What is environment variables (PERL5LIB, PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT) in Perl?

In Perl, environment variables play a crucial role in managing the behavior of the Perl interpreter and libraries. Two important environment variables are PERL5LIB and PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT.

The PERL5LIB environment variable is used to specify additional directories where Perl should look for libraries (modules) beyond the default locations. This is particularly useful when you install modules locally or when you want to include custom modules in your project.

The PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT environment variable is utilized by the local::lib module, enabling users to set up a personal library for their Perl modules. This allows for the installation of modules in a user-specific directory, avoiding the need for root access to the system.

Example Usage

Here is an example of setting up these environment variables in a Unix-like shell:

# Setting PERL5LIB export PERL5LIB="$HOME/perl5/lib/perl5:$PERL5LIB" # Setting PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT export PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT="$HOME/perl5" # You can check if they are set echo $PERL5LIB echo $PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT

Perl environment variables PERL5LIB PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT Perl modules local::lib