Having discussed this in the CB with magnus it seems that he has a rather old version of Net::Ping (v1.01). This version has a functional interface and therefore doesn't have a new method.

The solution is therefore to download the most recent (but still four years old!) version from CPAN (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Net-Ping).

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

Here's a simple example of using Net::Ping, perhaps it will help you find your problem.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use Net::Ping;

my $host = shift or die "No host specified.\n";
my $p = Net::Ping->new;

my $res = $p->ping($host);

die "Unknown host $host\n" unless defined $res;

print "$host is ", $res ? 'alive' : 'dead', "\n";
[download]

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

i have run this program exactly as you've typed it...

i get the same error:

 Can't locate object method "new" via package "Net::Ping" at ...

could there be something wrong with the module?

magnus here is the exact code block:
(imagine, if you will, Net::Ping has already been called)



sub reachable { 

     (@machines_to_ping) = @_; 
     $host = Net::Ping->new(); 

     foreach (@machines_to_ping){ 

          $reachable = $host->ping($_); 

               if ($reach == 1){ 
                  print "$_ reachable\n"; 
               } else { 
                  print "$_ not reachable\n"; 
               } 
      } 
}
[download]

hopefully this helps...

Try this, add:

use diagnostics;

This will at least give you more verbose error messages that might be easier to understand.