NAME¶
ExtUtils::MakeMaker - Create a module Makefile
SYNOPSIS¶
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
WriteMakefile( ATTRIBUTE => VALUE [, ...] );
DESCRIPTION¶
This utility is designed to write a Makefile for an extension module from a
Makefile.PL. It is based on the Makefile.SH model provided by Andy Dougherty
and the perl5-porters.
It splits the task of generating the Makefile into several subroutines that can
be individually overridden. Each subroutine returns the text it wishes to have
written to the Makefile.
MakeMaker is object oriented. Each directory below the current directory that
contains a Makefile.PL is treated as a separate object. This makes it possible
to write an unlimited number of Makefiles with a single invocation of
WriteMakefile().
How To Write A Makefile.PL¶
See ExtUtils::MakeMaker::Tutorial.
The long answer is the rest of the manpage :-)
Default Makefile Behaviour¶
The generated Makefile enables the user of the extension to invoke
perl Makefile.PL # optionally "perl Makefile.PL verbose"
make
make test # optionally set TEST_VERBOSE=1
make install # See below
The Makefile to be produced may be altered by adding arguments of the form
"KEY=VALUE". E.g.
perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=~
Other interesting targets in the generated Makefile are
make config # to check if the Makefile is up-to-date
make clean # delete local temp files (Makefile gets renamed)
make realclean # delete derived files (including ./blib)
make ci # check in all the files in the MANIFEST file
make dist # see below the Distribution Support section
make test¶
MakeMaker checks for the existence of a file named
test.pl in the current
directory and if it exists it execute the script with the proper set of perl
"-I" options.
MakeMaker also checks for any files matching glob("t/*.t"). It will
execute all matching files in alphabetical order via the Test::Harness module
with the "-I" switches set correctly.
If you'd like to see the raw output of your tests, set the
"TEST_VERBOSE" variable to true.
make test TEST_VERBOSE=1
make testdb¶
A useful variation of the above is the target "testdb". It runs the
test under the Perl debugger (see perldebug). If the file
test.pl
exists in the current directory, it is used for the test.
If you want to debug some other testfile, set the "TEST_FILE" variable
thusly:
make testdb TEST_FILE=t/mytest.t
By default the debugger is called using "-d" option to perl. If you
want to specify some other option, set the "TESTDB_SW" variable:
make testdb TESTDB_SW=-Dx
make install¶
make alone puts all relevant files into directories that are named by the macros
INST_LIB, INST_ARCHLIB, INST_SCRIPT, INST_MAN1DIR and INST_MAN3DIR. All these
default to something below ./blib if you are
not building below the
perl source directory. If you
are building below the perl source,
INST_LIB and INST_ARCHLIB default to ../../lib, and INST_SCRIPT is not
defined.
The
install target of the generated Makefile copies the files found below
each of the INST_* directories to their INSTALL* counterparts. Which
counterparts are chosen depends on the setting of INSTALLDIRS according to the
following table:
INSTALLDIRS set to
perl site vendor
PERLPREFIX SITEPREFIX VENDORPREFIX
INST_ARCHLIB INSTALLARCHLIB INSTALLSITEARCH INSTALLVENDORARCH
INST_LIB INSTALLPRIVLIB INSTALLSITELIB INSTALLVENDORLIB
INST_BIN INSTALLBIN INSTALLSITEBIN INSTALLVENDORBIN
INST_SCRIPT INSTALLSCRIPT INSTALLSITESCRIPT INSTALLVENDORSCRIPT
INST_MAN1DIR INSTALLMAN1DIR INSTALLSITEMAN1DIR INSTALLVENDORMAN1DIR
INST_MAN3DIR INSTALLMAN3DIR INSTALLSITEMAN3DIR INSTALLVENDORMAN3DIR
The INSTALL... macros in turn default to their %Config ($Config{installprivlib},
$Config{installarchlib}, etc.) counterparts.
You can check the values of these variables on your system with
perl '-V:install.*'
And to check the sequence in which the library directories are searched by perl,
run
perl -le 'print join $/, @INC'
Sometimes older versions of the module you're installing live in other
directories in @INC. Because Perl loads the first version of a module it
finds, not the newest, you might accidentally get one of these older versions
even after installing a brand new version. To delete
all other
versions of the module you're installing (not simply older ones) set
the "UNINST" variable.
make install UNINST=1
INSTALL_BASE¶
INSTALL_BASE can be passed into Makefile.PL to change where your module will be
installed. INSTALL_BASE is more like what everyone else calls
"prefix" than PREFIX is.
To have everything installed in your home directory, do the following.
