ordinary user, not as root or administrator.
Unpack the file in your home directory or in any other convenient location.

2. Run this:

perl Makefile.PL --bootstrap

If the system asks you whether it should automatically configure as much as possible, you
would typically answer yes.

In order to install local::lib into a directory other than the default, you need to
specify the name of the directory when you call bootstrap, as follows:

perl Makefile.PL --bootstrap=~/foo

3. Run this: (local::lib assumes you have make installed on your system)

make test && make install

4. Now we need to setup the appropriate environment variables, so that Perl starts using
our newly generated lib/ directory. If you are using bash or any other Bourne shells, you
can add this to your shell startup script this way:

echo 'eval $(perl -I$HOME/perl5/lib/perl5 -Mlocal::lib)' >>~/.bashrc

If you are using C shell, you can do this as follows:

/bin/csh
echo $SHELL
/bin/csh
perl -I$HOME/perl5/lib/perl5 -Mlocal::lib >> ~/.cshrc

If you passed to bootstrap a directory other than default, you also need to give that as
import parameter to the call of the local::lib module like this way:

echo 'eval $(perl -I$HOME/foo/lib/perl5 -Mlocal::lib=$HOME/foo)' >>~/.bashrc

After writing your shell configuration file, be sure to re-read it to get the changed
settings into your current shell's environment. Bourne shells use ". ~/.bashrc" for this,
whereas C shells use "source ~/.cshrc".

If you're on a slower machine, or are operating under draconian disk space limitations,
you can disable the automatic generation of manpages from POD when installing modules by
using the "--no-manpages" argument when bootstrapping:

perl Makefile.PL --bootstrap --no-manpages

To avoid doing several bootstrap for several Perl module environments on the same account,
for example if you use it for several different deployed applications independently, you
can use one bootstrapped local::lib installation to install modules in different
directories directly this way:

cd ~/mydir1
perl -Mlocal::lib=./
eval $(perl -Mlocal::lib=./) ### To set the environment for this shell alone
printenv ### You will see that ~/mydir1 is in the PERL5LIB
perl -MCPAN -e install ... ### whatever modules you want
cd ../mydir2
... REPEAT ...

If you are working with several "local::lib" environments, you may want to remove some of
them from the current environment without disturbing the others. You can deactivate one
environment like this (using bourne sh):

eval $(perl -Mlocal::lib=--deactivate,~/path)

which will generate and run the commands needed to remove "~/path" from your various
search paths. Whichever environment was activated most recently will remain the target for
module installations. That is, if you activate "~/path_A" and then you activate
"~/path_B", new modules you install will go in "~/path_B". If you deactivate "~/path_B"
then modules will be installed into "~/pathA" -- but if you deactivate "~/path_A" then
they will still be installed in "~/pathB" because pathB was activated later.

You can also ask "local::lib" to clean itself completely out of the current shell's
environment with the "--deactivate-all" option. For multiple environments for multiple
apps you may need to include a modified version of the "use FindBin" instructions in the
"In code" sample above. If you did something like the above, you have a set of Perl
modules at "~/mydir1/lib". If you have a script at "~/mydir1/scripts/myscript.pl", you
need to tell it where to find the modules you installed for it at "~/mydir1/lib".

In "~/mydir1/scripts/myscript.pl":

use strict;
use warnings;
use local::lib "$FindBin::Bin/.."; ### points to ~/mydir1 and local::lib finds lib
use lib "$FindBin::Bin/../lib"; ### points to ~/mydir1/lib

Put this before any BEGIN { ... } blocks that require the modules you installed.

Differences when using this module under Win32
To set up the proper environment variables for your current session of "CMD.exe", you can
use this:

C:\>perl -Mlocal::lib
set PERL_MB_OPT=--install_base C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\perl5
set PERL_MM_OPT=INSTALL_BASE=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\perl5
set PERL5LIB=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\perl5\lib\perl5;C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\perl5\lib\perl5\MSWin32-x86-multi-thread
set PATH=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\perl5\bin;%PATH%

### To set the environment for this shell alone
C:\>perl -Mlocal::lib > %TEMP%\tmp.bat && %TEMP%\tmp.bat && del %TEMP%\tmp.bat
### instead of $(perl -Mlocal::lib=./)

If you want the environment entries to persist, you'll need to add then to the Control
Panel's System applet yourself or use App::local::lib::Win32Helper.

