What is the difference between perl and perl-devel?

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

Hi, I'm new in perl programming and linux OS. What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? What does mean devel? Iwant to install Catalyst and before install as required I have to check if make, gcc and perl-devel are installed in my system. make and gcc are installed. But I have to install perl-devel. First I searched for make, gcc and perl-devel in YAST Software Management and search did not find perl-devel. I visited the software.opensuse.org and wrote "perl-devel" and searched. The result was many similar zips with a prefix perl-devel and I can not choose one for needed perl-devel. Please, help me to make a choise which one is true for "perl-devel"...

List of search results:

perl-Devel-Symdump

perl-Devel-CoreStack

perl-Devel-StackTrace

perl-Devel-Caller

perl-Devel-GlobalDestruction

perl-Devel-Leak

perl-Devel-LexAlias

perl-Devel-Trace

perl-Devel-REPL

perl-Devel-Size

perl-Devel-PPPort

perl-Devel-Cycle

apache2-mod_perl-devel

I'm using openSUSE 11.1; Perl 5.10.1; Apache2

Comment on What is the difference between perl and perl-devel?

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Re: What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? by Tux (Canon) on Jun 28, 2010 at 10:52 UTC
I'm an OpenSUSE user, and I do understand the question. In this case you are most likely misguided by the capital D. (Open)SUSE makes perl modules available with the `perl-` prefix. This means that e.g. Text::CSV_XS is available as package perl-Text-CSV_XS-0.73-6.1.x86_64. The normal `-devel` packages on (Open)SUSE refer to the libraries and header files needed for development for the same package without the `-devel` extension. E.g. the header files for openssl are in package openssl-devel. Now back to your confusion. On CPAN (where most modules come from), there are a certain number of packages in the `Devel::` namespace. Just like Text::CSV_XS is in the `Text::` namespace, Devel::Size is in the `Devel::` namespace, and (Open)SSE makes it avalable as perl-Devel-Size-0.71-1.1.x86_64. For perl itself, there are only two packages: perl-5.10.0-143.2.x86_64 (the 64bit version) and perl-32bit-5.10.0-143.1.x86_64 (the 32bit version). I hope this clears up your doubts. Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? by Corion (Patriarch) on Jun 28, 2010 at 09:51 UTC
`perl-devel` is not any official name for Perl. This is most likely some artifact of your OS package manager. Maybe the instructions you are following were written for a Linux system based on the Debian package manager. Usually, "perl-devel" could mean "All headers and programs needed to (re)compile Perl". I don't use any SuSE-based system, so I can't help you what package would contain that.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? by JavaFan (Canon) on Jun 28, 2010 at 09:53 UTC
I think your question is more about the SUSE policy of naming packages than it's a Perl question. You're more likely to get useful answers from a SUSE forum than you'll be getting here.	[reply]
Re: What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jun 28, 2010 at 15:31 UTC
Those aren't builds of Perl, those are Perl modules. For example, perl-Devel-Size is the Perl module Devel::Size, a module the provides functions that determine the amount of memory used by a scalar or data structure.	[reply]
Re: What is the difference between perl and perl-devel? by Khen1950fx (Canon) on Jun 28, 2010 at 10:55 UTC
As I understand it, the use of perl-devel is discouraged. I think it should be perl(devel) or perl(perl::devel). Note: I was thinking of BuildRequires.	[reply]