# Unix users, INSTALL_BASE=~ works fine
perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=/path/to/your/home/dir
Like PREFIX, it sets several INSTALL* attributes at once. Unlike PREFIX it is
easy to predict where the module will end up. The installation pattern looks
like this:
INSTALLARCHLIB INSTALL_BASE/lib/perl5/$Config{archname}
INSTALLPRIVLIB INSTALL_BASE/lib/perl5
INSTALLBIN INSTALL_BASE/bin
INSTALLSCRIPT INSTALL_BASE/bin
INSTALLMAN1DIR INSTALL_BASE/man/man1
INSTALLMAN3DIR INSTALL_BASE/man/man3
INSTALL_BASE in MakeMaker and "--install_base" in Module::Build (as of
0.28) install to the same location. If you want MakeMaker and Module::Build to
install to the same location simply set INSTALL_BASE and
"--install_base" to the same location.
INSTALL_BASE was added in 6.31.
PREFIX and LIB attribute¶
PREFIX and LIB can be used to set several INSTALL* attributes in one go. Here's
an example for installing into your home directory.
# Unix users, PREFIX=~ works fine
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/path/to/your/home/dir
This will install all files in the module under your home directory, with man
pages and libraries going into an appropriate place (usually ~/man and ~/lib).
How the exact location is determined is complicated and depends on how your
Perl was configured. INSTALL_BASE works more like what other build systems
call "prefix" than PREFIX and we recommend you use that instead.
Another way to specify many INSTALL directories with a single parameter is LIB.
perl Makefile.PL LIB=~/lib
This will install the module's architecture-independent files into ~/lib, the
architecture-dependent files into ~/lib/$archname.
Note, that in both cases the tilde expansion is done by MakeMaker, not by perl
by default, nor by make.
Conflicts between parameters LIB, PREFIX and the various INSTALL* arguments are
resolved so that:
- •
- setting LIB overrides any setting of INSTALLPRIVLIB,
INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLSITELIB, INSTALLSITEARCH (and they are not affected
by PREFIX);
- •
- without LIB, setting PREFIX replaces the initial
$Config{prefix} part of those INSTALL* arguments, even if the latter are
explicitly set (but are set to still start with $Config{prefix}).
If the user has superuser privileges, and is not working on AFS or relatives,
then the defaults for INSTALLPRIVLIB, INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLSCRIPT, etc. will
be appropriate, and this incantation will be the best:
perl Makefile.PL;
make;
make test
make install
make install per default writes some documentation of what has been done into
the file "$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod". This feature can be
bypassed by calling make pure_install.
AFS users¶
will have to specify the installation directories as these most probably have
changed since perl itself has been installed. They will have to do this by
calling
perl Makefile.PL INSTALLSITELIB=/afs/here/today \
INSTALLSCRIPT=/afs/there/now INSTALLMAN3DIR=/afs/for/manpages
make
Be careful to repeat this procedure every time you recompile an extension,
unless you are sure the AFS installation directories are still valid.
Static Linking of a new Perl Binary¶
An extension that is built with the above steps is ready to use on systems
supporting dynamic loading. On systems that do not support dynamic loading,
any newly created extension has to be linked together with the available
resources. MakeMaker supports the linking process by creating appropriate
targets in the Makefile whenever an extension is built. You can invoke the
corresponding section of the makefile with
make perl
That produces a new perl binary in the current directory with all extensions
linked in that can be found in INST_ARCHLIB, SITELIBEXP, and PERL_ARCHLIB. To
do that, MakeMaker writes a new Makefile, on UNIX, this is called
Makefile.aperl (may be system dependent). If you want to force the creation of
a new perl, it is recommended, that you delete this Makefile.aperl, so the
directories are searched-through for linkable libraries again.
The binary can be installed into the directory where perl normally resides on
your machine with
make inst_perl
To produce a perl binary with a different name than "perl", either say
perl Makefile.PL MAP_TARGET=myperl
make myperl
make inst_perl
or say
perl Makefile.PL
make myperl MAP_TARGET=myperl
make inst_perl MAP_TARGET=myperl
In any case you will be prompted with the correct invocation of the
"inst_perl" target that installs the new binary into INSTALLBIN.
make inst_perl per default writes some documentation of what has been done into
the file "$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod". This can be bypassed by
calling make pure_inst_perl.
Warning: the inst_perl: target will most probably overwrite your existing perl
binary. Use with care!
Sometimes you might want to build a statically linked perl although your system
supports dynamic loading. In this case you may explicitly set the linktype
with the invocation of the Makefile.PL or make:
perl Makefile.PL LINKTYPE=static # recommended
or
make LINKTYPE=static # works on most systems
Determination of Perl Library and Installation Locations¶
MakeMaker needs to know, or to guess, where certain things are located.
Especially INST_LIB and INST_ARCHLIB (where to put the files during the
make(1) run), PERL_LIB and PERL_ARCHLIB (where to read existing modules
from), and PERL_INC (header files and "libperl*.*").
