XML::RSS

michael at diaspora.gen.nz michael at diaspora.gen.nz
Fri Apr 25 19:22:58 CDT 2003


>use lib "/projects/spectre/lib";
></quote>
>I presume that this would be put into a Begin sub:
>Begin (
>     use lib "/projects/spectre/lib";
>)

Sort of.  "perldoc -u lib" reveals:

    The parameters to C<use lib> are added to the start of the perl search
    path. Saying

	use lib LIST;

    is I<almost> the same as saying

	BEGIN { unshift(@INC, LIST) }

"use" is processed at compile time, rather than at run time; obviously,
the compiler needs to know what extra semantics you're importing into
your namespace, so it can generate the appropriate code.

In your case, you want to alter @INC to include your cgi-bin directory,
so you can include your own copy of XML::RSS.[0]  So you want to put:

    use lib "path/to/your/cgi-bin";

at the top of your script, which is *almost* like saying[1]:

    BEGIN { unshift(@INC, "path/to/your/cgi-bin") }

Ewen's suggesting that if you want to use lots of local modules, you
reduce the mess by creating "path/to/your/cgi-bin/local-libs", and put
the modules in there; the "use lib" statement changes in a corresponding
manner.
    -- michael.

[0] However, if you want to then write "use XML::RSS", you'll need to
    put the RSS.pm file in path/to/your/cgi-bin/XML/, to preserve the
    convention that :: means "a directory".  This is documented under
    "perldoc -f require"; "::" gets replaced with "/".  

[1] Which in turn, if you're unfamiliar with unshift (perldoc -f
    unshift), means something like:

	BEGIN { @INC = ("path/to/your/cgi-bin", @INC) }



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