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Associating .pl files with Strawberry Perl (Windows only)

Follow these steps on the Contenta Administrator client computer to associate files with a .pl extension with Strawberry Perl on Windows, eliminating the need to include the full path to your Strawberry Perl implementation in calls to Perl scripts from the command line.

About this task

Procedure

  1. In Windows, right-click any file with a .pl extension and select Properties.
    Windows displays the Properties dialog for the selected file.
  2. click the Change button next to the Opens with field.
    Windows displays a dialog prompting you to specify the program with which you want to open files with the .pl extension.
  3. Select Look for another app on this PC.
    Windows displays a Windows Explorer window labeled Open with.
  4. In this window, navigate to the Strawberry Perl executable (perl.exe).
  5. Select the perl.exe file and click Open.
    The Windows Explorer window closes.
  6. ClickOK in the Properties dialog.
    The Properties dialog closes.
  7. Update the Path environment variable to include the path to the Perl executable by doing the following.
    1. Select Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings to display the System Properties dialog.
    2. Click Environment Variables to display the Environment Variables dialog.
    3. Under System variables, select the Path variable and click Edit to display the Edit environment variable dialog.
    4. Click Edit.
    5. Add the path to the Perl executable (such as C:\Program Files (x86)\XyEnterprise\Contenta\SPerl\Perl\bin) to the beginning of the value.
    6. Click OK to save the entry and close the Edit environment variable dialog.
    7. Click OK to close the Environment Variables dialog.
    8. Click OK to close the System Properties dialog.

Results

Files with the .pl extension are associated with Strawberry Perl by default and users will not need to specify the full path to Strawberry Perl when calling Perl scripts from the command line. Instead, only the word perl must be included on the command line before the utility name, as in the following example of a call to the dbcopy.pl utility.
..\app\XyEnterprise\Contenta\bin>perl dbcopy.pl bike41