The Perl interpreter shipped with Squish binary packages is a stripped down version that lacks the Perl PPM ("Programmer's Package Manager") tool — this makes it difficult to install additional Perl modules.¶
To work around this the SQUISHDIR/perl directory can be replaced with a full Perl 5.8.8 installation. After this the SQUISHDIR/perl/bin/PPM tool can be used to install any additional modules.
Here are the steps to replace the Perl interpreter in Squish binary packages:
1. Rename Squish's Perl directory from
SQUISHDIR/perl
to
SQUISHDIR/perl.orig
2. Download and unpack "ActivePerl-5.8.8.820-MSWin32-x86-274739.zip" (or a "compatible" package; ActivePerl 5.12.x did not work in our tests).
3. In the unpacked ActivePerl folder, execute
Installer.bat
The installer will ask you some questions. Our suggested answers are displayed in bold:
Did you read the LICENSE.txt file? \[no\] *yes*
Do you agree to the ActivePerl Community License v2.1? \[no\] *yes*
Enter top level directory for install? \[C:\Perl\] *C:\squish-4.1\perl*
Proceed? \[yes\] *_Press Enter_*
Create shortcuts to the HTML documentation? \[yes\] *no*
Add the Perl\site\bin and Perl\bin directories to the PATH? \[yes\] *no*
Proceed? \[yes\] *_Press Enter_*
It is essential to enter the SQUISHDIR\perl path when asked which top level directory to install to. (In the example above we have assumed C:\squish-4.1, but use whichever path is correct for your machine.)
4. Now you can use the PPM tool to install additional packages.
SQUISHDIR/perl/bin/ppm