This is basically a checklist of how to make Perl work. The intent is
not to cover everything in detail, merely to point you to each of the
tasks that must be performed.
First time only
Check perl version -- FreeBSD 2.2.7 installed a WAY OLD version;
perl 4.
To do this, simply type 'perl -v' at a command line.
Get and build Perl per readme/faq. On FreeBSD simply:
] cd /usr/ports/lang/perl5
] make
] make install
Not mentioned in readme/faq!
The perl install puts it in /usr/local/bin, with the name perl5. You
probably already have a perl in /usr/bin. I suggest renaming the
existing /usr/bin/perl to perl4, and creating a symbolic link there
named 'perl' that points to the new perl.
NT/W95 compatibility!
If you might want to run Perl scripts on this machine, that have been
edited on a DOS-style machine (trailing CR's), you'll also want to add
a symbolic link in this directory named perl with a trailing CR. This
allows the shell '#!perl' to work with a DOS file. As this can't be
done by the command line directly, use Perl: perl -e 'symlink("perl", "perl\r");'
Be warned that an 'ls -l' that includes this link will give a benign
error msg whining about "file not found".