NAME¶
Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
SYNOPSIS¶
Standard process for building & installing modules:
perl Build.PL
./Build
./Build test
./Build install
Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require the
"./" notation, you can do this:
perl Build.PL
Build
Build test
Build install
DESCRIPTION¶
"Module::Build" is a system for building, testing, and installing Perl
modules. It is meant to be an alternative to "ExtUtils::MakeMaker".
Developers may alter the behavior of the module through subclassing in a much
more straightforward way than with "MakeMaker". It also does not
require a "make" on your system - most of the
"Module::Build" code is pure-perl and written in a very
cross-platform way. In fact, you don't even need a shell, so even platforms
like MacOS (traditional) can use it fairly easily. Its only prerequisites are
modules that are included with perl 5.6.0, and it works fine on perl 5.005 if
you can install a few additional modules.
See "MOTIVATIONS" for more comparisons between
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker" and "Module::Build".
To install "Module::Build", and any other module that uses
"Module::Build" for its installation process, do the following:
perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
./Build install
This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three 'actions'. In
this case the actions run are 'build' (the default action), 'test', and
'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
build manifest
clean manifest_skip
code manpages
config_data pardist
diff ppd
dist ppmdist
distcheck prereq_data
distclean prereq_report
distdir pure_install
distinstall realclean
distmeta retest
distsign skipcheck
disttest test
docs testall
fakeinstall testcover
help testdb
html testpod
install testpodcoverage
installdeps versioninstall
You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION¶
The documentation for "Module::Build" is broken up into sections:
- General Usage (Module::Build)
- This is the document you are currently reading. It
describes basic usage and background information. Its main purpose is to
assist the user who wants to learn how to invoke and control
"Module::Build" scripts at the command line.
- Authoring Reference (Module::Build::Authoring)
- This document describes the structure and organization of
"Module::Build", and the relevant concepts needed by authors who
are writing Build.PL scripts for a distribution or controlling
"Module::Build" processes programmatically.
- API Reference (Module::Build::API)
- This is a reference to the "Module::Build"
API.
- Cookbook (Module::Build::Cookbook)
- This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common
tasks. It covers general command line usage and authoring of
Build.PL scripts. Includes working examples.
ACTIONS¶
There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when building a
module is called an "action". These actions are listed above; they
correspond to the building, testing, installing, packaging, etc., tasks.
Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments are always
key=value pairs. They may be specified at "perl Build.PL" time (i.e.
"perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place"), in which case their
values last for the lifetime of the "Build" script. They may also be
specified when executing a particular action (i.e. "Build test
verbose=1"), in which case their values last only for the lifetime of
that command. Per-action command line parameters take precedence over
parameters specified at "perl Build.PL" time.
The build process also relies heavily on the "Config.pm" module. If
the user wishes to override any of the values in "Config.pm", she
may specify them like so:
perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
The following build actions are provided by default.
- build
- [version 0.01]
If you run the "Build" script without any arguments, it runs the
"build" action, which in turn runs the "code" and
"docs" actions.
This is analogous to the "MakeMaker" make all target.
- clean
- [version 0.01]
This action will clean up any files that the build process may have created,
including the "blib/" directory (but not including the
"_build/" directory and the "Build" script
itself).
- code
- [version 0.20]
This action builds your code base.
By default it just creates a "blib/" directory and copies any
".pm" and ".pod" files from your "lib/"
directory into the "blib/" directory. It also compiles any
".xs" files from "lib/" and places them in
"blib/". Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably the
same one that built perl itself) for the compilation to work properly.
The "code" action also runs any ".PL" files in your
lib/ directory. Typically these create other files, named the same
but without the ".PL" ending. For example, a file
lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL could create the file lib/Foo/Bar.pm. The
".PL" files are processed first, so any ".pm" files
(or other kinds that we deal with) will get copied correctly.
- config_data
- [version 0.26]
...
- diff
- [version 0.14]
This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown (this
currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For other files
like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they differ.
A "flags" parameter may be passed to the action, which will be
passed to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the
parameters it will accept - a good one is "-u":
./Build diff flags=-u
- dist
- [version 0.02]
This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their
module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create
a tarball of the files listed in MANIFEST and compress the tarball
using GZIP compression.
By default, this action will use the "Archive::Tar" module.
