downloading GD::Graph

[Lhamo_rin]

I use ActivePerl on my pc and am trying to download GD::Graph. I attempted using PPM but when I do a search it does not show up. So I downloaded the .tz file from CPAN but I do not know what directory to unzip it to. Does somebody know where I should place the unzipped file?

[davidrw]

Start with these from the Tutorials:
• A Guide to Installing Modules
• A guide to installing modules for Win32
To find ppm's, you can increase your repository list w/PPM::Repositories .. also, google will often find a .ppm file for you -- try google(GD::Graph ppm), and then you can open ppm3 from a dos prompt and do install http://somesite.there.com/blah/foo.tar.gz

In general, to install manually on win32 (though the second tutorial above explains why it's probablly better to use ppm), you just extract the .tar.gz into a temp dir, and change into the extract directory (GD-Graph-*), and do:

perl Makefile.PL
nmake
nmake install

If you don't have a nmake.exe, see the link ww posted -- it has info on obtaining make for win32.

[biosysadmin]

Try using ppm to install GDGraph rather than GD::Graph. There appears to be Activestate docs for the module here and that's the terminology that they use.

I don't know the GD::Graph module well enough to say for certain, but if there's an XS or other C code in there, the source will need to be compiled before it works. Dropping the module source code into a directory may work for some modules, but it's definitely not the recommended way of installing CPAN modules.

[PerlBear]

This particular repository has GD::Graph and other associated GD modules:
http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/
You can add it to the repositories that the ActiveState PPM accesses by issuing the following command at the PPM prompt:
ppm rep add theoryx5.8ca http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/
I have found this particular repository to be very useful. It contains a lot of the modules for the Active State Win32 Perl Installation that the Active State Repository doesnot contain for one reason or another.

[ww]

If your question is presuming that you can simply unzip and use, in the same way you can unzip, install, and use windows programs, that's not quite so. Use ActiveState's site to read up on how to 'make' CPAN (Linux/Unix source) code to a windows compatible form.

I think you'll find your answer here.

This thread at ActiveState, while not precisely on target for your question, gives enough background to suggest some of the issues: message thread

[Animator]

If you are looking for a PPM repository server that has a particular module then you can use http://kobesearch.cpan.org/htdocs/faqs/cpan-search.html.

(For example: http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/module/GD::Graph.)

[MonkPaul]

Hi,

I found in one of my bioinformatics books (Mount, D.W., Bioinformatics sequence and genome analysis 2nd Ed.) a short bit on how to install CPAN modules:

1. create a directory eg. myperlib but remember the path name i.e /home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib
2.type -MCPAN -e shell , then configure the CPAN module, i just chose default settings where i was not sure.
3. then cpan> appears
4. configure cpan to install modules to your dir you created e.g
cpan> o conf makepl_arg LIB=/home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib
5. then ask cpan to get and install the module
cpan> install GD::Graph
6.then set perl in the direction of where to look for the installed module, note this is using perl 5, (for tcsh or csh shells)
cpan> setenv PERL5LIB/home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib
7. for bash or ssh shells
cpan> export PERL5LIB=/home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib
8. the line can also be included, if 6 and 7 fail, in the start of your script
use lib("/home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib");

this is to get CPAN to do it automatically, but as you have done, downloading the zip file, you can do it far simpler by doing it yourself:

1. Extract the files into a folder
2.type in CMD >perl Makefile.PL LIB=/home/export/molbio/myname/myperllib
>make
>make test
>make install

Hope that helps. I got stuck when it said it needed a dependant module to install, so make sure you get those also.

MonkPaul.