How can I set Perl's inclusion path for modules for a CGI script?

Question

I’ve got several Perl modules installed on my hosting machine in ~/perl, how do I add them to Perl module path? Setting PERL5LIB or unshifting the paths to @INC surely works, but the environment variable does not help when running as a CGI script and the @INC way is not very portable. Is there a better way? This has to be a common problem, am I missing something?

Answer 1

PERL5LIB works just fine for CGI scripts. You just have to set the variable in the right place, such as the server configuration. Which webserver are you using? For Apache, I use the SetEnv directive from mod_env.

@INC is portable. The paths you put in there may not be the same on every machine, but you shouldn't have a problem the with variable itself.

Have you read the FAQ entries in perlfaq8:

• How do I add the directory my program lives in to the module/library search path?
• How do I add a directory to my include path (@INC) at runtime?