16.5. Alternate Installation Locations (PREFIX=...)The Makefile built by the default invocation of Makefile.PL presumes that the module will be installed in the system-wide Perl directory that all Perl programs can access directly with the built-in @INC path. However, if you are testing a module, you certainly don't want to install it into the system directories, possibly corrupting a previous version of your module and breaking production programs. Also, if you're not the system administrator, it's unlikely that you can change those central Perl directories, because that would be a great way to insert a Trojan horse for privileged users to stumble across.[
Luckily, the Makefile contains provisions for considering an alternate installation location for scripts, manpages, and libraries. The easiest way to specify an alternate location is with a PREFIX value as a parameter on the command line: $ perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~/Testing Checking if your kit is complete... Looks good Writing Makefile for Island::Plotting::Maps Although the messages don't indicate anything different, the Makefile will now install scripts to $PREFIX/bin, manpages below $PREFIX/man, and libraries below $PREFIX/lib/site_perl. In this case, you've selected a subdirectory of your home directory called Testing as the value of $PREFIX. If you were a project librarian, managing code for a team of developers, you might instead say something like: $ perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/path/to/shared/area which then builds the files into a shared area. Of course, you'd need write privileges to such a directory, and the rest of the team would have to add the bin subdirectory to their PATH, the man subdirectory to their MANPATH, and the lib/site_perl directory to their @INC path, as you'll see shortly. |
]