Fortunately, Perl has an easy way to install modules. Unfortunately, it isn’t so easy if you aren’t the system administrator. If you aren’t the system administrator, you’ll need to ask your system administrator to install it for you. If you are, you can do it yourself.
Your system must have a compiler in order to install these Perl modules. You don’t have to know how to use it. Perl will handle that for you. But you will need it. Many Unix-like operating systems come with the compiler pre-installed. If you are using Mac OS X, you’ll need to install XCode from your install CD or DVD.
These instructions assume that your account is an administrative one, where “administrative” means that it can use the “sudo” command. Type the following from the command line to enter the Perl shell:
sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
The first time you enter CPAN it is going to ask a whole bunch of questions. You can choose the default for all of them. Choose the default by pressing the return key. Note that some questions, such as “Fetching with Net::FTP:” will take a while. It is downloading information from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. This is a centrally distributed archive for Perl modules (among other things).
The ones you will have to answer are your continent, your country, and a list of URLs to download from. (Make sure you choose the URLs by number, and separate them by spaces. Just read the directions for that question when it comes up.)
Once cpan is done configuring itself, we can install the modules we need. If you need to install the DBI module, type:
install DBI
Press return after you type that. If you need SQLite, then, when DBI has finished installing type:
install DBD::SQLite
Perl will attempt to install what it needs for these modules. It will occasionally ask for permission to download prerequisites. Generally you’ll want to say no, but read http://sial.org/howto/perl/life-with-cpan/ for specifics. You shouldn’t need anything except DBI and DBD::SQLite for this section of the tutorial.
See http://search.cpan.org/dist/DBI/lib/DBD/DBM.pm for more information about the DBM section of the DBI module for Perl.
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