From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Jun 22 01:32:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA21989 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 01:32:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gatekeeper.barcode.co.il (gatekeeper.barcode.co.il [192.116.93.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA21982 for ; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 01:32:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from smap@localhost) by gatekeeper.barcode.co.il (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA29356; Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:32:11 +0300 (IDT) X-Authentication-Warning: gatekeeper.barcode.co.il: smap set sender to using -f Received: from localhost.barcode.co.il(127.0.0.1) by gatekeeper.barcode.co.il via smap (V1.3) id sma029353; Sun Jun 22 11:31:40 1997 Message-ID: <33ACE2A8.3363@barcode.co.il> Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 11:30:32 +0300 From: Nadav Eiron X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5 sun4m) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: allenc@verinet.com CC: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Perl5 installation References: <33ACC087.7CD6@verinet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Allen Campbell wrote: > > I am building my first (of many I hope) FreeBSD server. I installed the > Perl5 package (Perl v5.003) after installing the FreeBSD v2.2.2 > distribution. I assumed that the Perl5 package installation would > replace the Perl4 binary in /usr/bin. It did not, and this leads me to > the following questions; > > Should a symlink be put in place of the Perl4 binary in /usr/bin? Are > there perl4 resources that are installed with the base distribution that > should be removed? > > That fact that the Perl5 package did not overwrite the perl4 binary > implies that perl4 should not be tampered with. I am familiar enough > with Perl to know that Perl5 is backwardly compatible, but this is not > perfect. Are there perl4 dependent scripts present on the system that > would cause me to want to preserve perl4? > > Thanks for helping a neophyte FreeBSD hack. The reason perl5 didn't replace the /usr/bin/perl binary is because that's what /usr/local/bin is for - that's where binaries that are not part of the base OS go. On the other hand, I've found very little reason to use perl4. What I usually do is rename /usr/bin/perl to /usr/bin/perl4 (just in case) and then make /usr/bin/perl a symlink to the binary in /usr/local/bin. Most scripts should not notice the difference, though there are exceptions. If you see a sctipt complaining about @ requiring a \, or some other perl5 backward incompatibility, just change it to use perl4. One thing to note if you do take this approach: When upgrading, the upgrade procedure will overwrite your symlink in /usr/bin with a new perl4 binary, so this procedure must be repeated each time you upgrade the OS. Nadav