Caught in a neverending install cycle after upgrading Perl - perl

Last night I was reading about a mysql tuning program here. I installed it and it said I needed a perl version higher than the one I had. I downloaded and installed perl 5.12.x
Suddenly my Munin utilities were tossing off errors like:
Can't locate RRDs.pm in #INC (#INC contains:
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.12.2/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.12.2
/usr/lib/perl5/5.12.2/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.12.2
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl .) at
/usr/sbin/nginx-graph.pl line 2
Uninstalling and reinstalling the rrdtool rpms didn't move RRDs.pm from /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi/RRDs.pm
Thought I'd try installing rrdtool from source. It wanted pango.
Had to install newer FreeType and FontConfig.
Then the pango install wanted a new glib. Glib wouldn't make due to a gzlibcompressor error. Some Googling suggested that upgrading glib could cause a whole host of other issues.
I just want my !##$ munin graphs, but I feel like I've started sliding down a dangerous slope, especially as this is hosting my nginx webserver.
Any tips, ideas, warnings?

It appears you used to have Perl 5.8.something. Perl major releases are not binary compatible, so you have to reinstall/upgrade all modules using XS and any programs that embed the Perl interpreter when changing between 5.8.x, 5.10.x, and 5.12.x.
I would try to revert your system Perl to 5.8.x. This should get Munin working again. (I can't give detailed instructions for this, because I don't know what distribution you're using, how you installed Perl 5.12, or what else you've done trying to solve this.)
Then use perlbrew to install a newer version of Perl for your personal use without messing up things that depend on the system Perl.

Related

Perl Module install error CPAN Spreadsheet::ParseExcel

hi am trying to install perl module from cpan in my windows machine am getting below error after hitting two times yes .
Checking if your kit is complete...
Warning: the following files are missing in your kit:
README
Please inform the author.
Writing Makefile for Digest::Perl::MD5
'nmake' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
nmake -- NOT OK
Running make test
Can't test without successful make
Running make install
make had returned bad status, install seems impossible
Running make for D/DO/DOUGW/Spreadsheet-ParseExcel-0.65.tar.gz
Is already unwrapped into directory C:\Perl\cpan\build\Spreadsheet-ParseExcel
0.65
CPAN.pm: Going to build D/DO/DOUGW/Spreadsheet-ParseExcel-0.65.tar.gz
'nmake' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
nmake -- NOT OK
Running make test
Can't test without successful make
Running make install
make had returned bad status, install seems impossible
>perl exceltoxml.pl
Can't locate Spreadsheet/ParseExcel.pm in #INC (#INC contains: C:/Perl/site/lib
C:/Perl/lib .) at exceltoxml.pl line 4.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at exceltoxml.pl line 4.
I have tried 5 times.
nmake' is not recognized as an internal or external command
Sinan Ünür is right. The error message is that you don't have nmake installed. This means you are attempting to compile code (probably C code) and there's no C compiler or Make program.
A while ago, I would tell people that ActiveState doesn't fully support cpan because it can't compile code. ActiveState uses it's own pre-compiled packages available via the Perl Package Manager (PPM) which can be used from the command line or from a GUI interface. If a package isn't available via the PPM and it requires compilation, you were just out of luck. I would usually recommend Strawberry Perl instead of ActivePerl for this very reason. Strawberry Perl comes with the complete MinGW environment needed for those compilable CPAN modules.
However, about a half a dozen years ago, ActiveState put together an installable PPM package for the MinGW environment. Once this is installed, ActivePerl can use CPAN.
So you have two solutions:
Install this PPM package as Sinan Ünür mentioned in his answer. Then, try Spreadsheet::ParseExcel again.
Install Strawberry Perl instead of ActiveState's Perl. Strawberry Perl seems to be more compatible with the version of Perl found on Unix/Mac/Linux systems. Then try installing the Spreadsheet::ParseExcel package.
Okay, three solutions: Install Cygwin which will give you the complete Linux Environment on your Windows machine. It can take about two hours to install, but it comes with all of the GNU utilities you've known and love, most other Unix/Linux utilities, and the BASH shell.
It's what a lot of Linux/Unix homeboys use when they get sick of that ol' C:\> prompt. Cygwin comes with the latest version of Perl and works with every single CPAN package I've tried. There are a few minor issues (Like Termcaps) where things don't quite work the way they're suppose to, but I'm generally happy with it. It even comes with X11 and allows you to run XWindow apps, and even use XWindow apps across systems -- just like a REAL operating system does!
There maybe a few instances where CPAN modules may still have issues on Windows. One has to do with archiving and unarchiving modules and the missing libz library. However, installing this MinGW package (or using Strawberry Perl or Cygwin) will solve about 95% of the cpan installation issues.
I have tried 5 times.
Computers are deterministic things. That means, unless you change the conditions under which a program runs, it will always do the same thing (except, maybe, if there is a solar flare or an EMP).
So, there is no difference between issuing the same command once versus five times. If it failed the first time, ceteris paribus, it fill fail all five times.
That said, it looks like you installed ActiveState Perl, but did not install the MinGW package which provides the gcc & dmake based build tools.
So,
C:\>ppm install MinGW
and then try to install packages.
You also have the option of building your own perl using the Community Edition of Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 tools, or any other supported compiler.

