In principle, ReDIF-perl installation is very simple and should not
differ much from installing a usual perl module.  But there are
several things which may introduce some complexity into installation.

Just a reminder that before you install ReDIF-perl, you have to have
perl module Unicode::String, version 2.06 or higher installed (which
in it's turn would require MIME::Base64 module).

For historical and technical reasons ReDIF-perl and related software
assumes that you have some separate directory, called 'ReDIF home' or
simply 'ReDIF dir', which you use specifically for ReDIF things and
keep all related stuff in it.  This concerns locating your own ReDIF
data (RePEc archive), locating local copy of global ReDIF information
(RePEc archive all) and locating your configuration files for other
ReDIF-related software.  Please see "perldoc lib/ReDIF/init.pm" for
more information, and section titled END-USER INSTRUCTIONS in
particular.

The historical way to make your ReDIF applications know where your
ReDIF home is is by setting an environment variable REDIFDIR.  But
ReDIF-perl can simplify that by asking you about your ReDIF home
during installation and remembering it for the future.  If you do not
set it at the installation time you loose nothing, but you'll have to
specify ReDIF home directory by other means (for some programs).

Briefly the installation consists of 4 steps (after unpacking the
distribution package) in your shell:

     perl Makefile.PL  [ PREFIX=~ ]    ###  or other dir instead of ~
     make
     make test  [ TEST_VERBOSE=1 ]
     make install      

The parameters in square brackets [] are optional. 

On the first step (perl Makefile.PL) you will be asked a question or
two about setting ReDIF home default directory.  

If you get some failures at the "make test" step DO NOT INSTALL!!  Email
me a report with full output of "make test TEST_VERBOSE=1" and "perl
-V" at least.

Also before finalizing your installation you may check how new
ReDIF-perl (and new redif.spec) will eat your data, because if you run
a big service and parser goes wrong it may ruin your service, you
know.  I advice to run at least the following command:

     perl -Ilib rech -e DIR

from the package directory (replace DIR with a path to your ReDIF data
files) and see if it chokes on something strange or not.  Report to
me, if you see anything that you think is wrong in rech's output.

For the last step you'll probably need administrator (root) rights on
the system, but you should remember that with perl you can always have
your private installation of perl or at least your private modules
installation directory (see perl manpage, section ENVIRONMENT,
PERL5LIB entry).

Please note that this package includes a new version of redif.spec and
it will be used by default since you install this version of
ReDIF-perl.