Local Perl DBI module, Can't locate object method "connect"

Question

I've installed DBI module via cpan. CPAN has been configured to use local directory, so I have ~/perl5 and ~/.cpan directories. The module apparently is in ~/.cpan/build/DBI-1.642-0, which in fact does have DBI.pm file there.

However, when I execute the following command as a test, the command suggests there is no "connect" object:

$ perl -e 'use lib qw( .cpan/build/DBI-1.642-0/ ); DBI->connect("dbi:SQLite:dbname=foo.sqlite","","");'
Can't locate object method "connect" via package "DBI" (perhaps you forgot to load "DBI"?) at -e line 1.

Environment: Debian-based distribution, perl 5.26.2 .

Note on possible duplicates:

• Can't locate object method via package subclassing DBI Asks about module subclassing, not what I'm doing

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Addendum: From the discussion in the comments, it's clear that a lot of users focus on just use DBI statement. As I've mentioned in the comments:

The whole goal is to make use of DBI module installed via cpan. Prior to installing DBD::SQLite neither use lib nor use DBI were giving a working solution. So the suggestion use DBI by itself was not useful.

Please note, I have tried both use DBI and use lib qw() methods prior to asking the question. The use DBI line by itself was not effective without installing DBD::SQLite module as mentioned in my answer.

Answer 1

Converted from a command line script to an actual program, your code looks like this:

use lib qw( .cpan/build/DBI-1.642-0/ );

DBI->connect("dbi:SQLite:dbname=foo.sqlite","","");

And the error message you get is:

Can't locate object method "connect" via package "DBI" (perhaps you forgot to load "DBI"?) at -e line 1.

That error is pretty clear.

(perhaps you forgot to load "DBI"?)

The problem here is that you are missing the line of code which actually loads the DBI module. You need to add this:

use DBI;

Your use lib qw( .cpan/build/DBI-1.642-0/ ) line is very strange. You're asking Perl to load the module from the temporary build directory that was used during the installation. That's not the version that you want to use at all. When cpan has finished its work, you will have a version of DBI installed in your standard Perl library directories that you will be able to access without the need for any use lib code.

I'll also add that if you're using the system-installed version of Perl, there's no need to use cpan to install the most popular modules. You can use your distribution's repository of pre-built packages. For example apt get install libdbi-perl (on Debian and similar) or dnf install perl-DBI (on Red Hat).

In your answer, you have silently added the missing use DBI statement and you claim that installing DBD::SQLite solved your problem. That may have solved a different problem that you had, but it didn't solve the problem in your original question.

Answer 2

Issue with perl -e has been resolved, since apparently SQLite was not installed. I had to open cpan shell and run install DBD::SQLite. Now, the command-line works properly:

$ $ perl -e 'use DBI; my $db = DBI->connect( "dbi:SQLite:dbname=foo.sqlite","","" );my $stmt = qq(CREATE TABLE foo(a int, b text); ); $db->do($stmt)'
$ sqlite3 foo.sqlite
SQLite version 3.23.1 2018-04-10 17:39:29
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
sqlite> .tables
foo
sqlite> .schema foo
CREATE TABLE foo(a int, b text);
sqlite> 

As for the module itself, it has been installed in ~/perl5/lib/perl5/x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi/DBD/ directory.

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Based on Berserk's answer, the following also works for explicitly calling the :

$ perl -e 'use lib qw(  /home/user/perl5/x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi/DBD ); use DBI; my $db = DBI->connect( "dbi:SQLite:dbname=foo.sqlite","","" );my $stmt = qq(CREATE TABLE foo(a int, b text); ); $db->do($stmt)'

To ensure this uses the library declaration from use lib qw() explicitly, I've also cleared the @inc array in some of my tests.