How to get p5-Switch on ubuntu 12.10

I was using ubuntu 12.04 until 12.10 was released. I used ubuntu for software development and after installing 12.10, i noticed that the perl version (5.14) shipped with 12.10 does not include the Switch.pm module needed while building WebKiT-GTK.
Looking around on the internet i found few suggestions indicating that i should install something call p5-switch from something called ports. I have looked around and was not able to get this done. I am not a perl guy and have no idea where i can get this package.
Can someone please help me as to
1. Where to download the package for ubuntu 12.10
2. In case it is not a .deb, How do i install it.
OR
1. At least be able to downgrade the perl installation to something lower than 5.14
Thanks and Regards
~Sameer
sudo apt-get install libswitch-perl
will install it for you.
"ports" is a *BSD packaging system of sorts, not what you should be looking for.
You can find what package has a particular perl module by going to packages.ubuntu.com, entering Module/Name.pm (in this case, Switch.pm) in the "Search the contents of packages" form and checking "packages that contain files whose names end with the keyword" and selecting the desired distribution, then making sure you ignore false hits like CGI/Switch.pm in the results. Debian has the identical search for its packages at packages.debian.org.
(Note that Switch.pm has serious limitations, was never really intended to be used in production, and should certainly not be used in new code.)
Do make sure you've checked properly that there isn't the Switch module available via apt. If it is available, that's the one you want.
No, then you've two options the longer, correct way and a shorter way that's not quite as clean.
1. Longer
Install cpanm and perlbrew with apt. The perlbrew tool lets you install a complete version of Perl from scratch in a separate directory. Set up a user for your webkit building, run perlbrew as that user, install your perl. Then, use cpanm to install required modules and you are done. A bit of googling will get you step-by-step examples of how to use these tools. If anything goes badly wrong, you can just delete all the files in that user's home directory and start again - all you waste is a little time.
The reason experienced Perl people prefer this is that it keeps the perl you want for webkit-gtk separate from your system perl that ubuntu's packages will expect to be unchanged from the one they ship.
2. Shorter
Install cpanm with apt. As root, run "cpanm Switch" and it will install the Switch.pm package and any dependencies. It will also upgrade any already installed packages it thinks it needs to. This last step is why this option isn't ideal. In the (rare) case when the update isn't compatible with something else on your system uninstalling is fiddly.

How can I install Perl's DBI on Mac OS X so Apache can find it?

