Well, I was intrigued - I have never used Perl, so thought I'd give it a go and see what should happen: I installed it from the (to my mind) bizarre powershell command found on your linked page:
Download & Install Perl | ActiveState
and this was the response I got:
Code:
C:\Users\mnger>powershell -Command "& $([scriptblock]::Create((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://platform.activestate.com/dl/cli/install.ps1'))) -activate-default ActiveState/Perl-5.32"
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By running the State Tool installer you consent to the Privacy Policy. This is required for the State Tool to operate while we are still in beta.
╔═══════════════════════╗
║ Installing State Tool ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
Installing to 'C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Roaming\ActiveState\bin'...
Continue? [y/N]
: y
NOTE: C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Roaming\ActiveState\bin will be created
Preparing for installation...
Determining latest version...
Fetching the latest version: 0.28.4-SHA6258a7b...
Verifying checksums...
Extracting windows-amd64.zip...
╔══════════════════════════════╗
║ Exporting Configuration Data ║
╚══════════════════════════════╝
Updating environment...
Adding C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Roaming\ActiveState\bin to user PATH
State Tool successfully installed to: C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Roaming\ActiveState\bin.
Please close your current terminal window and open a CMD prompt in order to start using the 'state.exe' program. Powershell support is coming soon.
Activating project ActiveState/Perl-5.32 as default
╔════════════════════════════════╗
║ Activating Virtual Environment ║
╚════════════════════════════════╝
Choose Destination
Where would you like to place the project files for ActiveState/Perl-5.32?
> C:\Users\mnger\ActiveState\Perl-5.32
Other ..
At the very end I did not know what to do - it turns out that using the cursor up-down arrows toggles between those two paths: 'C:\users\...' and 'Other...', so I selected the C:\users one and hit enter (but whilst I can't repeat it, the cursor had to be in the right place - sometimes it was floating inside those options, and hitting enter did nothing). This resulted in the following response:
Code:
Cloning Repository
──────────────────
Cloning git repository at https://github.com/ActiveState/perl-5.32
Enumerating objects: 120, done.
Counting objects: 100% (120/120), done.
Compressing objects: 100% (92/92), done.
Total 120 (delta 69), reused 66 (delta 28), pack-reused 0
Installing 16/16
Global Default
──────────────
Successfully configured ActiveState/Perl-5.32 as the global default project.
Warning: Script Names Already In Use
────────────────────────────────────
The following scripts should be renamed:
- convert
These scripts were not aliased during activation but can still be run using `state run`, eg.
`state run convert`.
Note that you can also access scripts by prefixing their script with your project name, eg.
`perl532_pkg-after`
Running Activation Events
─────────────────────────
Successfully created Desktop Shortcuts and File Associations.
You are now in an activated state: a virtual environment just for this project.
To access more of the ActiveState Platform you can visit https://platform.activestate.com/ActiveState/Perl-5.32.
Type `state run learn` to view a quick start guide of commonly used commands.
╔═══════════════════╗
║ You're Activated! ║
╚═══════════════════╝
[ActiveState/Perl-5.32] C:\Users\mnger\ActiveState\Perl-5.32>
I closed that cmd window (something I read somewhere said to do that) and opened another:
Code:
C:\Users\mnger>perl
resulted in a long wait and nothing else. But trying 'perl -v' worked a treat:
Code:
C:\Users\mnger>perl -v
This is perl 5, version 32, subversion 0 (v5.32.0) built for MSWin32-x64-multi-thread
Copyright 1987-2020, Larry Wall
Binary build 32.0r3 provided by ActiveState http://www.ActiveState.com
Built Fri Oct 30 23:03:37 2020
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.
Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl". If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.
It seems 'perl' on its own is wrong. I then went looking to see where all the ActiveState stuff was stored, and found it in
C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Roaming\ActiveState\bin; and C:\Users\mnger\AppData\Local\activestate\bin;, both of which had been added to my 'Path' setting. Before I went further, I noticed a shortcut on my desktop called 'ActiveState Perl-5.32 CLI', which apparently pointed to %windir%\system32\cmd.exe /k state activate and started in C:/Users/mnger/ActiveState/Perl-5.32. I double clicked on it, and got this:
But I must admit I didn't then follow the instruction to Type `state run learn, but went back to a web page I had been looking at: How to Install Perl and Run Your First Script which told me how to write my first perl script: I followed its simple instructions, creating this masterpiece:
Code:
#!usr/bin/perl
print "Enter your name: ";
$name=<STDIN>;
print "Hello, ${name} ... you will soon be a Perl addict!";
opened a command prompt in the containing folder and typed 'perl hello.pl':
Success!
I suggest you try the same, a simple script to check what is, and isn't, working on your perl installation. This has been fun, hope it helps, Martin
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