Extensions may be built either using the contents of the perl source directory
tree or from the installed perl library. The recommended way is to build
extensions after you have run 'make install' on perl itself. You can do that
in any directory on your hard disk that is not below the perl source tree. The
support for extensions below the ext directory of the perl distribution is
only good for the standard extensions that come with perl.
If an extension is being built below the "ext/" directory of the perl
source then MakeMaker will set PERL_SRC automatically (e.g.,
"../.."). If PERL_SRC is defined and the extension is recognized as
a standard extension, then other variables default to the following:
PERL_INC = PERL_SRC
PERL_LIB = PERL_SRC/lib
PERL_ARCHLIB = PERL_SRC/lib
INST_LIB = PERL_LIB
INST_ARCHLIB = PERL_ARCHLIB
If an extension is being built away from the perl source then MakeMaker will
leave PERL_SRC undefined and default to using the installed copy of the perl
library. The other variables default to the following:
PERL_INC = $archlibexp/CORE
PERL_LIB = $privlibexp
PERL_ARCHLIB = $archlibexp
INST_LIB = ./blib/lib
INST_ARCHLIB = ./blib/arch
If perl has not yet been installed then PERL_SRC can be defined on the command
line as shown in the previous section.
Which architecture dependent directory?¶
If you don't want to keep the defaults for the INSTALL* macros, MakeMaker helps
you to minimize the typing needed: the usual relationship between
INSTALLPRIVLIB and INSTALLARCHLIB is determined by Configure at perl
compilation time. MakeMaker supports the user who sets INSTALLPRIVLIB. If
INSTALLPRIVLIB is set, but INSTALLARCHLIB not, then MakeMaker defaults the
latter to be the same subdirectory of INSTALLPRIVLIB as Configure decided for
the counterparts in %Config , otherwise it defaults to INSTALLPRIVLIB. The
same relationship holds for INSTALLSITELIB and INSTALLSITEARCH.
MakeMaker gives you much more freedom than needed to configure internal
variables and get different results. It is worth to mention, that
make(1) also lets you configure most of the variables that are used in
the Makefile. But in the majority of situations this will not be necessary,
and should only be done if the author of a package recommends it (or you know
what you're doing).
Using Attributes and Parameters¶
The following attributes may be specified as arguments to
WriteMakefile()
or as NAME=VALUE pairs on the command line.
- ABSTRACT
- One line description of the module. Will be included in PPD
file.
- ABSTRACT_FROM
- Name of the file that contains the package description.
MakeMaker looks for a line in the POD matching /^($package\s-\s)(.*)/.
This is typically the first line in the "=head1 NAME" section.
$2 becomes the abstract.
- AUTHOR
- Array of strings containing name (and email address) of
package author(s). Is used in META.yml and PPD (Perl Package Description)
files for PPM (Perl Package Manager).
- BINARY_LOCATION
- Used when creating PPD files for binary packages. It can be
set to a full or relative path or URL to the binary archive for a
particular architecture. For example:
perl Makefile.PL BINARY_LOCATION=x86/Agent.tar.gz
builds a PPD package that references a binary of the "Agent"
package, located in the "x86" directory relative to the PPD
itself.
- BUILD_REQUIRES
- A hash of modules that are needed to build your module but
not run it.
This will go into the "build_requires" field of your
META.yml.
The format is the same as PREREQ_PM.
- C
- Ref to array of *.c file names. Initialised from a
directory scan and the values portion of the XS attribute hash. This is
not currently used by MakeMaker but may be handy in Makefile.PLs.
- CCFLAGS
- String that will be included in the compiler call command
line between the arguments INC and OPTIMIZE.
The default value is taken from $Config{ccflags}. When overriding CCFLAGS,
make sure to include the $Config{ccflags} settings to avoid binary
incompatibilities.
- CONFIG
- Arrayref. E.g. [qw(archname manext)] defines ARCHNAME &
MANEXT from config.sh. MakeMaker will add to CONFIG the following values
anyway: ar cc cccdlflags ccdlflags dlext dlsrc ld lddlflags ldflags libc
lib_ext obj_ext ranlib sitelibexp sitearchexp so
- CONFIGURE
- CODE reference. The subroutine should return a hash
reference. The hash may contain further attributes, e.g. {LIBS => ...},
that have to be determined by some evaluation method.
- CONFIGURE_REQUIRES
- A hash of modules that are required to run Makefile.PL
itself, but not to run your distribution.
This will go into the "configure_requires" field of your
META.yml.
Defaults to "{ "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" => 0 }"
The format is the same as PREREQ_PM.
- DEFINE
- Something like "-DHAVE_UNISTD_H"
- DESTDIR
- This is the root directory into which the code will be
installed. It prepends itself to the normal prefix. For example, if
your code would normally go into /usr/local/lib/perl you could set
DESTDIR=~/tmp/ and installation would go into
~/tmp/usr/local/lib/perl.