However, you can force it to use binary "tar" and
"gzip" executables by supplying an explicit "tar" (and
optional "gzip") parameter:
./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
- distcheck
- [version 0.05]
Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
MANIFEST file, and vice versa. (See manifest for details.)
- distclean
- [version 0.05]
Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
- distdir
- [version 0.05]
Creates a "distribution directory" named
"$dist_name-$dist_version" (if that directory already exists, it
will be removed first), then copies all the files listed in the
MANIFEST file to that directory. This directory is what the
distribution tarball is created from.
- distinstall
- [version 0.37]
Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and runs a
"perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'install' actions
in that directory. Use PERL_MB_OPT or .modulebuildrc to set options
that should be applied during subprocesses
- distmeta
- [version 0.21]
Creates the META.yml file that describes the distribution.
META.yml is a file containing various bits of metadata about
the distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name, version,
abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data about the
distribution. This file is created as META.yml in a simplified YAML
format.
META.yml file must also be listed in MANIFEST - if it's not,
a warning will be issued.
The current version of the META.yml specification can be found on
CPAN as CPAN::Meta::Spec.
- distsign
- [version 0.16]
Uses "Module::Signature" to create a SIGNATURE file for your
distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
MANIFEST.
- disttest
- [version 0.05]
Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and runs a
"perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in
that directory. Use PERL_MB_OPT or .modulebuildrc to set options
that should be applied during subprocesses
- docs
- [version 0.20]
This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and HTML documents)
for any installable items under blib/ that contain POD. If there
are no "bindoc" or "libdoc" installation targets
defined (as will be the case on systems that don't support Unix manpages)
no action is taken for manpages. If there are no "binhtml" or
"libhtml" installation targets defined no action is taken for
HTML documents.
- fakeinstall
- [version 0.02]
This is just like the "install" action, but it won't actually do
anything, it will just report what it would have done if you had
actually run the "install" action.
- help
- [version 0.03]
This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you use
the build process. It will show you a list of available build actions too.
With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. "Build help
test"), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation it can
find for that action.
- html
- [version 0.26]
This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library files under
blib/ that contain POD. The HTML documentation will only be
installed if the install paths can be determined from values in
"Config.pm". You can also supply or override install paths on
the command line by specifying "install_path" values for the
"binhtml" and/or "libhtml" installation targets.
- install
- [version 0.01]
This action will use "ExtUtils::Install" to install the files from
"blib/" into the system. See "INSTALL PATHS" for
details about how Module::Build determines where to install things, and
how to influence this process.
If you want the installation process to look around in @INC for other
versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it, you can use
the "uninst" parameter, which tells
"ExtUtils::Install" to do so:
./Build install uninst=1
This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a module
from being present on your system, which can be a confusing situation
indeed.
- installdeps
- [version 0.36]
This action will use the "cpan_client" parameter as a command to
install missing prerequisites. You will be prompted whether to install
optional dependencies.
The "cpan_client" option defaults to 'cpan' but can be set as an
option or in .modulebuildrc. It must be a shell command that takes
a list of modules to install as arguments (e.g. 'cpanp -i' for CPANPLUS).
If the program part is a relative path (e.g. 'cpan' or 'cpanp'), it will
be located relative to the perl program that executed Build.PL.
/opt/perl/5.8.9/bin/perl Build.PL
./Build installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
# installs to 5.8.9
- manifest
- [version 0.05]
This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people installing
modules. It will bring the MANIFEST up to date with the files
currently present in the distribution. You may use a MANIFEST.SKIP
file to exclude certain files or directories from inclusion in the
MANIFEST. MANIFEST.SKIP should contain a bunch of regular
expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution directory matches
any of the regular expressions, it won't be included in the
MANIFEST.
The following is a reasonable MANIFEST.SKIP starting point, you can
add your own stuff to it:
^_build
^Build$
^blib
~$
\.bak$
^MANIFEST\.SKIP$
CVS
See the distcheck and skipcheck actions if you want to find out what the
"manifest" action would do, without actually doing
anything.
- manifest_skip
- [version 0.3608]
This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people installing
modules. It will generate a boilerplate MANIFEST.SKIP file if one does not
already exist.