I'm trying to setup a Perl development environment on my Mac laptop and have been having a really hard time getting it working. I thought I had everything configured correctly but when I try to run a sample script it is reporting errors with the DBI module and can't access the DB.
Here is what is reported in the Apache error logs:
[Fri Apr 30 23:11:33 2010] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] Can't locate DBI.pm in #INC (#INC contains: /Library/Perl/Updates/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/Updates/5.10.0 /System/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Network/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.10.0 .) at main.pm line 5.
I downloaded and installed both modules manually to work with MAMP using the following commands as specified in this forum post:
For DBI
1. cd /Library/Perl/DBI-1.611
2. sudo Perl Makefile.PL
3. sudo make
4. sudo make install
For DBD
1. cd /Library/Perl/DBD-mysql-4.014
2. sudo Perl Makefile.PL --mysql_config=/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql_config
3. sudo make
4. sudo make install
What I noticed while running the above commands is that the files seems to be getting installed in the '/opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/' directory which doesn't seem to be one of the search directories that Apache mentions in the error at the beginning of this post. Here is what I'm seeing during the install:
$ sudo make install
Files found in blib/arch: installing files in blib/lib into architecture dependent library tree
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/DBI.bundle
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/dbipport.h
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/DBIXS.h
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/dbixs_rev.h
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/Driver.xst
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/Driver_xst.h
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/TASKS.pod
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBD/DBM.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBD/File.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBD/Gofer.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI/Changes.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI/DBD.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI/Profile.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI/ProxyServer.pm
Installing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/DBI/PurePerl.pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBD::DBM.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBD::File.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBD::Gofer.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBI.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBI::DBD.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBI::Profile.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBI::ProxyServer.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/DBI::PurePerl.3pm
Installing /opt/local/share/man/man3/TASKS.3pm
Installing /opt/local/bin/dbiprof
Installing /opt/local/bin/dbiproxy
Writing /opt/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.9/darwin-2level/auto/DBI/.packlist
Appending installation info to /opt/local/lib/perl5/5.8.9/darwin-2level/perllocal.pod
My question is, what am I doing wrong and how can I either 1) Get Apache to look in the right directory where the DBD & DBI modules are installed or 2) Update the way I'm installing the module to install them into one of the search directories. I honestly don't know what option makes more sense and could use guidance on that as well.
As you can probably tell I'm pretty lost at the moment. Please help!!! Thanks in advance.
It looks like you've already installed another Perl via macports (/opt/local is where all macports installations go), and /opt/local/bin is earlier in your $PATH than the system Perl in /usr/bin. That's fine, if you are happy running Perl 5.8.9 rather than Perl 5.10.0 (hint: if you aren't sure of the differences, then the differences don't matter).
It's usually advised to not make extra installations to the system Perl. Apple may upgrade components through regular system updates, which could interfere with any modifications you have made, and if you make a mistake with an installation, it's difficult to remedy it without doing a full system reinstallation or having some serious understanding of the operating system guts. So, since you've already got another Perl installation ready, I would strongly encourage you to stick with that one.
However, you probably shouldn't be manually installing libraries if there is already a distribution available on macports. I used port search dbi and port search dbd to find them: the distributions are named p5-dbi and p5-dbd-mysql. You can install those like any other macports module: with sudo port install <distroname>. (You may need to install mod_perl itself, too.)
