Perl module path not found

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

Hi Monks!

My code runs fine, I can even run it from the browser and it does what it is supposed do to, but I can’t get it to work running from a “cron job”, I tried everything, I had the "DBStuff.pm” locally, meaning in the same directory level as the “check.pl”, now I have it inside of "lib" directory, but it is still giving me this error:

Can't locate DBStuff.pm in @INC (@INC contains: .. /etc/perl /usr/loca
+l/lib/perl/5.14.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2 /usr/lib/perl5
/usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.14 /usr/share/perl/5.14 /usr/local/li
+b/site_perl .) at /home/mysite.com/cgi-bin/scripts/check.pl line 10.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /home/mysite.com/cgi-bin/scripts/
+check.pl line 10.
[download]

The directory structure looks like this:

..
/cgi-bin
  /lib/ DBStuff.pm
  /scripts/ check.pl
..
[download]

Here is the part of the code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI qw(escapeHTML);
use Data::Dumper;
use Date::Calc qw( Today_and_Now  );

use lib '..'; # Add private library to path
use DBStuff; ####>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This is my line 10
use MyLib::Log qw(do_log);


if ($@) {
  warn "Cron job failed: $@\n";
}

my $q = new CGI;

$| = 1;

BEGIN
 {
  
  my $log_error = 'error.txt';
  use CGI::Carp qw(carpout);

  # Send all warnings to the log_file
  open STDERR, '>>', $log_error;
 }

...
[download]

Any suggestions?
Thanks for looking!

Comment on Perl module path not found Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl module path not found by stevieb (Canon) on Oct 07, 2015 at 13:25 UTC
I suspect that it's because you are using a relative path to your lib directory. Try changing this: `use lib '..';` [download] To this (of course, use the real full path): `use lib '/path/to/cgi-bin/lib';` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Perl module path not found by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Oct 07, 2015 at 13:55 UTC
`use lib '/path/to/cgi-bin/lib';` Should not `use lib '../lib';` also work? (I put this in the form of a question because I'm not sure on this point and have done no research or experimentation.) Update: Added `<blockquote>` to reference specific path to which my question was directed. Give a man a fish: `<%-{-{-{-<`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Perl module path not found by stevieb (Canon) on Oct 07, 2015 at 14:34 UTC
In this case, it may not work. It all depends on who's crontab the script is executed from and what that user's home directory is. For instance, if it is in the Apache user's crontab and their home is `/var/www`, then that's where the script would be executed, and would not know how to find the 'lib' dir from there, as it would first have to locate 'cgi-bin'. One can test where cron scripts are being run out of by using the following code snip: `#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Cwd; print getcwd();` [download] Then, set up a crontab to call the script and output the result to a file (this entry is for root): `$ sudo crontab -e * * * * * /home/steve/cron.pl > /home/steve/cron.out` [download] That prints "/root" to the 'cron.out' file. Set up a crontab for my personal user that does the same thing, and cron.out will contain '/home/steve'. If the OP puts something like this into the crontab of the user calling the real script, it'll identify the issue immediately. There are always two common problems when trying to run a script from cron. The first is that cron does not have environment variables set (unless you do so explicitly in the crontab), so it has no knowledge of `PATH`. This means that you must specify a full path to the script cron is trying to call. The other common issue is what we're seeing in the OP's post (from what I can tell), where cron can execute the script, but the location it is being run out of is not what is expected. Using full paths is the easiest way to get cron-run scripts to do the right thing. If one does need to use a relative path, it must be relative to the home directory of the user who's crontab is running the script.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Perl module path not found by karlgoethebier (Abbot) on Oct 07, 2015 at 17:29 UTC
Re: Perl module path not found by toolic (Bishop) on Oct 07, 2015 at 13:24 UTC
Your cronjob (which is using Perl version 5.14.2) might be using a different version of Perl. What version are you running when your "code runs fine"? `perl -v` [download] You might need to add the full path to the "fine" version in your crontab. See also: Re: FTP script suddenly not working from crontab	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Perl module path not found by RichardK (Parson) on Oct 07, 2015 at 13:57 UTC
`use lib '..';` says use the parent of the CWD, so what is the current directory when you call the script? _If_ the script is run from /cgi-bin the you're setting the lib path to '/' but your module is in /cgi-bin/lib, so there's no wonder that you can't find it. try `use lib 'lib';`	[reply] [d/l] [select]