Installing ActivePerl for macOS

You can install the macOS package using the standard user interface, or by using the command line.

Before you begin

Before you start the installation, you need to ensure that your system meets the prerequisites, and that you do not have other Perl distributions that are going to conflict with ActivePerl.

Prerequisites

  • Hardware: 200 MB hard disk space
  • Operating System: macOS 10.9 “Mavericks” or later

Installing with Package

ActivePerl is distributed on macOS as an installer package (.pkg bundle).

  1. Download the ActivePerl installer package (ActivePerl-<version>.pkg).
  2. Double-click the ActivePerl installer package (ActivePerl-<version>.pkg) to start the installation.
  3. Follow the Installer prompts. The installer will ask for administrative authentication if the current user does not have administrative privileges.

Installing with the Package command line tool

macOS includes a non-interactive command line interface to Apple’s Installer you can use to install ActivePerl from the command line:

  1. Download the ActivePerl installer package (ActivePerl-<version>.pkg).

  2. Open Terminal and run Installer using the following syntax:

    $ sudo installer -pkg /Users/<username>/Downloads/ActivePerl-<version>.pkg -target /

    Note: It is sometimes useful to create an install log file (e.g. to send to ActiveState technical support). To do this, use the -verbose and -dumplog flags:

    sudo installer -pkg /Users/<username>/Downloads/ActivePerl-<version>.pkg \
-target / -verbose -dumplog > install.log 2>&1

    For more information on the command line interface to Installer, enter man installer in Terminal.

More information on the command line interface to Installer can be found by entering man installer in Terminal.

macOS Configuration

The macOS Installer package installs ActivePerl in /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22. To run the perl interpreter and the ppm package manager without having to enter the full path, you need to add /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/bin to your PATH environment variable. For example:

$ export PATH=/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/bin:$PATH
$ export PATH=/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/site/bin:$PATH

To permanently add the directory to your PATH, add it to the .profile or .bash_profile file in your home directory. For example:

PATH=/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/bin:$PATH
PATH=/usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/site/bin:$PATH
export PATH

Alternatively, you can create symbolic links to the binaries in any bin directory in your PATH to run the perl executables without entering the full path. For example, you could add a bin subdirectory in your home directory to your PATH and create symbolic links:

$ mkdir /Users/<username/bin
$ export PATH=/Users/<username>/bin:$PATH
$ ln -s /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.24/bin/perl /Users/<username>/bin/perl
$ ln -s /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.24/bin/ppm /Users/<username>/bin/ppm

Verify that you are pointing to the correct ActivePerl executables by entering `perl --version` and `ppm --version`

## Uninstalling ActivePerl on macOS

Apple does not provide a standard uninstallation tool or mechanism. You may,
however, use the `uninstall` script that comes with ActivePerl
to uninstall ActivePerl:

```text
$ sudo /usr/local/ActivePerl-5.22/bin/ap-uninstall

Removing ActivePerl will also remove perl modules manually installed using PPM.

If necessary, remove any symbolic links, or updates to your .profile or .bash_profile file, added during configuration. For example:

$ rm /Users/<username>/bin/perl
$ rm /Users/<username>/bin/ppm