in reply to installing perl 5.12.3

However I still see to be running the old Perl 5.8.8 version as outputted from perl -v. How do I 'activate' Perl 5.12.3 now?

You have to add $home/localperl/bin to your PATH environment variable before the path in which your current Perl is.

On this occasion I can recommend App::perlbrew, which makes it very easy to install custom perl versions and switch between them and the system perl.

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Re^2: installing perl 5.12.3
by rob171171 (Acolyte) on Apr 21, 2011 at 09:23 UTC

    Unfortunately perlbrew is not recognised either

    I have also amended my PATH but perl -v still shows 5.8.8!!
        PATH=/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/lib/ccache:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/pats/bin:/home/pats/localperl/bin

        sorry that should read

        [root@Gandalf ~]# $PATH bash: /usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/lib/ccache:/usr/local/ +bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/pats/bin:/home/pats/localperl/ +bin: No such file or directory

      Make sure that the new perl comes before the old one in the path. Also, your shell may have cached the location of perl and so not "see" the old one even though the $PATH has changed.

      You can clear that cache with the hash command in bash, and you can see which perl executable comes first in the path with which perl.

        I have installed perlbrew and have being advised to

        Well-done! Congratulations! Please add the following line to the end of your ~/.bashrc

        can you tell me where I can edit my .bashrc file>

        [root@Gandalf ~]# hash hits command 2 /usr/bin/perl 1 /usr/bin/env [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# [root@Gandalf ~]# which perl /usr/bin/perl [root@Gandalf ~]#