DBD-Oracle and Oracle versions

From lurking around this mail list over the years,
I've seen numerous items relating to building 
DBD-Oracle against a specific version of the Oracle
client software on *nix systems.  

Example: if DBD-Oracle was built using version 9, 
then the Oracle client is upgraded to 10g; 
it is necessary to rebuild DBD-Oracle with the 10g client.   

I have used Perl on HP/UNIX, AIX, Linux and Windows.
On the *nix systems, Perl came with the OS and I have
had to install the DBI and DBD-Oracle modules using 
the standard make process.  On windows, I used 
ActiveState Active Perl and PPM to install DBI and 
DBD-Oracle modules.  In the windows environment I 
never have to worry about which version of the Oracle
client is present and I can upgrade to a different 
client version of Oracle without having to reinstall 
the DBD-Oracle module.  

What trick allows PPM modules to work regardless of 
Oracle client versions?  Ultimately, I'd like to know 
if there is a way to 'make' the modules on *nix systems
so that they don't rely on a specific version?

Thanks in advance,
Paula

• DBD-Oracle and Oracle versions by Capacio, Paula J
• RE: DBD-Oracle and Oracle versions by Andy Hassall
• Re: DBD-Oracle and Oracle versions by John Scoles
• RE: DBD-Oracle and Oracle versions by Reidy, Ron