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At the moment i am running git 1.7.5.4, perl 5.12.3 as well as python 2.7.1 on osx 10.7.3, which were all included in the basic system setup. Applying the "which" command the locations are:

/usr/bin/git  
/usr/bin/perl  
/usr/bin/python  

I wanted to keep those versions untouched and upgrade and install the latest ones aside. If they are installed within '/usr/local/bin' and inside of '.bash_profile' '/usr/local/bin' is placed at the first position of 'export PATH=' and you are applying 'which' afterwards the location would be:

/usr/local/bin/git

Now the question is which version of git, perl and or python osx would be using. Basically i guess it would use the versions from '/usr/local/bin' too? Or are the absolute paths of '/usr/bin' been hardcoded within the parts of osx and xcode requiring them? Thanks r.

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    For Perl, you might want to look into perlbrew.
    – ikegami
    Apr 24, 2012 at 0:20
  • For git, grab the source code of it and compile it with your desired --prefix. Also, MacPorts installs softwares under /opt/, it will not touch those that come with your system installation. I don't like MacPorts cause it's quite slow compared to HomeBrew.
    – Neevek
    Apr 24, 2012 at 1:06

2 Answers 2

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Yes, you can install your own versions of the programs in /usr/local/bin or any other directory of your choosing that you place on your PATH ahead of /usr/bin etc. I do this all the time for both Perl and Git; I don't use Python so much.

The scripts that are distributed by Apple will likely continue to use the system-provided tools. Indeed, the reason I install my own Perl is so that regardless of what I do in the way of installing extra modules, I won't be breaking anything the system uses (probably). I've never run into problems, at any rate. My programs use my versions; other people's programs configure themselves to use whatever they see fit; the system continues to work.

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  • Yup. This is also MacPorts' default installation path.
    – johnsyweb
    Apr 24, 2012 at 6:35
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I would recommend to use homebrew.

You can install git and python and probably also perl with it. For perl I use perlbrew with which you can have multiple versions of perl concurrent, but for one (the latest) version, homebrew should also work here.

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