Where are Modules Installed?

Module files end with the extension .pm. If the module name is a simple one, like Env, then Perl will look for a file named Env.pm. If the module name is separated by :: sections, Perl will treat the :: characters like directories. So it will look for the module File::Basename in the file File/Basename.pm

Perl searches for module files in a set of directories specified by the Perl library path. This is set when Perl is first installed. You can find out what directories Perl will search for modules in by issuing perl -V from the command line:

 % perl -V
 Summary of my perl5 (revision 5.0 version 6 subversion 1) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=linux, osvers=2.4.2-2smp, archname=i686-linux
 ...
  Compiled at Oct 11 2001 11:08:37
  @INC:
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/i686-linux
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/i686-linux
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
    .

You can modify this path to search in other locations by placing the use lib command somewhere at the top of your script:

#!/usr/bin/perl use lib '/home/lstein/lib'; use MyModule; ...

This tells Perl to look in /home/lstein/lib for the module MyModule before it looks in the usual places. Now you can install module files in this directory and Perl will find them.

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