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Perl on Windows NT - Installing Modules

This page is grossly outdated. Like, circa 2001 or so, if that late. Please don't contact me for support on the stuff here. I haven't touched Windows NT for almost ten years.

There are two ways to install modules for ActivePerl. OK, really there are 3, but the third one is too much trouble for most NT users.

PPM - the Perl Package Manager

The PPM came along for the ride when you installed ActivePerl. From a DOS prompt, type ppm. This will give you a prompt that says PPM>. At this prompt, you can tye a variety of instructions. You can get the full list by typing "help"...

PPM> help
Commands:
    help [command]   - prints this screen, or help on 'command'.
    install PACKAGES - installs specified PACKAGES.
    quit             - leave the program.
    query [options]  - query information about installed packages.
    remove PACKAGES  - removes the specified PACKAGES from the system.
    search [options] - search information about available packages.
    set [options]    - set/display current options.
    verify [options] -  verifies current install is up to date.

PPM>
... or by reading the documentation.

To install a module, you first need to know what the name of the module is. This is what the search option is for. The package names do not always correspond exacly with the module names. For example, to install the Time::CTime module, you will need to type the command install Time-modules, since that is the package containing that module.

Installing modules manually

The second way to intall modules is manually copying files to their intended locations. This only works for modules that are Perl-only modules - that is, they don't have a C-extension portion. For example, in order to install the IniConf module, you would need to download it from CPAN, unpack the file, and copy the file IniConf.pm directly into the lib subdirectory of your Perl installation. To install the Time::CTime module manually, the process would be similar, except that you would need to copy the CTime.pm file into a Time subdirectory of the lib directory.

The standard Perl way

The third way is to install the module the way that it says to install it in the readme. That is, "perl Makefile.PL", then "make", "make test", "make install". The problem with that is just that NT does not have a "make". You'll have to get one somewhere else. Like one of the commercial compiler programs. There are some free makes out there, and there is a very good tutorial on how to build Perl extension modules using free stuff, but I don't remember where it is right now.