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

I have been attemtping to install DBI and DBD-ODBC into the activestate version of Perl on my computer, using the Perl Package Module but I keep on getting an error message stating that the PPD files cannot be located. What does this mean and how do i fix the problem?

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Re: ?PPD?
by tachyon (Chancellor) on Mar 10, 2002 at 05:01 UTC
[reply]
Re: ?PPD?
by theguvnor (Chaplain) on Mar 10, 2002 at 02:06 UTC

    It means that the PPM can't find a binary package at the repository that it is currently looking in. Try using the "search" function from the PPM command line e.g. "search DBI" or "search DBD", and if no results are returned, the next step would be to look at the "help" output to determine how to change where PPM is looking for the packages. (Maybe you have an old version of PPM? Are you using the most current ActivePerl version?)

    Hope this helps.

    ..Guv

[reply]
Re: ?PPD?
by webadept (Pilgrim) on Mar 10, 2002 at 05:00 UTC
    You might try going to a command line and using the DOS command PATH... this will show all the directories currently registered in you path statment. If the directory holding the PPD files is not displayed in the list, this would be the begining of your problem.

    If you did not restart your system after installing the Perl Package Module, then start there and try the same command. If this still doesn't change the path statment, then try puting in the directory manually and trying to start the Package Module. If this still didn't work, then you probably need to reinstall the program. Something messed up enough to wack you out.

    To add something to the path manually to your path statment edit your autoexec.bat file and restart the system.

    hope that helps, good luck

    Glenn H.
[reply]
Re: ?PPD?
by beebware (Pilgrim) on Mar 11, 2002 at 10:33 UTC

    To use modules under ActiveState Perl for Windows, the easiest was is to use the PPM (Perl Package Manager) program supplied with AS Perl.
    To ensure it works correctly and to its maximum potential, you really need to define additional PPM respositories (places where PPM modules are stored on the web, ODP has a little list, but what follows is a long list of other PPMs that I've 'discovered'), here's a quick step through:

    Go to Start->Run and enter either 'command.com' or 'cmd' dependent on your Windows version. You should then get a nice black command window (a la DOS), which you should enter the following:

    c:/> ppm
PPM> set repository DevelopHelp http://ppd.develop-help.com/ppd/
PPM> set repository Roth http://www.roth.net/perl/packages/
PPM> set repository PTK http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/~ach/ptk/ppm/
PPM> set repository Theory http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppmpackages/
PPM> set repository Dada http://dada.perl.it/PPM
PPM> set repository Jenda http://jenda.krynicky.cz/perl
PPM> set repository rto http://rto.dk/packages/
PPM> set repository OpenInteract http://openinteract.sourceforge.net/p
+pmpackages/
PPM> set repository GA http://ppm.gingerall.cz
PPM> set repository EPN http://www.epn.ml.org/~spurkis/Agent/repositor
+y 
PPM> set repository JMC http://homepage.eircom.net/~jmcnamara/perl
PPM> set save
PPM> quit

    [download]

    Then when you want to install a module (for example DBI), you just need to do:

    c:/> ppm
PPM> search DBI
PPM> install DBI
PPM> quit

    [download]
    For the record, the standard Activestate repository for DBI and DBD::ODBC is http://ppm.ActiveSate.com/cgibin/PPM/ppmserver.pl?urn:/PPMServer . I know the installation I'm currently using has got a tendency to 'forget' about the PPM archives - so it's good to have a list of all of them to hand...
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