Re: [MacPerl] Beginner's setup FAQ?

[Brian McNett <webmaster@mycoinfo.com>]

>Is there a FAQ somewhere that has a step by step setup procedure for 
>MacPerl and Webstar?  I've spent at least 4 hours searching and all I 
>find is "install the program...start programming...", one says put 
>MacPerl in the Webstar folder another says, don't put Macperl in the 
>Westar folder.

Probably not a good idea from a security standpoint to put MacPerl in the 
same folder as Webstar. Otherwise, there's no damage done.

>The first line in many programs is #!/usr/local/bin/perl.  Do I 
>create these folders and use an alias to macperl or do I change the 
>first line to .../cgi-bin/macperl???

In a word, no.  The #! line does magical stuff in Unix, but is decidedly 
unmagical on the Mac (read: it's functionality is emulated under 
MacPerl).  You don't need to touch it.  Your own scripts can begin #!perl 
unless you expect someone on Unix will be using them.

Basically, however, the "install the program... start programming" advice 
is (although oversimplified) just exactly what you do.  If you're really 
serious, you'll get an external editor (BBEdit or Alpha), to get around 
the limits of MacPerl's builtin editor, but beyond that, go for it.

General advice:

#!perl -w

use strict;
use CGI;

Translation: Turn on warnings.  Apply the "strict" pragma to your code. 
Use CGI.pm when creating CGI's (more generally, if there's a module to do 
what you're planning, use it!).


--B

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