This is primarily of use for people who repackage Perl modules.
NOTE: Due to the nature of make, it is important that you put the trailing
slash on your DESTDIR. ~/tmp/ not ~/tmp.
- DIR
- Ref to array of subdirectories containing Makefile.PLs e.g.
['sdbm'] in ext/SDBM_File
- DISTNAME
- A safe filename for the package.
Defaults to NAME above but with :: replaced with -.
For example, Foo::Bar becomes Foo-Bar.
- DISTVNAME
- Your name for distributing the package with the version
number included. This is used by 'make dist' to name the resulting archive
file.
Defaults to DISTNAME-VERSION.
For example, version 1.04 of Foo::Bar becomes Foo-Bar-1.04.
On some OS's where . has special meaning VERSION_SYM may be used in place of
VERSION.
- DL_FUNCS
- Hashref of symbol names for routines to be made available
as universal symbols. Each key/value pair consists of the package name and
an array of routine names in that package. Used only under AIX, OS/2, VMS
and Win32 at present. The routine names supplied will be expanded in the
same way as XSUB names are expanded by the XS() macro. Defaults to
{"$(NAME)" => ["boot_$(NAME)" ] }
e.g.
{"RPC" => [qw( boot_rpcb rpcb_gettime getnetconfigent )],
"NetconfigPtr" => [ 'DESTROY'] }
Please see the ExtUtils::Mksymlists documentation for more information about
the DL_FUNCS, DL_VARS and FUNCLIST attributes.
- DL_VARS
- Array of symbol names for variables to be made available as
universal symbols. Used only under AIX, OS/2, VMS and Win32 at present.
Defaults to []. (e.g. [ qw(Foo_version Foo_numstreams Foo_tree ) ])
- EXCLUDE_EXT
- Array of extension names to exclude when doing a static
build. This is ignored if INCLUDE_EXT is present. Consult INCLUDE_EXT for
more details. (e.g. [ qw( Socket POSIX ) ] )
This attribute may be most useful when specified as a string on the command
line: perl Makefile.PL EXCLUDE_EXT='Socket Safe'
- EXE_FILES
- Ref to array of executable files. The files will be copied
to the INST_SCRIPT directory. Make realclean will delete them from there
again.
If your executables start with something like #!perl or #!/usr/bin/perl
MakeMaker will change this to the path of the perl 'Makefile.PL' was
invoked with so the programs will be sure to run properly even if perl is
not in /usr/bin/perl.
- FIRST_MAKEFILE
- The name of the Makefile to be produced. This is used for
the second Makefile that will be produced for the MAP_TARGET.
Defaults to 'Makefile' or 'Descrip.MMS' on VMS.
(Note: we couldn't use MAKEFILE because dmake uses this for something
else).
- FULLPERL
- Perl binary able to run this extension, load XS modules,
etc...
- FULLPERLRUN
- Like PERLRUN, except it uses FULLPERL.
- FULLPERLRUNINST
- Like PERLRUNINST, except it uses FULLPERL.
- FUNCLIST
- This provides an alternate means to specify function names
to be exported from the extension. Its value is a reference to an array of
function names to be exported by the extension. These names are passed
through unaltered to the linker options file.
- H
- Ref to array of *.h file names. Similar to C.
- IMPORTS
- This attribute is used to specify names to be imported into
the extension. Takes a hash ref.
It is only used on OS/2 and Win32.
- INC
- Include file dirs eg: "-I/usr/5include
-I/path/to/inc"
- INCLUDE_EXT
- Array of extension names to be included when doing a static
build. MakeMaker will normally build with all of the installed extensions
when doing a static build, and that is usually the desired behavior. If
INCLUDE_EXT is present then MakeMaker will build only with those
extensions which are explicitly mentioned. (e.g. [ qw( Socket POSIX ) ])
It is not necessary to mention DynaLoader or the current extension when
filling in INCLUDE_EXT. If the INCLUDE_EXT is mentioned but is empty then
only DynaLoader and the current extension will be included in the build.
This attribute may be most useful when specified as a string on the command
line: perl Makefile.PL INCLUDE_EXT='POSIX Socket Devel::Peek'
- INSTALLARCHLIB
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from
INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl.
- INSTALLBIN
- Directory to install binary files (e.g. tkperl) into if
INSTALLDIRS=perl.
- INSTALLDIRS
- Determines which of the sets of installation directories to
choose: perl, site or vendor. Defaults to site.
- INSTALLMAN1DIR
- INSTALLMAN3DIR
- These directories get the man pages at 'make install' time
if INSTALLDIRS=perl. Defaults to $Config{installman*dir}.
If set to 'none', no man pages will be installed.
