installing dependencies

morgon has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,

I have an application (that I did not write myself) that is currently distributed as a tar-file consisting of the main script depending on some modules.

The modules in turn depend on about 50 CPAN-modules.

Part of the distribution is an install-script that checks the prerequisites (by doing a use_ok on all the CPAN-modules it depends on) and creates some directories and default config-files.

Unfortunately (that is what I want to change) it is up to the user to satisfy the dependencies, i.e. the install-script aborts the installation when a dependency is not met, rather than installing the dependency as part of the installation.

What would be the best way to fix this?

What would be the easiest way to convert the installer into something that also installs missing dependencies?

Many thanks!

Comment on installing dependencies

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: installing dependencies by marto (Cardinal) on Dec 22, 2013 at 19:25 UTC
You could consider using PAR and it's tools to distribute your app and all it's dependancies. It has many features including application repositories, I suggest reading the slides linked to and the PAR documentation.	[reply]
Re: installing dependencies by moritz (Cardinal) on Dec 22, 2013 at 21:06 UTC
Maybe something like Carton might be helpful? Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed	[reply]
Re^2: installing dependencies by morgon (Priest) on Dec 23, 2013 at 06:54 UTC
While Carton indeed looks interesting at the moment I don't like that it installs dependencies into a "local" directory. As at the moment I want to install the modules into their default location I think I'll just go with calls to `CPAN->install` which when I think about it should be good enough for me.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: installing dependencies by MidLifeXis (Monsignor) on Dec 23, 2013 at 14:35 UTC
Is this application part of the system installation? If not, what happens when the underlying OS updates its libraries to something incompatible with your application? I typically recommend that you not rely on the core Perl install, but instead consider it as part of your application, and install all of the required modules as part of your application stack -- especially if this application is an internal application, or you can enforce that requirement on your customers. If you application is external, and you are not able to dictate a Perl installation apart from the OS, then it starts to get a little dicey. --MidLifeXis	[reply]
Re: installing dependencies by taint (Chaplain) on Dec 22, 2013 at 20:37 UTC
Greetings, morgon. While I think marto has a good suggestion. I like choices (and offering them). I recently had to install a Module for a project I'm working on. It too had external resources that it thought I should/needed to install. It was Lingua-JA-Romanize-Japanese. The build, install session went as follows `# perl ./Makefile.PL Checking if your kit is complete... Looks good Writing Makefile for Lingua::JA::Romanize::Japanese Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json` [download] and make went in a way I really prefer # make /usr/local/bin/perl5.12.5 -Ilib -MLingua::JA::Romanize::DictJA -e 'Lin +gua::JA::Romanize::DictJA->update();' Updater: Lingua::JA::Romanize::DictJA (0.23) Path: lib/Lingua/JA/Romanize/Japanese.bdb Loading module: DB_File.pm Loading module: LWP::UserAgent Loading module: IO::Zlib Loading module: Encode.pm External dictionaries: http://openlab.jp/skk/dic/SKK-JISYO.L.gz http://openlab.jp/skk/dic/SKK-JISYO.jinmei.gz http://openlab.jp/skk/dic/SKK-JISYO.propernoun.gz http://openlab.jp/skk/dic/SKK-JISYO.geo.gz http://openlab.jp/skk/dic/SKK-JISYO.station.gz Do you wish to download these files? [y] [download] Choosing n didn't cause a FAIL. As it (the module) still worked w/o those dictionaries. But I just felt this was similar enough to your situation, that it's source might provide some information you might find useful in your current quest. Ąλɐp ʇɑəɹ⅁ ɐ əʌɐɥ puɐ ʻꜱdləɥ ƨᴉɥʇ ədoH --Chris UPDATE: A point that might have been missed here; is that this method allows the person installing your module satisfy the dependencies using a different method that maybe their "dist" (OS) can satisfy "natively". Yes. What say about me, is true.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: installing dependencies by morgon (Priest) on Dec 23, 2013 at 10:00 UTC
Thanks for the suggestion, but my problem is not to have a self-contained package that can be installed even without network, but only a very simple hack to spare me the pain of having to deal with manually installing dependencies. I probably should have clarified that my problem is not providing a convenient installation for other people but rather to make it comfortable for me to install it on several machines, all of which have access to cpan. So I'll probably just add some CPAN->install statements ...	[reply]