CPAN

Install

Finally, you will need to install the module to be able to use the module in your 

programs. To do so, enter the following command:

# make install

You will need to be root to perform this step on UNIX systems.

ActivePerl PPM

If you are using Perl on a Microsoft Windows system, there's a pretty good chance 

you are using ActiveState's

10

 ActivePerl distribution. ActivePerl is also available for 

Linux and Solaris. If you're using ActivePerl, then you have a utility called PPM that 

can potentially make module installation even easier than using the CPAN module. 

Specifically, PPM will install binary distributions from the PPM repository at ActiveState 

(and elsewhere). This makes installing C based modules possible on machines 

without C compilers. It also alleviates the need to install make, nmake, or dmake as 

previously described.

The downside is that the ActiveState PPM repository isn't CPAN. It contains 

many of the most popular CPAN modules, but many are missing. Even worse, the 

modules that are present are often out of date compared to the CPAN versions.

Using PPM is a lot like using the CPAN module's shell. To get started, use this 

command in your system's shell:

ppm

Now you'll be presented with a PPM prompt. The most common command is 

install, which allows you to install modules. This command will install a (proba 

bly out of date) version of my HTML::Template module:

install HTML::Template

To learn more about PPM, you can use the online help facility in the PPM shell

with the help command.

10. See http://www.activestate.com.

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