Perl Installation Comments

Installing Perl on Unix Perl support for MySQL is provided by means of the DBI/DBD client interface. The Perl DBD/DBI client code requires Perl Version 5.004 or later.

The interface will not work if you have an older version of Perl.

MySQL Perl support also requires that you’ve installed MySQL client programming support. If you installed MySQL from RPM files, client programs are in the client RPM, but
client programming support is in the developer RPM. Make sure you’ve installed the latter RPM.

As of Version 3.22.8, Perl support is distributed separately from the main MySQL distribution. If you want to install Perl support, the files you will need can be obtained from http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Contrib/.

The Perl distributions are provided as compressed tar archives and have names like
‘MODULE-VERSION.tar.gz’, where MODULE is the module name and VERSION is the version
number. You should get the Data-Dumper, DBI, and Msql-Mysql-modules distributions and
install them in that order. The installation procedure is shown below. The example shown
is for the Data-Dumper module, but the procedure is the same for all three distributions:

1. Unpack the distribution into the current directory:
shell> gunzip <> cd Data-Dumper-VERSION
3. Build the distribution and compile everything:
shell> perl Makefile.PL
shell> make
shell> make test
shell> make install
The make test command is important because it verifies that the module is working. Note
that when you run that command during the Msql-Mysql-modules installation to exercise
the interface code, the MySQL server must be running or the test will fail.
It is a good idea to rebuild and reinstall the Msql-Mysql-modules distribution whenever
you install a new release of MySQL, particularly if you notice symptoms such as all your
DBI scripts dumping core after you upgrade MySQL.
If you don’t have the right to install Perl modules in the system directory or if you to install
local Perl modules, the following reference may help you:
http://www.iserver.com/support/contrib/perl5/modules.html
Look under the heading Installing New Modules that Require Locally Installed Modules.

Problems Using the Perl DBI/DBD Interface
If Perl reports that it can’t find the ‘../mysql/mysql.so’ module, then the problem is
probably that Perl can’t locate the shared library ‘libmysqlclient.so’.
You can fix this by any of the following methods:
• Compile the Msql-Mysql-modules distribution with perl Makefile.PL -static -
config rather than perl Makefile.PL.
• Copy libmysqlclient.so to the directory where your other shared libraries are located
(probably ‘/usr/lib’ or ‘/lib’).
• On Linux you can add the pathname of the directory where ‘libmysqlclient.so’ is
located to the ‘/etc/ld.so.conf’ file.
• Add the pathname of the directory where ‘libmysqlclient.so’ is located to the LD_
RUN_PATH environment variable.
If you get the following errors from DBD-mysql, you are probably using gcc (or using an old
binary compiled with gcc):
/usr/bin/perl: can’t resolve symbol ’__moddi3’
/usr/bin/perl: can’t resolve symbol ’__divdi3’
Add -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/... -lgcc to the link command when the ‘mysql.so’ library
gets built (check the output from make for ‘mysql.so’ when you compile the Perl client).
The -L option should specify the pathname of the directory where ‘libgcc.a’ is located on
your system.

Another cause of this problem may be that Perl and MySQL aren’t both compiled with
gcc. In this case, you can solve the mismatch by compiling both with gcc.
If you get the following error from Msql-Mysql-modules when you run the tests:
t/00base............install_driver(mysql) failed: Can’t load ’../blib/arch/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.so’ for module DBD::mysql: ../blib/arch/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.so: undefined symbol: uncompress at /usr/lib/perl5/5.00503/i586-linux/DynaLoader.pm line 169.
it means that you need to include the compression library, -lz, to the link line. This can be
doing the following change in the file ‘lib/DBD/mysql/Install.pm’:
$sysliblist .= " -lm";

to

$sysliblist .= " -lm -lz";
After this, you must run ’make realclean’ and then proceed with the installation from the
beginning.
If you want to use the Perl module on a system that doesn’t support dynamic linking (like
SCO) you can generate a static version of Perl that includes DBI and DBD-mysql. The way
this works is that you generate a version of Perl with the DBI code linked in and install it
on top of your current Perl. Then you use that to build a version of Perl that additionally
has the DBD code linked in, and install that.
On SCO, you must have the following environment variables set:
shell> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/progressive/lib
or
shell> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/ccs/lib:/usr/progressive/lib:/usr/skunk/lib
shell> LIBPATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/ccs/lib:/usr/progressive/lib:/usr/skunk/lib
shell> MANPATH=scohelp:/usr/man:/usr/local1/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/skunk/man:
First, create a Perl that includes a statically linked DBI by running these commands in the
directory where your DBI distribution is located:
shell> perl Makefile.PL -static -config
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> make perl

Then you must install the new Perl. The output of make perl will indicate the exact make
command you will need to execute to perform the installation. On SCO, this is make -f
Makefile.aperl inst_perl MAP_TARGET=perl.
Next, use the just-created Perl to create another Perl that also includes a statically-linked
DBD::mysql by running these commands in the directory where your Msql-Mysql-modules
distribution is located:
shell> perl Makefile.PL -static -config
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> make perl
Finally, you should install this new Perl. Again, the output of make perl indicates the
command to use.