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).  If you need
templates' checksums functionality of ReDIF-perl you must have
Digest::MD5 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 several
questions.  First, script will ask you about using Digest::MD5 module
if you have it.  Then, it will ask you 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 unpacked 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 installation 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 as soon as you install this version of
ReDIF-perl.