- INSTALLPRIVLIB
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to
this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl.
Defaults to $Config{installprivlib}.
- INSTALLSCRIPT
- Used by 'make install' which copies files from INST_SCRIPT
to this directory if INSTALLDIRS=perl.
- INSTALLSITEARCH
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from
INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site
(default).
- INSTALLSITEBIN
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_BIN to
this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default).
- INSTALLSITELIB
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to
this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default).
- INSTALLSITEMAN1DIR
- INSTALLSITEMAN3DIR
- These directories get the man pages at 'make install' time
if INSTALLDIRS=site (default). Defaults to
$(SITEPREFIX)/man/man$(MAN*EXT).
If set to 'none', no man pages will be installed.
- INSTALLSITESCRIPT
- Used by 'make install' which copies files from INST_SCRIPT
to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default).
- INSTALLVENDORARCH
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from
INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to vendor.
- INSTALLVENDORBIN
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_BIN to
this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to vendor.
- INSTALLVENDORLIB
- Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to
this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to vendor.
- INSTALLVENDORMAN1DIR
- INSTALLVENDORMAN3DIR
- These directories get the man pages at 'make install' time
if INSTALLDIRS=vendor. Defaults to $(VENDORPREFIX)/man/man$(MAN*EXT).
If set to 'none', no man pages will be installed.
- INSTALLVENDORSCRIPT
- Used by 'make install' which copies files from INST_SCRIPT
to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to vendor.
- INST_ARCHLIB
- Same as INST_LIB for architecture dependent files.
- INST_BIN
- Directory to put real binary files during 'make'. These
will be copied to INSTALLBIN during 'make install'
- INST_LIB
- Directory where we put library files of this extension
while building it.
- INST_MAN1DIR
- Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time
- INST_MAN3DIR
- Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time
- INST_SCRIPT
- Directory, where executable files should be installed
during 'make'. Defaults to "./blib/script", just to have a dummy
location during testing. make install will copy the files in INST_SCRIPT
to INSTALLSCRIPT.
- LD
- Program to be used to link libraries for dynamic loading.
Defaults to $Config{ld}.
- LDDLFLAGS
- Any special flags that might need to be passed to ld to
create a shared library suitable for dynamic loading. It is up to the
makefile to use it. (See "lddlflags" in Config)
Defaults to $Config{lddlflags}.
- LDFROM
- Defaults to "$(OBJECT)" and is used in the ld
command to specify what files to link/load from (also see dynamic_lib
below for how to specify ld flags)
- LIB
- LIB should only be set at "perl Makefile.PL" time
but is allowed as a MakeMaker argument. It has the effect of setting both
INSTALLPRIVLIB and INSTALLSITELIB to that value regardless any explicit
setting of those arguments (or of PREFIX). INSTALLARCHLIB and
INSTALLSITEARCH are set to the corresponding architecture
subdirectory.
- LIBPERL_A
- The filename of the perllibrary that will be used together
with this extension. Defaults to libperl.a.
- LIBS
- An anonymous array of alternative library specifications to
be searched for (in order) until at least one library is found. E.g.
'LIBS' => ["-lgdbm", "-ldbm -lfoo", "-L/path -ldbm.nfs"]
Mind, that any element of the array contains a complete set of arguments for
the ld command. So do not specify
'LIBS' => ["-ltcl", "-ltk", "-lX11"]
See ODBM_File/Makefile.PL for an example, where an array is needed. If you
specify a scalar as in
'LIBS' => "-ltcl -ltk -lX11"
MakeMaker will turn it into an array with one element.
- LICENSE
- The licensing terms of your distribution. Generally its
"perl" for the same license as Perl itself.
See Module::Build::API for the list of options.
Defaults to "unknown".
- LINKTYPE
- 'static' or 'dynamic' (default unless usedl=undef in
config.sh). Should only be used to force static linking (also see linkext
below).
- MAKE
- Variant of make you intend to run the generated Makefile
with. This parameter lets Makefile.PL know what make quirks to account for
when generating the Makefile.
MakeMaker also honors the MAKE environment variable. This parameter takes
precedent.
Currently the only significant values are 'dmake' and 'nmake' for Windows
users.
Defaults to $Config{make}.
- MAKEAPERL
- Boolean which tells MakeMaker, that it should include the
rules to make a perl. This is handled automatically as a switch by
MakeMaker. The user normally does not need it.
- MAKEFILE_OLD
- When 'make clean' or similar is run, the $(FIRST_MAKEFILE)
will be backed up at this location.
Defaults to $(FIRST_MAKEFILE).old or $(FIRST_MAKEFILE)_old on VMS.
- MAN1PODS
- Hashref of pod-containing files. MakeMaker will default
this to all EXE_FILES files that include POD directives. The files listed
here will be converted to man pages and installed as was requested at
Configure time.
