Chapter 2. Installing Perl

Now that you've learned how Perl can ease the burden of Oracle database administration, you're probably eager to get started. This chapter explains how to install Perl for use with Oracle. We'll cover the following steps:

Installing Perl

If you're installing Perl on Unix, we recommend that you install directly from source. If you're installing Perl on Win32, we recommend that you use the pre-built ActivePerl distribution, available from ActiveState; ActivePerl has become the de facto standard Perl version for the Win32 platform.

Installing Perl DBI

Once you've installed Perl itself, you need database connectivity for it. We'll describe how to install Perl's generic DBI module, as well as DBD::Oracle, the Oracle-specific driver for Perl DBI.

Installing Cygwin

Cygwin is a complete Unix-like development environment that you can install on your Win32 machine. It allows you to combine the benefits of access to Unix compilers, interpreters, and other tools (e.g., Perl, gcc) with the convenience of traditional Win32 software (e.g,. Microsoft Word, Excel). We'll explain how to install Cygwin and get the various Perl modules running on it.