DCPM: Problems with an unusual module

[Matthew Browning]

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On Monday 13 October 2003 21:54, Neil Williams wrote:
> Problem:
> Net::Z3950 requires the YAZ toolkit to be installed prior to using
> CPAN to obtain the perl module. The toolkit is the usual tarball with
> the usual ./configure make make install triage command set. The
> requirement for root to perform the make install is quite a hurdle
> for getting the project on enough servers and to cache all records, I
> am going to need quite a few servers! (>100,000 new ISBN's pa just in
> UK).
>

I wrote quite a nice answer to this and then my kmail decided to die on 
me and all was lost.  Here's a quick summary:

- - YAZ toolkit is apt-gettable.
- - The Makefile.PL for Net::Z3950 collates some data by means of 
backticking to a utility called `yaz-config'.  Clearly, this has to be 
in PATH for the makefile to get generated.  Not tried to install it but 
I would imagine you could get some reaults by manual tinkering.

Installing modules to non-standard directory:

$ perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/desired/location
$ make
$ make test
$ make install

More:  http://perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=78457

Uninstalling modules:

- - No way to do this with the CPAN shell.
- - Consult the .packlist file and delete module components by hand
- - Or you can `make uninstall' if you have the makefile still.

> I've just come back from Linux Expo and I was talking to one of the
> Perl mongers on the Debian stand about my problem and his comments
> can be summarised as:
> "There is no good reason for a toolkit required by Perl to be
> installed as root"

Disagree.  Perl modules do not lend themselves to generalisation ;)

> Is anyone able to help with how this can be done?
>

Others may disagree but I reckon in order to achieve what you describe 
you want to customise where the module looks for this YAZ package then 
get it working and make a tar of the whole thing.  That's what I'd do 
anyway.

HTH, MB


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