This hash should map POD files (or scripts containing POD) to the man file
names under the "blib/man1/" directory, as in the following
example:
MAN1PODS => {
'doc/command.pod' => 'blib/man1/command.1',
'scripts/script.pl' => 'blib/man1/script.1',
}
- MAN3PODS
- Hashref that assigns to *.pm and *.pod files the files into
which the manpages are to be written. MakeMaker parses all *.pod and *.pm
files for POD directives. Files that contain POD will be the default keys
of the MAN3PODS hashref. These will then be converted to man pages during
"make" and will be installed during "make install".
Example similar to MAN1PODS.
- MAP_TARGET
- If it is intended, that a new perl binary be produced, this
variable may hold a name for that binary. Defaults to perl
- META_ADD
- META_MERGE
- A hashrefs of items to add to the META.yml.
They differ in how they behave if they have the same key as the default
metadata. META_ADD will override the default value with its own.
META_MERGE will merge its value with the default.
Unless you want to override the defaults, prefer META_MERGE so as to get the
advantage of any future defaults.
- MIN_PERL_VERSION
- The minimum required version of Perl for this distribution.
Either 5.006001 or 5.6.1 format is acceptable.
- MYEXTLIB
- If the extension links to a library that it builds set this
to the name of the library (see SDBM_File)
- NAME
- Perl module name for this extension (DBD::Oracle). This
will default to the directory name but should be explicitly defined in the
Makefile.PL.
- NEEDS_LINKING
- MakeMaker will figure out if an extension contains linkable
code anywhere down the directory tree, and will set this variable
accordingly, but you can speed it up a very little bit if you define this
boolean variable yourself.
- NOECHO
- Command so make does not print the literal commands its
running.
By setting it to an empty string you can generate a Makefile that prints all
commands. Mainly used in debugging MakeMaker itself.
Defaults to "@".
- NORECURS
- Boolean. Attribute to inhibit descending into
subdirectories.
- NO_META
- When true, suppresses the generation and addition to the
MANIFEST of the META.yml module meta-data file during 'make distdir'.
Defaults to false.
- NO_MYMETA
- When true, suppresses the generation of MYMETA.yml module
meta-data file during 'perl Makefile.PL'.
Defaults to false.
- NO_VC
- In general, any generated Makefile checks for the current
version of MakeMaker and the version the Makefile was built under. If
NO_VC is set, the version check is neglected. Do not write this into your
Makefile.PL, use it interactively instead.
- OBJECT
- List of object files, defaults to '$(BASEEXT)$(OBJ_EXT)',
but can be a long string containing all object files, e.g. "tkpBind.o
tkpButton.o tkpCanvas.o"
(Where BASEEXT is the last component of NAME, and OBJ_EXT is
$Config{obj_ext}.)
- OPTIMIZE
- Defaults to "-O". Set it to "-g" to
turn debugging on. The flag is passed to subdirectory makes.
- PERL
- Perl binary for tasks that can be done by miniperl
- PERL_CORE
- Set only when MakeMaker is building the extensions of the
Perl core distribution.
- PERLMAINCC
- The call to the program that is able to compile perlmain.c.
Defaults to $(CC).
- PERL_ARCHLIB
- Same as for PERL_LIB, but for architecture dependent files.
Used only when MakeMaker is building the extensions of the Perl core
distribution (because normally $(PERL_ARCHLIB) is automatically in @INC,
and adding it would get in the way of PERL5LIB).
- PERL_LIB
- Directory containing the Perl library to use.
Used only when MakeMaker is building the extensions of the Perl core
distribution (because normally $(PERL_LIB) is automatically in @INC, and
adding it would get in the way of PERL5LIB).
- PERL_MALLOC_OK
- defaults to 0. Should be set to TRUE if the extension can
work with the memory allocation routines substituted by the Perl
malloc() subsystem. This should be applicable to most extensions
with exceptions of those
- •
- with bugs in memory allocations which are caught by Perl's
malloc();
- •
- which interact with the memory allocator in other ways than
via malloc(), realloc(), free(), calloc(),
sbrk() and brk();
- •
- which rely on special alignment which is not provided by
Perl's malloc().
NOTE. Negligence to set this flag in
any one of loaded extension
nullifies many advantages of Perl's
malloc(), such as better usage of
system resources, error detection, memory usage reporting, catchable failure
of memory allocations, etc.
- PERLPREFIX
- Directory under which core modules are to be installed.
Defaults to $Config{installprefixexp} falling back to
$Config{installprefix}, $Config{prefixexp} or $Config{prefix} should
$Config{installprefixexp} not exist.
Overridden by PREFIX.
- PERLRUN
- Use this instead of $(PERL) when you wish to run perl. It
will set up extra necessary flags for you.
