Installing exiftool via cpan results in "exiftool" being in wrong directory.

[marnix]

After trying multiple fresh installations of perl and fresh installations of exiftool via cpan, I finally had to edit the exiftool script so that it could find the Image::ExifTool module.  Either the exiftool script is being installed in the wrong place, or the "BEGIN {}" code of the script is in error.  In my case, using perlbrew, my perl is in /Users/mav6/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.26.0/bin/perl .  The default @INC array holds:
/Users/mav6/perl5
/Users/mav6/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.26.0/lib/site_perl/5.26.0/darwin-2level
/Users/mav6/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.26.0/lib/site_perl/5.26.0
/Users/mav6/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.26.0/lib/5.26.0/darwin-2level
/Users/mav6/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.26.0/lib/5.26.0

I used 'perl -MCPAN -e shell' followed by 'install Image::ExifTool' to install exiftool.  the exiftool then ended up in:
/Users/mav6/perl5/bin/exiftool
which wasn't even in my $PATH.  But OK, I added /Users/mav6/perl5/bin to my PATH.  Then trying to run that script, I would get errors indicating that the Image::ExifTool module couldn't be found.  That module ended up in:
/Users/mav6/perl5/lib/perl5/Image/ExifTool.pm

Looking at the script, a BEGIN{} section takes the location of the script's parent directory (/Users/mav6/perl5/bin), appends "lib" to it, and adds that to the @INC array.  So "/Users/mav6/perl5/bin/lib".  That's the wrong place.  Should be "/Users/mav6/perl5/lib/perl5".  I added some stuff to that BEGIN stanza, so now it works.

This might all be due to an error in the installation and in the script.  I don't see why the installation is putting it in my ~/perl5/lib/perl5 (why the second perl5 ?).  Even if that latter perl5 is right, the script isn't figuring out the correct path to add to the @INC array.

I hope I explained it all OK.  Of course, I could be wrong.  Maybe it's an error in my perl or my cpan, but thus far I see it as I described it above.  Cheers,

Marnix A.  van Ammers

[marnix]

OK, I didn't read the "read this before posting" notice until after i posted the above.  So there is a whole separate package for OSX/MacOS .  Didn't know that.  But some folks like me, who've used exiftool in the past simply by installing it via cpan, might go through a lot of trouble and maybe find my posting and this comment and maybe find them helpful.  Back to your regularly scheduled program now ...

[Hayo Baan]

Hi Marnix,

I do think the error is somehow in your perl environment; the cpan installer uses (should use) the paths derived from the perl installation and it looks like those are incorrect in your case. Have you recently installed other cpan packages? Where did they end up?

Note: the advantage of the full install of exiftool like you did over the Mac OS X package is that you have the perl exiftool library at your direct disposal so you could use Image::ExifTool in your own perl scripts.

Also: instead of installing via cpan, you can also directly install from the sources (look at the Unix install instructions). That's actually how I do it since I always want the latest version (the cpan version is sometimes a bit behind).

[Phil Harvey]

(the cpan version is sometimes a bit behind).

Yes.  I only upload the production releases to cpan.

But Hayo is correct.  The cpanp install should work for you.  Yes, the "exiftool" script adds a "lib" directory rooted at the directory of the executable in the BEGIN statement, but that is for the case where you don't do the installation.  The installation should put the libraries in one of the @INC directories.

- Phil

[marnix]

I have no idea what was wrong.  Tried it all on a linux box and all worked fine.  Then I started over installing Image::ExifTool on my Mac again today and all worked OK.  Sorry for the trouble and thank you for your comments.