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Re: "Warning: perl appears in your path"

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From:
Dave Mitchell
Date:
September 29, 2016 09:40
Subject:
Re: "Warning: perl appears in your path"
Message ID:
20160929094035.GE3191@iabyn.com
On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:38:43AM -0700, Sawyer X wrote:
> On 09/27/2016 07:05 AM, Dave Mitchell wrote:
> > When installing a non-devel perl, you typically get a message like the
> > following on STDERR:
> >
> >     Warning: perl appears in your path in the following locations beyond where
> >     we just installed it:
> >         /bin/perl
> >         /usr/bin/perl
> >
> > My thoughts are:
> >
> > 1) Do we really still need this message? It's very common these days when
> > installing perl for the system to already have its own perl.
> 
> A situation I imagine in which I would find this useful is if I'm
> accidentally installing perl to the system without realizing it, or if
> I'm accidentally installing it to a different system directory (as the
> example of /bin/perl and /usr/bin/perl). I can see how such a warning
> would be useful for me to see so I could either reconfigure with a
> --prefix or I could sort out the $PATH and possible system perl
> installations.

But I don't think the existing warning will help you in this case.
On any modern UNIX-like system, there will almost certainly be a
/usr/bin/perl already present. So any attempt to install another perl
anywhere, (under your home directory, under /usr/local, etc) will elicit
the warning that /usr/bin/perl already exists, which we probably knew
anyway.

If you're trying to install perl as /usr/bin/perl and that already exists,
then presumably you *won't* get that warning, so the warning is only
helpful in the sense that you're on-ball enough to spot its absence.

-- 
You're only as old as you look.

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