Sure it is. But I have to say, A M had a point. Why?

Only one -- well possibly more. But one, for sure. That being; if you happen to have mod_perl, it's not likely going to work. Another thing I guess needs to be asked. How do you use Perl on the Apache? Scripts could give a care. The shebang says it all. Really, the more I think about it, I've seen many pointers regarding the use of specific versions of Perl utilized, by simple stanzas within the httpd.conf file.

But, like A M asked; why? Imparting any specific details related to the task, will largely depend upon that.

Anyway. The short, and simple answer to your question, is, Yes. :)

--Chris

"But, like A M asked; why? Imparting any specific details related to the task, will largely depend upon that."

I've added an update to the OP with that information.

-- Ken

I've added an update to the OP explaining this.

-- Ken

I've added an update to the OP explaining this.

Its not exactly more clear :) as my experience is to get apache binaries on win32 an then build mod_perl separately ...

So if you're talking about mod_perl, you can LoadModule perl_module path/to/mod_perl.so

On win32 you also have to LoadFile "/Path/to/your/Perl/bin/perl5x.dll"

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_so.html#loadfile

I think --with-perl is largely historical cruft, at least for Linux/Unix type systems. I suspect that .configure will just "do the right thing" and find the perl installed by your distro. It seems like all that option probably does is rewrite the shebang lines in the helper scripts.

In the old days, this mattered because there were lots of systems where /usr/bin/perl was version 4. On a lot of our systems, we had /usr/bin/perl5 for a long time. Anyhow, the scripts need Perl 5 so we get that option.

To be fair, that option may still matter a lot on other platforms that don't really have a canonical location for Perl.

"I think --with-perl is largely historical cruft, at least for Linux/Unix type systems. I suspect that .configure will just "do the right thing" and find the perl installed by your distro."

I'm looking at options for using a Perl that is not the one "installed by your distro". See the update to the OP for more information on that.

-- Ken

Hello again, kcott, and thanks for the update.

For the record; I wans't trying to be "nozey", or anything. But I found it hard to speak specifically to solution(s) w/o a bit more info. :)

As I mentioned in my original response to your question; isn't it enough to simply tell your Perl applications which Perl to use? I'm thinking "shebang" here, but I know many of the other stuff allows you to setup any desired ENV you might/may require.

As I await your response, I'll go dig up all the old links I have for httpd.conf related stanza's I recall having seen, a couple, or so years ago, and update this post, or reply as appropriate.

--Chris

UPDATE:
I think the following covers what I had recalled, pretty well:
perl-apache-httpd-conf
P.S. Just for the record; you can do all of this on VirtualHost basis, meaning; a different host can run a different Perl -- my own recollection.

¡λɐp ʇɑəɹ⅁ ɐ əʌɐɥ puɐ ʻꜱdləɥ ꜱᴉɥʇ ədoH

You can set related values with the AddHandler directive. There are also some very powerful ENV options available with the Apache -- I'll defer to their docs, as it would be quite lengthy here. :).

In closing, I can tell you, having hacked on the actual C code for the HTTPd, that the Apache is very Perl-centric. In fact, if you're even a fair C hacker, you can pretty easily hack up a "custom" HTTPd that easily caters to your particular needs. :)

--Chris