Random Developments

You’ve all heard of LAMP, right? Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl. Well, I’m trying to setup a WAMP environment here, to be used as my development machine. Yes, the W is Windows.

So, the task of the day is to get Perl talking to MySQL inside a Cygwin environment.

Installing MySQL in Windows is very easy; the hardest part, in the end, is to get the control panel not to open everytime you restart the computer. Cygwin and Perl are similarly easy to install. Getting one to talk to the other, though, requires a few tricks.

What you have to do is to download the TAR file with the Linux version of MySQL, expand it, and do a

Followed by make and make install, of course. This will, after a considerable amount of time, generate and install all the libraries and include files you need. Make sure, though, that you have gcc as well as g++ installed in your Cygwin package (you will get weird pre-processor errors if you do not have g++).

After that, it’s just a matter of installing DBI and DBD::mysql, which, in most cases, is as easy as

assuming that mysql_config is in your $PATH. Word of advice, though. The CPAN module does not like when there is a space anywhere in the path to one of the directories it uses (such as it’s download cache); if there are spaces, it will fail when downloading packages. The solution, obviously, is to point it to some other directory.

Regarding what I wrote here, about going after the Oscars… I found them!

Today I visited the “Australians in Hollywood” exhibition, at the Victorian Centre for the Arts, and there were two Oscars there: the ones received by John Truscott in 1967, for Camelot (Art Direction and Costume Design). I don’t think I’d ever seen an Oscar up close and personal, so that was a first.

Next step: winning one.