- PERLRUNINST
- Use this instead of $(PERL) when you wish to run perl to
work with modules. It will add things like -I$(INST_ARCH) and other
necessary flags so perl can see the modules you're about to install.
- PERL_SRC
- Directory containing the Perl source code (use of this
should be avoided, it may be undefined)
- PERM_DIR
- Desired permission for directories. Defaults to 755.
- PERM_RW
- Desired permission for read/writable files. Defaults to
644.
- PERM_RWX
- Desired permission for executable files. Defaults to
755.
- PL_FILES
- MakeMaker can run programs to generate files for you at
build time. By default any file named *.PL (except Makefile.PL and
Build.PL) in the top level directory will be assumed to be a Perl program
and run passing its own basename in as an argument. For example...
perl foo.PL foo
This behavior can be overridden by supplying your own set of files to
search. PL_FILES accepts a hash ref, the key being the file to run and the
value is passed in as the first argument when the PL file is run.
PL_FILES => {'bin/foobar.PL' => 'bin/foobar'}
Would run bin/foobar.PL like this:
perl bin/foobar.PL bin/foobar
If multiple files from one program are desired an array ref can be used.
PL_FILES => {'bin/foobar.PL' => [qw(bin/foobar1 bin/foobar2)]}
In this case the program will be run multiple times using each target file.
perl bin/foobar.PL bin/foobar1
perl bin/foobar.PL bin/foobar2
PL files are normally run after pm_to_blib and include INST_LIB and
INST_ARCH in its @INC so the just built modules can be accessed... unless
the PL file is making a module (or anything else in PM) in which case it
is run before pm_to_blib and does not include INST_LIB and
INST_ARCH in its @INC. This apparently odd behavior is there for backwards
compatibility (and its somewhat DWIM).
- PM
- Hashref of .pm files and *.pl files to be installed. e.g.
{'name_of_file.pm' => '$(INST_LIBDIR)/install_as.pm'}
By default this will include *.pm and *.pl and the files found in the
PMLIBDIRS directories. Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override
PMLIBDIRS.
- PMLIBDIRS
- Ref to array of subdirectories containing library files.
Defaults to [ 'lib', $(BASEEXT) ]. The directories will be scanned and
any files they contain will be installed in the corresponding
location in the library. A libscan() method can be used to alter
the behaviour. Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS.
(Where BASEEXT is the last component of NAME.)
- PM_FILTER
- A filter program, in the traditional Unix sense (input from
stdin, output to stdout) that is passed on each .pm file during the build
(in the pm_to_blib() phase). It is empty by default, meaning no
filtering is done.
Great care is necessary when defining the command if quoting needs to be
done. For instance, you would need to say:
{'PM_FILTER' => 'grep -v \\"^\\#\\"'}
to remove all the leading comments on the fly during the build. The extra \\
are necessary, unfortunately, because this variable is interpolated within
the context of a Perl program built on the command line, and double quotes
are what is used with the -e switch to build that command line. The # is
escaped for the Makefile, since what is going to be generated will then
be:
PM_FILTER = grep -v \"^\#\"
Without the \\ before the #, we'd have the start of a Makefile comment, and
the macro would be incorrectly defined.
- POLLUTE
- Release 5.005 grandfathered old global symbol names by
providing preprocessor macros for extension source compatibility. As of
release 5.6, these preprocessor definitions are not available by default.
The POLLUTE flag specifies that the old names should still be defined:
perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
Please inform the module author if this is necessary to successfully install
a module under 5.6 or later.
- PPM_INSTALL_EXEC
- Name of the executable used to run
"PPM_INSTALL_SCRIPT" below. (e.g. perl)
- PPM_INSTALL_SCRIPT
- Name of the script that gets executed by the Perl Package
Manager after the installation of a package.
- PREFIX
- This overrides all the default install locations. Man
pages, libraries, scripts, etc... MakeMaker will try to make an educated
guess about where to place things under the new PREFIX based on your
Config defaults. Failing that, it will fall back to a structure which
should be sensible for your platform.
If you specify LIB or any INSTALL* variables they will not be effected by
the PREFIX.
- PREREQ_FATAL
- Bool. If this parameter is true, failing to have the
required modules (or the right versions thereof) will be fatal. "perl
Makefile.PL" will "die" instead of simply informing the
user of the missing dependencies.
It is extremely rare to have to use "PREREQ_FATAL". Its use
by module authors is strongly discouraged and should never be used
lightly.
Module installation tools have ways of resolving umet dependencies but to do
that they need a Makefile. Using "PREREQ_FATAL" breaks
this. That's bad.
Assuming you have good test coverage, your tests should fail with missing
dependencies informing the user more strongly that something is wrong. You
can write a t/00compile.t test which will simply check that your
code compiles and stop "make test" prematurely if it doesn't.
See "BAIL_OUT" in Test::More for more details.
