Previously I had posted that I could not get HTML::Mason to install onto a CentOS 6.4 box. While there's a pre-built package for it on repoforge, that package doesn't install using yum because of a dependency on Log::Any. No repository that I could find had a pre-build Log::Any. Installing Log::Any via CPAN doesn't work because yum doesn't know that you've installed it and still fails the dependency check when installing HTML::Mason.

Many people gave excellent suggestions, but they didn't work for me for a variety of reasons. Although I am immensely grateful for the replies because without the clues they gave, I would never have figured it out! What I decided to ultimately do is create a .rpm file for Log::Any, install it using rpm and then that should allow HTML::Mason to install. This approach does, in fact, work.

So, just to document what I did, I'm making this post. First, you install and configure the rpm environment:

yum install rpm-build
yum install redhat-rpm-config
mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,RPMS,SOURCES,SPECS,SRPMS}
echo '%_topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild' > ~/.rpmmacros
[download]

Next, create a .spec file in the rpmbuild/SPECS directory. I called mine perl-Log-Any.spec. I found one for Log::Any in the repoforge github project. It's not merged into the project yet, but you can look at the file. There's a syntax error in the file, but here's the corrected version, as far as I can tell:

%{!?perl_vendorlib: %define perl_vendorlib %(eval "`%{__perl} -V:insta
+llvendorlib`"; echo $installvendorlib)}

Name:           perl-Log-Any
Version:        0.15
Release:        1%{?dist}
Summary:        Bringing loggers and listeners together
License:        GPL+ or Artistic
Group:          Development/Libraries
URL:            http://search.cpan.org/dist/Log-Any/
Source0:        http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Log/Log-Any-%{ve
+rsion}.tar.gz
BuildRoot:      %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root-%(%{__i
+d_u} -n)
BuildArch:      noarch
BuildRequires:  perl(ExtUtils::MakeMaker)
BuildRequires:  perl(Test::More)

%description
Log::Any allows CPAN modules to safely and efficiently log messages, w
+hile
letting the application choose (or decline to choose) a logging mechan
+ism
such as Log::Dispatch or Log::Log4perl.

%prep
%setup -q -n Log-Any-%{version}

%build
%{__perl} Makefile.PL INSTALLDIRS=vendor
make %{?_smp_mflags}

%install
rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT

make pure_install PERL_INSTALL_ROOT=$RPM_BUILD_ROOT

find $RPM_BUILD_ROOT -type f -name .packlist -exec rm -f {} \;
find $RPM_BUILD_ROOT -depth -type d -exec rmdir {} 2>/dev/null \;

%{_fixperms} $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/*

%check
make test

%clean
rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT

%files
%defattr(-,root,root,-)
%doc Changes LICENSE META.json README tidyall.ini
%{perl_vendorlib}/*
%{_mandir}/man3/*

%changelog
* Thu Jul 18 2013 Christopher J Kucera <pez@apocalyptech.com> 0.15-1
- Specfile autogenerated by cpanspec 1.78.
[download]

Then use wget to place the Log::Any sources into the SOURCES folder:

cd rpmbuild/SOURCES
wget http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Log/Log-Any-0.15.tar.gz
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Change back into the rpmbuild/SPECS folder and build the .rpm:

rpmbuild -ba perl-Log-Any.spec
[download]

You now have a shiny new .rpm file for Log::Any. I installed it using:

rpm -i perl-Log-Any-0.15-1.el6.noarch.rpm
[download]

So there you go. There's my solution to getting HTML::Mason installed to the default Perl interpreter on CentOS 6. Thanks again to the responses I got!