After that, you simply need to tell Apache/mod_perl to use that Perl installation rather than the system perl. I've never done that, so I can't advise on the best way to do it. However, quick searches on http://superuser.com suggest that the macports version of apache will run by default (via the same $PATH ordering), so I'd just Try It And See :).
Great answer, Ether. Having done this far too many times to count, I can give you a few pieces of advice:
Note: I am apparently limited to a single link in the post, so I had to remove all of my annotations. Thankfully, there is Delicious where I've stored them all with a stackoverflowmacports tag. Any place below where I removed a link to fit under Stack Overflow's ridiculous anti-spam measure, I've marked it with (*).
If having a reliably-working development environment at all times is important to you, rely on as LITTLE Mac OS X bundled software as possible. I love Apple but they have absolutely no qualms about breaking custom setups of their software as often as possible.
If #1 sounds like what you need to do, Macports is an EXCELLENT choice. I used to use Fink but they got left in the dust ages ago in terms of ease of use and spectrum of available software. The easiest route to installing macports is via the binary package install method (*)
As Ether mentions, when you have everything set up correctly, the Macports-provided MySQL, PHP and Apache all work together well without the system-installed analogs interfering. Most of that has to do with your PATH setting but all of those details are handled by the package installers post-flight script (*)
Once you're on the Macports train, it should become the very first place you look for any software. port search and port info are constant companions. They've got 6863 ports (*) currently which covers MOST of your bases.
When you do need to go outside of the Macports realm to find something, install it in /usr/local. That part of the file system hierarchy is yours to play with. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security and think that because Macports doesn't have what you're installing, it's okay to put it in /opt/local because invariably that software will install some dependency that will ALSO be a dependency for some piece of Macports software down the line and Macports will not allow a port to be installed if any one of its files would overwrite an existing file not managed by Macports (unless you force it which is always bad manners)
If you do any work with Perl and you use Macports' version, you will absolutely find yourself in a situation Macports doesn't have the one CPAN module you're looking for. (And, really, given that there are two and a half billion CPAN modules, who can blame them?). This will happen often enough that you will most likely tire of the manual installation method (*) (perl Makefile.PL; make; make test; sudo make install; cha; cha; cha) and long for the ease of use you've grown accustomed to with Macports.
If so, you can absolutely use the cpan (*) utility, CPANPLUS (*) or cpanminus (*) for all of your installing needs. Just make sure to make the necessary adjustments in the configuration of your tool of choice to instruct it to install your modules into /usr/local/lib/perl5, ignoring /opt/local/bin/perl's insistence that modules go into /opt/local/lib/perl5. You can set the PERL5LIB environment variable in your shell's init scripts to additionally look in /usr/local/lib/perl5 for modules. Just grab the #INC output from perl -V and tack it on the end...
And finally... Leveraging the system's daily init scripts or third-party software like Anacron (*) or MacPorts Notifier (*) (both available through MacPorts), make sure to update your software frequently. You don't have Mother Apple protecting you with Software Updates for the Macports installed software which have just as many bugs and security exploits as the very same software Apple bundles.
By updating frequently, you'll stay ahead of the baddies and by automating it, the upgrades will actually happen and you won't end up as I have in the past with a full weekend blown because you had a mountain of outdated ports to upgrade. Note: Macports stages its updates and if it fails at any point, your current version continues to work. Apple could learn a thing or two from them, I tell ya...
So, that's all I can think of a the moment. Hopefully the lessons above will get you going quickly and save all of the time, effort and stress I've experienced in past years in learning it. I would argue it's still far better than the alternative: Hating Apple because they break all of your nice things... :-)
I had a similar problem with Apache using the wrong Perl. I fixed it by appending the following lines to my httpd.conf file:
SetEnv PATH [colon-separated list of directories]
SetEnv PERL5LIB [colon-sep'd list of directories]
In my case, it looked like this:
SetEnv PATH /opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH
SetEnv PERL5LIB /opt/local/lib:/usr/local/lib