- manpages
- [version 0.28]
This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
blib/ that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if the
install paths can be determined from values in "Config.pm". You
can also supply or override install paths by specifying there values on
the command line with the "bindoc" and "libdoc"
installation targets.
- pardist
- [version 0.2806]
Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with PAR or PAR::Dist.
It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is installed on
your system.
- ppd
- [version 0.20]
Build a PPD file for your distribution.
This action takes an optional argument "codebase" which is used in
the generated PPD file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name without any
path information.
Example:
./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
- ppmdist
- [version 0.23]
Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file. This action
also invokes the "ppd" action, so it can accept the same
"codebase" argument described under that action.
This uses the same mechanism as the "dist" action to tar & zip
its output, so you can supply "tar" and/or "gzip"
parameters to affect the result.
- prereq_data
- [version 0.32]
This action prints out a Perl data structure of all prerequisites and the
versions required. The output can be loaded again using
"eval()". This can be useful for external tools that wish to
query a Build script for prerequisites.
- prereq_report
- [version 0.28]
This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions required,
and the versions actually installed. This can be useful for reviewing the
configuration of your system prior to a build, or when compiling data to
send for a bug report.
- pure_install
- [version 0.28]
This action is identical to the "install" action. In the future,
though, when "install" starts writing to the file
$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod, "pure_install" won't,
and that will be the only difference between them.
- realclean
- [version 0.01]
This action is just like the "clean" action, but also removes the
"_build" directory and the "Build" script. If you run
the "realclean" action, you are essentially starting over, so
you will have to re-create the "Build" script again.
- retest
- [version 0.2806]
This is just like the "test" action, but doesn't actually build
the distribution first, and doesn't add blib/ to the load path, and
therefore will test against a previously installed version of the
distribution. This can be used to verify that a certain installed
distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
- skipcheck
- [version 0.05]
Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
MANIFEST.SKIP file (See manifest for details)
- test
- [version 0.01]
This will use "Test::Harness" or "TAP::Harness" to run
any regression tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in the
standard places: a file called "test.pl" in the top-level
directory, or several files ending with ".t" in a "t/"
directory.
If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution
rather than just summary information, pass the argument
"verbose=1".
If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
"debugger=1".
If you want to have Module::Build find test files with different file name
extensions, pass the "test_file_exts" argument with an array of
extensions, such as "[qw( .t .s .z )]".
If you want test to be run by "TAP::Harness", rather than
"Test::Harness", pass the argument "tap_harness_args"
as an array reference of arguments to pass to the TAP::Harness
constructor.
In addition, if a file called "visual.pl" exists in the top-level
directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output will
be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or other
tests that don't use the "Test::Harness" format for output.
To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a
"test_files" argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list
of test scripts to run. This is especially useful in development, when you
only want to run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain
bug yet:
./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
You may also pass several "test_files" arguments separately:
./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
or use a "glob()"-style pattern:
./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
- testall
- [version 0.2807]
[Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are currently in
alpha stage, see
"/www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html""
in "http: ]
Runs the "test" action plus each of the "test$type"
actions defined by the keys of the "test_types" parameter.
Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself and
enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
code => q(
sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
sub ACTION_testauthor { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
)
)->new(
...
test_types => {
special => '.st',
author => ['.at', '.pt' ],
},
...
- testcover
- [version 0.26]
Runs the "test" action using "Devel::Cover", generating
a code-coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
exercised during the tests.
To pass options to "Devel::Cover", set the $DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS
environment variable:
DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
- testdb
- [version 0.05]
This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the "debugger=1"
argument.
- testpod
- [version 0.25]
This checks all the files described in the "docs" action and
produces "Test::Harness"-style output. If you are a module
author, this is useful to run before creating a new release.
- testpodcoverage
- [version 0.28]
This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and produces
"Test::Harness"-style output. If you are a module author, this
is useful to run before creating a new release.
- versioninstall
- [version 0.16]
** Note: since "only.pm" is so new, and since we just recently
added support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
experimental. **
If you have the "only.pm" module installed on your system, you can
use this action to install a module into the version-specific library
trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same module
installed and "use" a specific one like this:
use only MyModule => 0.55;
To override the default installation libraries in "only::config",
specify the "versionlib" parameter when you run the
"Build.PL" script:
perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
"version" parameter when you run the "Build.PL"
script:
perl Build.PL --version 0.50
See the "only.pm" documentation for more information on
version-specific installs.
