How do I include a Perl module that's in a different directory?

How do I include a Perl module that's in a different directory? It needs to be a relative path from the module that's including it.

I've tried

push ( @INC,"directory_path/more_path");

also

push ( @INC,"directory_path\\more_path");

Thank you!

From stackoverflow

• 'use lib' can also take a single string value...

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  use lib '<relative-path>';
  use <your lib>;
  

• EDIT: Putting the right solution first, originally from this question. It's the only one that searches relative to the module directory:

  use FindBin;                 # locate this script
  use lib "$FindBin::Bin/..";  # use the parent directory
  use yourlib;
  

  There's many other ways that search for libraries relative to the current directory. You can invoke perl with the -I argument, passing the directory of the other module:

  perl -I.. yourscript.pl
  

  You can include a line near the top of your perl script:

  use lib '..';
  

  You can modify the environment variable PERL5LIB before you run the script:

  export PERL5LIB=$PERL5LIB:..
  

  The push(@INC) strategy can also work, but it has to be wrapped in BEGIN{} to make sure that the push is run before the module search:

  BEGIN {push @INC, '..'}
  use yourlib;
  

  Andomar : Cheers, looks like everyone read "current directory" where you wrote "module's directory".

• Most likely the reason your push did not work is order of execution.

  use is a compile time directive. You push is done at execution time:

  push ( @INC,"directory_path/more_path");
  use Foo.pm;  # In directory path/more_path
  

  You can use a BEGIN block to get around this problem:

  BEGIN {
      push ( @INC,"directory_path/more_path");
  }
  use Foo.pm;  # In directory path/more_path
  

  IMO, it's clearest, and therefore best to use lib:

  use lib "directory_path/more_path";
  use Foo.pm;  # In directory path/more_path
  

  See perlmod for information about BEGIN and other special blocks and when they execute.

• From perlfaq8:

  ---

  How do I add the directory my program lives in to the module/library search path?

  (contributed by brian d foy)

  If you know the directory already, you can add it to @INC as you would for any other directory. You might use lib if you know the directory at compile time:

  use lib $directory;
  

  The trick in this task is to find the directory. Before your script does anything else (such as a chdir), you can get the current working directory with the Cwd module, which comes with Perl:

  BEGIN {
   use Cwd;
   our $directory = cwd;
   }
  
  use lib $directory;
  

  You can do a similar thing with the value of $0, which holds the script name. That might hold a relative path, but rel2abs can turn it into an absolute path. Once you have the

  BEGIN {
   use File::Spec::Functions qw(rel2abs);
   use File::Basename qw(dirname);
  
   my $path   = rel2abs( $0 );
   our $directory = dirname( $path );
   }
  
  use lib $directory;
  

  The FindBin module, which comes with Perl, might work. It finds the directory of the currently running script and puts it in $Bin, which you can then use to construct the right library path:

  use FindBin qw($Bin);