Question

I recently wrote a new Perl script to kill processes based on either process name / user name and extended it using Classes so that I could reuse the process code in other programs. My current layout is –

/home/mutew/src/prod/pskill       <-- Perl script /home/mutew/src/prod/Process.pm   <-- Package to handle process descriptions 

I added ~/src/prod in my $PATH variable to access the script from anywhere. On running the script from any directory other than its resident directory leads to a ‘Can’t locate Process.pm in @INC’ (which is understandable given that other than the shared directories in /usr, @INC includes only the current directory – ‘.’). One workaround that I have been using is the use lib directive as so –

use lib '/home/mutew/src/prod'; 

but this is a major portability issue. Any solutions which will also allow me to export the script to other systems without and changes?

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EDIT

1. I chose ‘depesz’ answer as the correct one because of its simplicity and core module usage.
2. brian d foy’s answer though suggests other methods to accomplish the same (TMTOWTDI), his contribution in perlfaq8 renders this question absolutely redundant.

Answer 1

The simplest approach I found it to use FindBin module. Like this:

use FindBin; use lib $FindBin::Bin; 

Generally I prefer to have my scripts provided in such a way that programs are in whatever/bin, and libraries are in whatever/lib

In these situations I use a slightly more complicated approach:

use Cwd qw(abs_path); use FindBin; use lib abs_path('$FindBin::Bin/../lib'); 

The abs_path call is to make the @INC contain whatever/lib, and not whatever/bin/../lib – it’s just a slight change, but makes reading error messages easier.