OPTIONS¶
Command Line Options¶
The following options can be used during any invocation of "Build.PL"
or the Build script, during any action. For information on other options
specific to an action, see the documentation for the respective action.
NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more familiar
long option style. Most options can be preceded with the "--" long
option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes (e.g.
"--use-rcfile"). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
"no" or "no-" (e.g. "--noverbose" or
"--no-verbose").
- quiet
- Suppress informative messages on output.
- verbose
- Display extra information about the Build on output.
"verbose" will turn off "quiet"
- cpan_client
- Sets the "cpan_client" command for use with the
"installdeps" action. See "installdeps" for more
details.
- use_rcfile
- Load the ~/.modulebuildrc option file. This option
can be set to false to prevent the custom resource file from being
loaded.
- allow_mb_mismatch
- Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of
Module::Build we're now running under is the same version that was
initially invoked when building the distribution (i.e. when the
"Build.PL" script was first run). As of 0.3601, a mismatch
results in a warning instead of a fatal error, so this option effectively
just suppresses the warning.
- debug
- Prints Module::Build debugging information to STDOUT, such
as a trace of executed build actions.
Default Options File (.modulebuildrc)¶
[version 0.28]
When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc. If it's not found there, it
will look in the the
.modulebuildrc file in the directories referred to
by the environment variables "HOMEDRIVE" + "HOMEDIR",
"USERPROFILE", "APPDATA", "WINDIR",
"SYS$LOGIN". If the file exists, the options specified there will be
used as defaults, as if they were typed on the command line. The defaults can
be overridden by specifying new values on the command line.
The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any amount
of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same as they would
be on the command line. They can be separated by any amount of whitespace,
including newlines, as long there is whitespace at the beginning of each
continued line. Anything following a hash mark ("#") is considered a
comment, and is stripped before parsing. If more than one line begins with the
same action name, those lines are merged into one set of options.
Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the key
"*" (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied to
all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied when you
invoke "perl Build.PL".
* verbose=1 # global options
diff flags=-u
install --install_base /home/ken
--install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you can set
the environment variable "MODULEBUILDRC" to the complete absolute
path of the file containing your options.
Environment variables¶
- MODULEBUILDRC
- [version 0.28]
Specifies an alternate location for a default options file as described
above.
- PERL_MB_OPT
- [version 0.36]
Command line options that are applied to Build.PL or any Build action. The
string is split as the shell would (e.g. whitespace) and the result is
prepended to any actual command-line arguments.
INSTALL PATHS¶
[version 0.19]
When you invoke Module::Build's "build" action, it needs to figure out
where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works is that
default installation locations are determined from
Config.pm, and they
may be overridden by using the "install_path" parameter. An
"install_base" parameter lets you specify an alternative
installation root like
/home/foo, and a "destdir" lets you
specify a temporary installation directory like
/tmp/install in case
you want to create bundled-up installable packages.
Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for the
following types of installable items:
- lib
- Usually pure-Perl module files ending in .pm.
- arch
- "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually
produced by compiling XS, Inline, or similar code.
- script
- Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse,
try to make these as small as possible - put the code into modules
whenever possible.
- bin
- "Architecture-dependent" executable programs,
i.e. compiled C code or something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl
distribution, but it happens.
- bindoc
- Documentation for the stuff in "script" and
"bin". Usually generated from the POD in those files. Under
Unix, these are manual pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
- libdoc
- Documentation for the stuff in "lib" and
"arch". This is usually generated from the POD in .pm
files. Under Unix, these are manual pages belonging to the 'man3'
category.
- binhtml
- This is the same as "bindoc" above, but applies
to HTML documents.
- libhtml
- This is the same as "libdoc" above, but applies
to HTML documents.
Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how installation paths
are determined:
- installdirs
- The default destinations for these installable things come
from entries in your system's "Config.pm". You can select from
three different sets of default locations by setting the
"installdirs" parameter as follows:
'installdirs' set to:
core site vendor
uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
script => installscript installsitescript installvendorscript
bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
* Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for HTML documents is
determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
The default value of "installdirs" is "site". If you're
creating vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do
something like this:
perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
or
./Build install --installdirs vendor
If you're installing an updated version of a module that was included with
perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
"installdirs" to "core" to overwrite the module in its
present location.
