Name: App::perlbrew - Manage perl installations in your $HOME Description: perlbrew is a program to automate the building and installation of perl in an easy way. It installs everything to "~/perl5/perlbrew", and requires you to tweak your PATH by including a bashrc/cshrc file it provides. You then can benefit from not having to run 'sudo' commands to install cpan modules because those are installed inside your HOME too. It provides multiple isolated perl environments, and a mechanism for you to switch between them. For the documentation of perlbrew usage see perlbrew command on CPAN, or by running "perlbrew help". The following documentation features the API of "App::perlbrew" module, and may not be remotely close to what your want to read. Installation: It is the simpleist to use the perlbrew installer, just paste this statement to your terminal: curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash Or this one, if you have "fetch" (default on FreeBSD): fetch -o- http://install.perlbrew.pl | sh After that, "perlbrew" installs itself to "~/perl5/perlbrew/bin", and you should follow the instruction on screen to modify your shell rc file to put it in your PATH. The installed perlbrew command is a standalone executable that can be run with system perl. The minimun system perl version requirement is 5.8.0, which should be good enough for most of the OSes these days. A packed version of "patchperl" to "~/perl5/perlbrew/bin", which is required to build old perls. The directory "~/perl5/perlbrew" will contain all install perl executables, libraries, documentations, lib, site_libs. In the documentation, that directory is referred as "perlbrew root". If you need to set it to somewhere else because, say, your HOME has limited quota, you can do that by setting "PERLBREW_ROOT" environment variable before running the installer: export PERLBREW_ROOT=/opt/perl5 curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash You may also install perlbrew from CPAN: cpan App::perlbrew In this case, the perlbrew command is installed as "/usr/bin/perlbrew" or "/usr/local/bin/perlbrew" or others, depending on the location of your system perl installation. Please make sure not to run this with one of the perls brewed with perlbrew. It's the best to turn perlbrew off before you run that, if you're upgrading. perlbrew off cpan App::perlbrew You should always use system cpan (like /usr/bin/cpan) to install "App::perlbrew" because it will be installed under a system PATH like "/usr/bin", which is not affected by perlbrew "switch" or "use" command. The "self-upgrade" command will not upgrade the perlbrew installed by cpan command, but it is also easy to upgrade perlbrew by running `cpan App::perlbrew` again. Configuration: PERLBREW_ROOT By default, perlbrew builds and installs perls into "$ENV{HOME}/perl5/perlbrew" directory. To use a different directory, set this environment variable in your "bashrc" to the directory in your shell RC before sourcing perlbrew's RC. It is possible to share one perlbrew root with multilpe user account on the same machine. Therefore people do not have to install the same version of perl over an over. Let's say "/opt/perl5" is the directory we want to share. All users should be able append this snippet to their bashrc to make it effective: export PERLBREW_ROOT=/opt/perl5 source ${PERLBREW_ROOT}/etc/bashrc After doing so, everone's PATH should include "/opt/perl5/bin" and "/opt/perl5/perls/${PERLBREW_PERL}/bin". Each user can invoke "perlbrew switch" and "perlbrew use" to independently switch to different perl environment of their choice. However, only the user with write permission to $PERLBREW_ROOT may install CPAN modules. This is both good and bad depending on the working convention of your team. If you wish to install CPAN modules only for yourself, you should use the "lib" command to construct a personal local::lib environment. local::lib environments are personal, and are not shared between different users. For more detail, read "perlbrew help lib" and the documentation of local::lib. If you want even a cooler module isolation and wish to install CPAN modules used for just one project, you should use carton for this purpose. It is also possible to set this variable before installing perlbrew to make perlbrew install itself under the given PERLBREW_ROOT: export PERLBREW_ROOT=/opt/perl5 curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash After doing this, the perlbrew executable is installed as "/opt/perl5/bin/perlbrew" PERLBREW_HOME By default, perlbrew stores per-user setting to "$ENV{HOME}/.perlbrew" directory. To use a different directory, set this environment variable in your shell RC before sourcing perlbrew's RC. In some cases, say, your home directory is on NFS and shared across multiple machines, you may wish to have several different perlbrew setting per-machine. To do so, you can use the "PERLBREW_HOME" environment variable to tell perlbrew where to look for the initialization file. Here's a brief bash snippet for the given senario. if [ "$(hostname)" == "machine-a" ]; then export PERLBREW_HOME=~/.perlbrew-a elif [ "$(hostname)" == "machine-b" ]; then export PERLBREW_HOME=~/.perlbrew-b fi source ~/perl5/perlbrew/etc/bashrc Project Development: perlbrew project uses github and RT for issue tracking. Issues sent to these two systems will eventually be reviewed and handled. See for a list of project contributors. Author: Kang-min Liu "" Copyright: Copyright (c) 2010, 2011, 2012 Kang-min Liu "". Disclaimer of Warranty: BECAUSE THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE SOFTWARE, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE AS PERMITTED BY THE ABOVE LICENCE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.