1) Perl creates a new directory because not every version (or subversion) is binary compatible. This means that if you had installed any perl libs that used XS (C code) they would not be guaranteed to work with a different version of perl than the one they were compiled against. So Perl avoids these problems by creating a different directory so that multiple perls can exist on the same system.

2) AFAIK it is not completely safe to just mv the directories. Only if you know that they are pure perl should you risk it. Even then you won't know that the old module passes it's test suite under your new version of Perl.

In reply to Re^3: Sysadmin questions on efficient installation of new Perl versions by mpeters
in thread Sysadmin questions on efficient installation of new Perl versions by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.