(Note that the 'script' line is different from "MakeMaker" -
unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
"installvendorscript" entry in "Config.pm", so we use
the "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to
at least get the general location right. In the future, if
"Config.pm" adds some more appropriate entries, we'll start
using those.)
- install_path
- Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
On the command line, that would look like this:
perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
or this:
./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
- install_base
- You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by
supplying the "install_base" parameter to point to a directory
on your system. For instance, if you set "install_base" to
"/home/ken" on a Linux system, you'll install as follows:
lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
script => /home/ken/bin
bin => /home/ken/bin
bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
binhtml => /home/ken/html
libhtml => /home/ken/html
Note that this is different from how "MakeMaker"'s
"PREFIX" parameter works. "install_base" just gives
you a default layout under the directory you specify, which may have
little to do with the "installdirs=site" layout.
The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system - we try
to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
- destdir
- If you want to install everything into a temporary
directory first (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that
a package manager like "rpm" or "dpkg" could create a
package from), you can use the "destdir" parameter:
perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
or
./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
"/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
"File::Spec" to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
platform you're installing on.
- prefix
- Provided for compatibility with
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker"'s PREFIX argument. "prefix"
should be used when you want Module::Build to install your modules,
documentation, and scripts in the same place as
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker"'s PREFIX mechanism.
The following are equivalent.
perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
Because of the complex nature of the prefixification logic, the behavior of
PREFIX in "MakeMaker" has changed subtly over time.
Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic found in
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker" 6.30.
The maintainers of "MakeMaker" do understand the troubles with the
PREFIX mechanism, and added INSTALL_BASE support in version 6.31 of
"MakeMaker", which was released in 2006.
If you don't need to retain compatibility with old versions (pre-6.31) of
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker" or are starting a fresh Perl installation
we recommend you use "install_base" instead (and
"INSTALL_BASE" in "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"). See
"Installing in the same location as ExtUtils::MakeMaker" in
Module::Build::Cookbook for further information.
MOTIVATIONS¶
There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix what I didn't
like about "MakeMaker":
- •
- I don't like the core idea of "MakeMaker", namely
that "make" should be involved in the build process. Here are my
reasons:
- +
- When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you
assume about their environment? Can you assume they have "make"?
No, but you can assume they have some version of Perl.
- +
- When a person is writing a Perl module for intended
distribution, can you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so
they can customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know
Perl, and could customize that way.
For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the build/install
process to do what they want.
- •
- There are several architectural decisions in
"MakeMaker" that make it very difficult to customize its
behavior. For instance, when using "MakeMaker" you do "use
ExtUtils::MakeMaker", but the object created in
"WriteMakefile()" is actually blessed into a package name that's
created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
"ExtUtils::MakeMaker". There is a workaround "MY"
package that lets you override certain "MakeMaker" methods, but
only certain explicitly preselected (by "MakeMaker") methods can
be overridden. Also, the method of customization is very crude: you have
to modify a string containing the Makefile text for the particular target.
Since these strings aren't documented, and can't be documented
(they take on different values depending on the platform, version of perl,
version of "MakeMaker", etc.), you have no guarantee that your
modifications will work on someone else's machine or after an upgrade of
"MakeMaker" or perl.
- •
- It is risky to make major changes to "MakeMaker",
since it does so many things, is so important, and generally works.
"Module::Build" is an entirely separate package so that I can
work on it all I want, without worrying about backward compatibility with
"MakeMaker".
- •
- Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system
administration. Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task
of building and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of
".pm" files that just need to be copied from one place to
another? My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish this in
a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or die trying.
TO DO¶
The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a derived file
is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it requires tracing all
dependencies backward, it runs into problems on NFS, and it's just generally
flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5 signature or the like, if available.
See "cons" for an example.
- append to perllocal.pod
- add a 'plugin' functionality
AUTHOR¶
Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
Module-Build mailing list at <module-build@perl.org>.
Bug reports are also welcome at
<
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
The latest development version is available from the Git repository at
<
https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/Module-Build>
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO¶
perl(1), Module::Build::Cookbook, Module::Build::Authoring,
Module::Build::API, ExtUtils::MakeMaker
META.yml Specification: CPAN::Meta::Spec
<
http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>
<
http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>