<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>Dear Perlmongers,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I find it difficult to believe how difficult this has been. Am I the only person in the entire universe who wants to do a date time calculation for dates before the Epoch (1970 for Mac and Linux, 1901 for Windows)?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>To recap, it seems that I cannot do all the date/time calculations with the 'standard' Perl on my Mac. The kind of date/time calculation that I want to do is analogous to calculating how many seconds Queen Victoria lived between her birth (say 4:00 pm on 24th May 1854) and her death (say 3:00 am on 22 Jan 1901); the point being that at least one of these date/times are before the Epoch.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It seems that the 'standard' Perl can't do this calculation because times and dates before the Epoch simply don't exist.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I have got into some private trouble-shooting correspondence with some helpful Perl-Mongers, and I am very thankful for their efforts, but I have come to a dead end. The solution, so I understand, is to install the Perl Module DateTime.pm. However, I am not having any success in installing modules (for reasons that I have explained in other correspondence). We have explored several avenues, for example..</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">sudo perl –MCPAN –e shell</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">install Bundle::CPAN</FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>or just</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">CPAN Params::Validate</FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I have tried changing permissions on directories...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN lang="EN-US" style=""><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">sudo chmod a+rw /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/CPAN.pm</FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New"><O:P></O:P></FONT></SPAN></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="LucidaGrande"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="LucidaGrande">and even logging in as 'root', and trying everything all over again.</FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But I am getting the same error messages, which end up follows...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">Running make test</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">Can't test without successful make</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">Running make install</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier New">make had returned bad status, install seems impossible</FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This is a complete show-stopper, as far as my particular application is concerned, and I don't want to get to the point where I am regretting using Perl in the first place. I thought it would work as a cross platform open source coding language - have I made the wrong decision? If I have made the wrong decision, then I will have to consign about 10 months of work to the trash.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Surely, there must be someone out there who has successfully installed Perl modules on a Mac (OS X 10.4.10)? </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I really need to hear how it is done, from someone who has actually done it. The adage 'there's no reason why it should not work' simply will not do. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Martin</DIV><DIV>Visit my website...</DIV><DIV><A href="http://web.mac.com/martin_jacobs1"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; ">http://web.mac.com/martin_jacobs1 </SPAN></A></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>