The "~" is translated to the user's profile directory (the directory named for the user
under "Documents and Settings" (Windows XP or earlier) or "Users" (Windows Vista or
later)) unless $ENV{HOME} exists. After that, the home directory is translated to a short
name (which means the directory must exist) and the subdirectories are created.

RATIONALE

       The version of a Perl package on your machine is not always the version you need.
       Obviously, the best thing to do would be to update to the version you need.  However, you
       might be in a situation where you're prevented from doing this.  Perhaps you don't have
       system administrator privileges; or perhaps you are using a package management system such
       as Debian, and nobody has yet gotten around to packaging up the version you need.

       local::lib solves this problem by allowing you to create your own directory of Perl
       packages downloaded from CPAN (in a multi-user system, this would typically be within your
       own home directory).  The existing system Perl installation is not affected; you simply
       invoke Perl with special options so that Perl uses the packages in your own local package
       directory rather than the system packages.  local::lib arranges things so that your
       locally installed version of the Perl packages takes precedence over the system
       installation.

       If you are using a package management system (such as Debian), you don't need to worry
       about Debian and CPAN stepping on each other's toes.  Your local version of the packages
       will be written to an entirely separate directory from those installed by Debian.

DESCRIPTION

       This module provides a quick, convenient way of bootstrapping a user-local Perl module
       library located within the user's home directory. It also constructs and prints out for
       the user the list of environment variables using the syntax appropriate for the user's
       current shell (as specified by the "SHELL" environment variable), suitable for directly
       adding to one's shell configuration file.

       More generally, local::lib allows for the bootstrapping and usage of a directory
       containing Perl modules outside of Perl's @INC. This makes it easier to ship an
       application with an app-specific copy of a Perl module, or collection of modules. Useful
       in cases like when an upstream maintainer hasn't applied a patch to a module of theirs
       that you need for your application.

       On import, local::lib sets the following environment variables to appropriate values:

       PERL_MB_OPT
       PERL_MM_OPT
       PERL5LIB
       PATH
           PATH is appended to, rather than clobbered.

       These values are then available for reference by any code after import.

CREATING A SELF-CONTAINED SET OF MODULES

       See lib::core::only for one way to do this - but note that there are a number of caveats,
       and the best approach is always to perform a build against a clean perl (i.e. site and
       vendor as close to empty as possible).

OPTIONS

       Options are values that can be passed to the "local::lib" import besides the directory to
       use. They are specified as "use local::lib '--option'[, path];" or "perl
       -Mlocal::lib=--option[,path]".

   --deactivate
       Remove the chosen path (or the default path) from the module search paths if it was added
       by "local::lib", instead of adding it.

   --deactivate-all
       Remove all directories that were added to search paths by "local::lib" from the search
       paths.

METHODS

ensure_dir_structure_for
Arguments: $path
Return value: None

Attempts to create the given path, and all required parent directories. Throws an
exception on failure.

print_environment_vars_for
Arguments: $path
Return value: None

Prints to standard output the variables listed above, properly set to use the given path
as the base directory.

build_environment_vars_for
Arguments: $path, $interpolate
Return value: \%environment_vars

Returns a hash with the variables listed above, properly set to use the given path as the
base directory.

setup_env_hash_for
Arguments: $path
Return value: None

Constructs the %ENV keys for the given path, by calling "build_environment_vars_for".

active_paths
Arguments: None
Return value: @paths

Returns a list of active "local::lib" paths, according to the "PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT"
environment variable and verified against what is really in @INC.

install_base_perl_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $install_base_perl_path

Returns a path describing where to install the Perl modules for this local library
installation. Appends the directories "lib" and "perl5" to the given path.

install_base_arch_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $install_base_arch_path

Returns a path describing where to install the architecture-specific Perl modules for this
local library installation. Based on the "install_base_perl_path" method's return value,
and appends the value of $Config{archname}.

install_base_bin_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $install_base_bin_path

Returns a path describing where to install the executable programs for this local library
installation. Based on the "install_base_perl_path" method's return value, and appends the
directory "bin".

resolve_empty_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $base_path

Builds and returns the base path into which to set up the local module installation.
Defaults to "~/perl5".

resolve_home_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $home_path

Attempts to find the user's home directory. If installed, uses "File::HomeDir" for this
purpose. If no definite answer is available, throws an exception.

resolve_relative_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $absolute_path

Translates the given path into an absolute path.

resolve_path
Arguments: $path
Return value: $absolute_path

Calls the following in a pipeline, passing the result from the previous to the next, in an
attempt to find where to configure the environment for a local library installation:
"resolve_empty_path", "resolve_home_path", "resolve_relative_path". Passes the given path
argument to "resolve_empty_path" which then returns a result that is passed to
"resolve_home_path", which then has its result passed to "resolve_relative_path". The
result of this final call is returned from "resolve_path".

