Broken perl configuration

[Daniel J. Luke]

On Feb 21, 2013, at 10:05 AM, Bruce Miller <bruce.miller at nist.gov> wrote:
> With MacPort's perl 5.12, the executable is installed in
>  /opt/local/libexec/perl5.12/sitebin
> which is *NOT* where people expect to find programs.
> And it's NOT a directory people want to maintain in
> their $PATH.

why? Why would people care whether they have /opt/local/bin or /opt/local/libexec/perl5.12/sitebin or /my/nonstandard/macports/prefix/bin in their $PATH?

> This is all due to a configuration change with MacPort's perl,
> and there's a ticket about this
>  https://trac.macports.org/ticket/36980

well, my read of that ticket is that 'libexec' isn't really the right place

> The reason for the configuration change
> is to achieve the noble goal of being able
> to install multiple versions of Perl, and
> multiple versions of software running under
> those Perls.  

yeah it's a version specific directory for things to install into (could have been ${prefix}/bin/perl5.12/ or something like that instead) 

> With the minor cost that
> _nothing_ runs.

not really, it all runs fine - you just have to deal with $PATH or use the full path to the script you want to run.

> I've tried, on the above ticket, to suggest
> that the approach used may not be the best one;
> or at any rate, please tell me a workaround.
> I only got a vague answer about symlinks
> (which doesn't really solve much).

symlinks would be the 'normal' macports way to solve this (ie one would install the perl module via MacPorts, it would install the scripts into the perl-specified location that you hate, and you could optionally create symlinks in ${prefix}/bin). 

>  What is the suggested way to install perl scripts
> under Macports?  

Using macports ;-)

> How should I modify my Makefile.PL?


you shouldn't, you should modify your Portfile.

As an aside, I personally don't feel that the benefits of having multiple perl versions available is worth it - I think we would be better served by just pushing the current stable perl...

--
Daniel J. Luke                                                                   
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