How to install perl5.10 on OS X 10.5.8?

Question

I need to install perl 5.10 on my OS X 10.5.8 box.

I have macports installed. And I seem to have port perl5.10 installed as well:

$ sudo port install perl5.10
Password:
--->  Computing dependencies for perl5.10
--->  Cleaning perl5.10

However current perl version is still 5.8.8

$ which perl
/opt/local/bin/perl

$ perl --version

This is perl, v5.8.8 built for darwin-2level

Copyright 1987-2006, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.

$ /opt/local/bin/perl --version

This is perl, v5.8.8 built for darwin-2level

Copyright 1987-2006, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Where was each version installed?

• /usr/bin/perl is 5.8.8

So, the first thing to check is your PATH variable.

Then look at other places - /usr/local/bin and so on - to see where the new version was installed.

For myself, I build my own Perl, leaving the system one to the system; it is in $HOME/perl/v5.10.1/bin/perl, near version 5.10.0.

I use this script - called 'which' - to establish which version of a program I'm using. Used with 'which -a perl', it would tell me all the possible copies of Perl I could be using...

#!/bin/sh
#
# @(#)$Id: pathfile.sh,v 2.1 2008/07/14 17:42:13 jleffler Exp $
#
# Which command is executed

# Loosely based on which from Kernighan & Pike "The UNIX Programming Environment"

oldpath=$PATH
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin

usage()
{
    echo "Usage: $0 [-afrwx] [-p path] command ..." >&2
    exit 1
}

tflag=-x
aflag=no
while [ $# -gt 0 ]
do
    case $1 in
    -[frwx])
        tflag=$1
        shift;;
    -p) oldpath=$2
        shift 2;;
    -a) aflag=yes
        shift;;
    --) shift;
        break;;
    -*) usage;;
    *)  break;;
    esac
done

case $# in
0)  usage;;
esac

PATHDIRS=`echo $oldpath | sed ' s/^:/.:/
                            s/::/:.:/g
                            s/:$/:./
                            s/:/ /g'`


for cmd in $*
do
    fflag=no
    case "$cmd" in
    */*)
        if [ ! -d $cmd ] && [ $tflag $cmd ]
        then echo $cmd
        else echo "$cmd: not found" 1>&2
        fi;;

    *)
        for directory in $PATHDIRS
        do
            if [ ! -d $directory/$cmd ] && [ $tflag $directory/$cmd ]
            then
                echo $directory/$cmd
                fflag=yes
                [ $aflag = no ] && break
            fi
        done
        if [ $fflag = no ]
        then
            echo "$cmd: not found" >&2
        fi
    esac

done

Answer 2

I guess it would be named perl5.10 and not just perl.