Perl – How to install Perl’s DBI on Mac OS X so Apache can find it

dbimampperl

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.

Best Answer

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 :).

Related Topic