In general, if the module concerned is a "pure perl" module, there is nothing (provided you take the copyrights etc with it) of including it into your script as source.

However, many modules have XS and/or C components and they obviously won't work without their compiled bits.

I'm not familiar with the internals of GD so don't know which is the case for it.

Being a graphics module, it's quite likely that at least some of it has been optomised to C for speed?

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately you've provided me with another question now, specifically for GD and for any other module generically, is there a way to find out if a module is "pure Perl"?

I guess I could just go and look through the source code but I'm still pretty much a novice at Perl so I might skip parts I don't understand and not recognize them as being XS or C components. Maybe there is a module on CPAN that analyzes a given file to determine if it's pure Perl or not?

Many thanks for any help and the help so far :)
Neil

You can tell if a module is pure Perl or not by examining the dslip information.

One module which does this is CPANPLUS (it also does a whole lot more, including module installation without root access, which I recommend over including the module source in your program*). The default shell includes the 'l' command which will give information, including the language used.

CPAN.pm might also give dslip info, but I don't know it well enough to say if it does or not.

GD is C and Perl and a C compiler is needed. If your ISP allows you to use a compiler, you should still be able to install it without being root.

[1] For instructions on how to do this with CPANPLUS, refer to the FAQ (available on the website).

GD has been around for quite a while now. If you're ISP doesn't have it, or if you can't get them to install it for you, treat this as a big warning flag, and start looking around for a new, Perl-friendly ISP.

 I havn't tried it yet, but it may be possible to put the GD package 
on your remote machine if they let you compile. You should
be able to ssh to your homedir and do it. Here is an excerpt from
the mod-perl-in-homedirs.html.

8.1. Installing Perl Modules into a Directory of Choice

   Since without superuser permissions you aren't allowed to install
   modules into system directories like /usr/lib/perl5, you need to find
   out how to install the modules under your home directory. It's easy.

   First you have to decide where to install the modules. The simplest
   approach is to simulate the portion of the / file system relevant to
   Perl under your home directory. Actually we need only two directories:

/home/stas/bin
/home/stas/lib

   We don't have to create them, since that will be done automatically
   when the first module is installed. 99% of the files will go into the
   lib directory. Occasionally, when some module distribution comes with
   Perl scripts, these will go into the bin directory. This directory
   will be created if it doesn't exist.

   Let's install the CGI.pm package, which includes a few other CGI::*
   modules. As usual, download the package from the CPAN repository,
   unpack it and chdir to the newly-created directory.

   Now do a standard perl Makefile.PL to prepare a Makefile, but this
   time tell MakeMaker to use your Perl installation directories instead
   of the defaults.

% perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/stas

   PREFIX=/home/stas is the only part of the installation process which
   is different from usual. Note that if you don't like how MakeMaker
   chooses the rest of the directories, or if you are using an older
   version of it which requires an explicit declaration of all the target
   directories, you should do this:

% perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/stas \
  INSTALLPRIVLIB=/home/stas/lib/perl5 \
  INSTALLSCRIPT=/home/stas/bin \
  INSTALLSITELIB=/home/stas/lib/perl5/site_perl \
  INSTALLBIN=/home/stas/bin \
  INSTALLMAN1DIR=/home/stas/lib/perl5/man  \
  INSTALLMAN3DIR=/home/stas/lib/perl5/man3

   The rest is as usual:

% make
% make test
% make install

Assuming you have a shell account on the ISP, do the usual:
UPDATE: see the reply. Those steps work even better.

tar -zxvf GD-1.41.tar.gz 
cd GD-1.41
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
[download]

Now, in the top of your scripts which want to use GD, do this:

 use lib '/home/neil/GD-1.41/blib/lib','/home/neil/GD-1.41/blib/arch';
 use GD;
[download]

BTW, use lib is like the following, but with more error-checking:

  BEGIN {
  unshift (@INC, 'directory');
  }
[download]

Hmmmmm, i think you have an incomplete step and one step missing:

tar -zxvf GD-1.41.tar.gz 
cd GD-1.41
perl Makefile.PL LIB=/path/to/your/lib
make
make test
make install

And if have said this once, i have said it ... more than once ... check out tachyon's Super Tutorial Number One, A Guide to Installing Modules - especially the section, I don't have permission to install a module on the system!

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Let's use FOO.pm like a module, with a XS too. 1st get it, compile and install in some Perl interpreter that you have access, with the same OS of your server. They will be instaled at: (let's use Perl for Win32 like example (path more simple))
c:/perl/site/lib/FOO.pm
c:/perl/site/lib/auto/FOO/FOO.dll

To enable this module in the server just copy all the stuf from FOO.pm inside site/lib to your server, with the same path. In the cgi-bin will be like:
.../cgi-bin/FOO.pm
.../cgi-bin/auto/FOO/FOO.dll

This will work fine, because Perl use your local path like a lib directory too (see @INC). About the directory auto/FOO, copy everything inside to the server, not only the DLL. And if your module have other sub-modules you need to copy the directory site/lib/FOO too.

Using this steps you don't need a shell acount to do that, just a FTP! Don't forget to send the .pm like ANSII and the DLL (or .so on linux) like binary!

Graciliano M. P.

"The creativity is the expression of the liberty".