Why can't I find Perl modules after upgrading to Intrepid Ibex Ubuntu?

I upgraded to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex yesterday and suddenly some of the Perl modules that I installed (on the Hardy Heron) have all gone missing!
I get the usual "Can't locate module in #INC" error. Has any of the CPAN repositories changed or something for Intrepid? Google doesn't help at all.
Thanks in advance.
The standard solution is to generate an "autobundle" with CPAN.pm before upgrading Perl. A search for autobundle yields links to a handful of existing SO questions discussing Perl module management and several that look like they should provide more information. The CPAN.pm manual touches on autobundle, but doesn't include much detail.
Since you've already upgraded Perl, one solution for installing your modules would be to generate an autobundle file and use the entries in the generated file as a guide to write a custom autobundle file with entries for your modules (only). The autobundle file format is just POD, so this should be easy to do.
In the future you should probably make it a habit to generate an autobundle before upgrading Perl. This is not a perfect solution, the autobundle will include entries for core modules that will have to be removed before actually building from it, but at least you'll have a snapshot of installed Perl modules so that you can get your Perl install fixed up after an upgrade.
Your Perl installation has changed from version 5.8 to 5.10. Since many of the modules you want are in perl-version-specific directories, you may want to re-install using the CPAN tools (e.g. the cpan command).
But since you're using Ubuntu, please keep in mind that many many CPAN libraries are also distributed through the Ubuntu package manager, and the CPAN packages install into a different place than Ubuntu installs them (this is transparent to the user, since both are in the #INC paths).
I recommend using the Ubuntu packages when they're available, because they will be updated by the package manager (APT) when new ones are released on the central package servers. The name format is slightly different. Here are two ways to install the same package, from different sources:
$ cpan List::MoreUtils # installs latest from CPAN
$ sudo apt-get install liblist-moreutils-perl # installs latest from Ubuntu universe
the advantage of the latter is that it will be updated by sudo apt-get update.
Perl changed on Intrepid.
Before upgrading, you had Perl 5.8, now you have 5.10.
Probably /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.* is used instead of /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8 since the Perl version has changed

How do I use a vendor Apache with a self-compiled Perl and mod_perl?

I want to use Apple's or RedHat's built-in Apache but I want to use Perl 5.10 and mod_perl. What's the least intrusive way to accomplish this? I want the advantage of free security patching for the vendor's Apache, dav, php, etc., but I care a lot about which version of Perl I use and what's in my #INC path. I don't mind compiling my own mod_perl.
Build your version of Perl 5.10 following any special instructions from the mod_perl documentation. Tell Perl configurator to install in some non-standard place, like /usr/local/perl/5.10.0
Use the instructions to build a shared library (or dynamic, or .so) mod_perl against your distribution's Apache, but make sure you run the Makefile.PL using your version of perl:
/usr/local/perl/5.10.0/bin/perl Makefile.PL APXS=/usr/bin/apxs
Install and configure mod_perl like normal.
It may be helpful, after step one, to change your path so you don't accidentially get confused about which version of Perl you're using:
export PATH=/usr/local/perl/5.10.0/bin:$PATH
You'll want to look into mod_so
I've done this before. It wasn't pretty, but it worked, especially since vendor perl's are usually 2-3 years old.
I started with making my own perl RPM that installed perl into a different location, like /opt/. This was pretty straight forward. I mostly started with this because I didn't want the system utilities that used perl to break when I upgraded/installed new modules. I had to modify all my scripts to specify #!/opt/bin/perl at the top and sometimes I even played with the path to make sure my perl came first.
Next, I grabbed a mod_perl source RPM and modified it to use my /opt/bin/perl instead of /usr/bin/perl. I don't have access to the changes I made, since it was at a different gig. It took me a bit of playing around to get it.
It did work, but I'm not an RPM wizard, so dependency checking didn't work out so well. For example, I could uninstall my custom RPM and break everything. It wasn't a big deal for me, so I moved on.
I was also mixing RPM's with CPAN installs of modules (did I mention we built our own custom CPAN mirror with our own code?). This was a bit fragile too. Again, I didn't have the resources (ie, time) to figure out how to bend cpan2rpm to use my perl and not cause RPM conflicts.
If I had it all to do again, I would make a custom 5.10 perl RPM and just replace the system perl. Then I would use cpan2rpm to create the RPM packages I needed for my software and compile my own mod_perl RPM.