locating modules in local dir

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

Hi Monks, I'm using ActivePerl Win2000/XP v5.6.1, and I'd like to be able to locate and load user modules in a local directory. I have code very similar to this:

if (require "eval $module") {
  ...
}
[download]

where $module is the name of the package (without the '.pm') This works, however, my program has numerous user modules, and I'd like to put them all in a 'modules' directory off the base program directory. Is there a painless way to load them from this directory without changing package names? It seems so simple, but I can't figure it out. Thanks, Michael

Comment on locating modules in local dir Download Code

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Re: locating modules in local dir by matija (Priest) on Feb 25, 2004 at 17:12 UTC
You could say `use lib "/your/module/directory";` [download] Note that this will only work for modules with simple names, not for the ones that have the double colon (`::`) in the name. For those modules, you will still have to provide the appropriate subdirectory tree.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: locating modules in local dir by b10m (Vicar) on Feb 25, 2004 at 17:20 UTC
"Note that this will only work for modules with simple names, not for the ones that have the double colon (::) in the name. For those modules, you will still have to provide the appropriate subdirectory tree." This is not true. For example: `/your/module/directory/Special/Module.pm` will be accessable using: `use lib "/your/module/directory"; use Special::Module;` [download] Update: maybe I don't get your comment right, but I don't see what you mean with "provide the appropriate subdirectory tree." -- b10m All code is usually tested, but rarely trusted.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: locating modules in local dir by halley (Prior) on Feb 25, 2004 at 17:30 UTC
If you want application-specific modules to be relative to the application's main script, combine `use lib` with `use FindBin` to get something like the following: `use FindBin; use lib "$FindBin::Bin/lib"; use WidgetCorp::Widget; use WidgetCorp::Mangler; use Text::Distort; use Wiggle;` [download] Now you can structure your application's private modules thusly. `./widgettool.pl ./lib/Wiggle.pm ./lib/Text/Distort.pm ./lib/WidgetCorp/Widget.pm ./lib/WidgetCorp/WidgetMangler.pm` [download] I emphasize that this is useful for application-specific or highly customized modules. For standard stock or CPAN modules, though, it's still preferable to have these installed properly for all users of the system. -- `[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]`	[reply] [d/l] [select]