A WARNING ABOUT UNINST=1

       Be careful about using local::lib in combination with "make install UNINST=1".  The idea
       of this feature is that will uninstall an old version of a module before installing a new
       one. However it lacks a safety check that the old version and the new version will go in
       the same directory. Used in combination with local::lib, you can potentially delete a
       globally accessible version of a module while installing the new version in a local place.
       Only combine "make install UNINST=1" and local::lib if you understand these possible
       consequences.

LIMITATIONS

       •   The perl toolchain is unable to handle directory names with spaces in it, so you can't
           put your local::lib bootstrap into a directory with spaces. What you can do is moving
           your local::lib to a directory with spaces after you installed all modules inside your
           local::lib bootstrap. But be aware that you can't update or install CPAN modules after
           the move.

       •   Rather basic shell detection. Right now anything with csh in its name is assumed to be
           a C shell or something compatible, and everything else is assumed to be Bourne, except
           on Win32 systems. If the "SHELL" environment variable is not set, a Bourne-compatible
           shell is assumed.

       •   Bootstrap is a hack and will use CPAN.pm for ExtUtils::MakeMaker even if you have
           CPANPLUS installed.

       •   Kills any existing PERL5LIB, PERL_MM_OPT or PERL_MB_OPT.

       •   Should probably auto-fixup CPAN config if not already done.

       Patches very much welcome for any of the above.

       •   On Win32 systems, does not have a way to write the created environment variables to
           the registry, so that they can persist through a reboot.

TROUBLESHOOTING

       If you've configured local::lib to install CPAN modules somewhere in to your home
       directory, and at some point later you try to install a module with "cpan -i Foo::Bar",
       but it fails with an error like: "Warning: You do not have permissions to install into
       /usr/lib64/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux at /usr/lib64/perl5/5.8.8/Foo/Bar.pm" and
       buried within the install log is an error saying "'INSTALL_BASE' is not a known MakeMaker
       parameter name", then you've somehow lost your updated ExtUtils::MakeMaker module.

       To remedy this situation, rerun the bootstrapping procedure documented above.

       Then, run "rm -r ~/.cpan/build/Foo-Bar*"

       Finally, re-run "cpan -i Foo::Bar" and it should install without problems.

ENVIRONMENT

       SHELL
       COMSPEC
           local::lib looks at the user's "SHELL" environment variable when printing out commands
           to add to the shell configuration file.

           On Win32 systems, "COMSPEC" is also examined.

SUPPORT

       IRC:

           Join #local-lib on irc.perl.org.

AUTHOR

       Matt S Trout <mst@shadowcat.co.uk> http://www.shadowcat.co.uk/

       auto_install fixes kindly sponsored by http://www.takkle.com/

CONTRIBUTORS

Patches to correctly output commands for csh style shells, as well as some documentation
additions, contributed by Christopher Nehren <apeiron@cpan.org>.

Doc patches for a custom local::lib directory, more cleanups in the english documentation
and a german documentation contributed by Torsten Raudssus <torsten@raudssus.de>.

Hans Dieter Pearcey <hdp@cpan.org> sent in some additional tests for ensuring things will
install properly, submitted a fix for the bug causing problems with writing Makefiles
during bootstrapping, contributed an example program, and submitted yet another fix to
ensure that local::lib can install and bootstrap properly. Many, many thanks!

pattern of Freenode IRC contributed the beginnings of the Troubleshooting section. Many
thanks!

Patch to add Win32 support contributed by Curtis Jewell <csjewell@cpan.org>.

Warnings for missing PATH/PERL5LIB (as when not running interactively) silenced by a patch
from Marco Emilio Poleggi.

Mark Stosberg <mark@summersault.com> provided the code for the now deleted
'--self-contained' option.

Documentation patches to make win32 usage clearer by David Mertens
<dcmertens.perl@gmail.com> (run4flat).

Brazilian portuguese translation and minor doc patches contributed by Breno G. de Oliveira
<garu@cpan.org>.

Improvements to stacking multiple local::lib dirs and removing them from the environment
later on contributed by Andrew Rodland <arodland@cpan.org>.

Patch for Carp version mismatch contributed by Hakim Cassimally <osfameron@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2007 - 2010 the local::lib "AUTHOR" and "CONTRIBUTORS" as listed above.

LICENSE

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.