- PREREQ_PM
- A hash of modules that are needed to run your module. The
keys are the module names ie. Test::More, and the minimum version is the
value. If the required version number is 0 any version will do.
This will go into the "requires" field of your META.yml.
PREREQ_PM => {
# Require Test::More at least 0.47
"Test::More" => "0.47",
# Require any version of Acme::Buffy
"Acme::Buffy" => 0,
}
- PREREQ_PRINT
- Bool. If this parameter is true, the prerequisites will be
printed to stdout and MakeMaker will exit. The output format is an
evalable hash ref.
$PREREQ_PM = {
'A::B' => Vers1,
'C::D' => Vers2,
...
};
If a distribution defines a minimal required perl version, this is added to
the output as an additional line of the form:
$MIN_PERL_VERSION = '5.008001';
If BUILD_REQUIRES is not empty, it will be dumped as $BUILD_REQUIRES
hasref.
- PRINT_PREREQ
- RedHatism for "PREREQ_PRINT". The output format
is different, though:
perl(A::B)>=Vers1 perl(C::D)>=Vers2 ...
A minimal required perl version, if present, will look like this:
perl(perl)>=5.008001
- SITEPREFIX
- Like PERLPREFIX, but only for the site install locations.
Defaults to $Config{siteprefixexp}. Perls prior to 5.6.0 didn't have an
explicit siteprefix in the Config. In those cases $Config{installprefix}
will be used.
Overridable by PREFIX
- SIGN
- When true, perform the generation and addition to the
MANIFEST of the SIGNATURE file in the distdir during 'make distdir', via
'cpansign -s'.
Note that you need to install the Module::Signature module to perform this
operation.
Defaults to false.
- SKIP
- Arrayref. E.g. [qw(name1 name2)] skip (do not write)
sections of the Makefile. Caution! Do not use the SKIP attribute for the
negligible speedup. It may seriously damage the resulting Makefile. Only
use it if you really need it.
- TYPEMAPS
- Ref to array of typemap file names. Use this when the
typemaps are in some directory other than the current directory or when
they are not named typemap. The last typemap in the list takes
precedence. A typemap in the current directory has highest precedence,
even if it isn't listed in TYPEMAPS. The default system typemap has lowest
precedence.
- VENDORPREFIX
- Like PERLPREFIX, but only for the vendor install locations.
Defaults to $Config{vendorprefixexp}.
Overridable by PREFIX
- VERBINST
- If true, make install will be verbose
- VERSION
- Your version number for distributing the package. This
defaults to 0.1.
- VERSION_FROM
- Instead of specifying the VERSION in the Makefile.PL you
can let MakeMaker parse a file to determine the version number. The
parsing routine requires that the file named by VERSION_FROM contains one
single line to compute the version number. The first line in the file that
contains something like a $VERSION assignment or "package Name
VERSION" will be used. The following lines will be parsed o.k.:
# Good
package Foo::Bar 1.23; # 1.23
$VERSION = '1.00'; # 1.00
*VERSION = \'1.01'; # 1.01
($VERSION) = q$Revision$ =~ /(\d+)/g; # The digits in $Revision$
$FOO::VERSION = '1.10'; # 1.10
*FOO::VERSION = \'1.11'; # 1.11
but these will fail:
# Bad
my $VERSION = '1.01';
local $VERSION = '1.02';
local $FOO::VERSION = '1.30';
"Version strings" are incompatible should not be used.
# Bad
$VERSION = 1.2.3;
$VERSION = v1.2.3;
version objects are fine. As of MakeMaker 6.35 version.pm will be
automatically loaded, but you must declare the dependency on version.pm.
For compatibility with older MakeMaker you should load on the same line as
$VERSION is declared.
# All on one line
use version; our $VERSION = qv(1.2.3);
(Putting "my" or "local" on the preceding line will work
o.k.)
The file named in VERSION_FROM is not added as a dependency to Makefile.
This is not really correct, but it would be a major pain during
development to have to rewrite the Makefile for any smallish change in
that file. If you want to make sure that the Makefile contains the correct
VERSION macro after any change of the file, you would have to do something
like
depend => { Makefile => '$(VERSION_FROM)' }
See attribute "depend" below.
- VERSION_SYM
- A sanitized VERSION with . replaced by _. For places where
. has special meaning (some filesystems, RCS labels, etc...)
- XS
- Hashref of .xs files. MakeMaker will default this. e.g.
{'name_of_file.xs' => 'name_of_file.c'}
The .c files will automatically be included in the list of files deleted by
a make clean.
- XSOPT
- String of options to pass to xsubpp. This might include
"-C++" or "-extern". Do not include typemaps here; the
TYPEMAP parameter exists for that purpose.
- XSPROTOARG
- May be set to an empty string, which is identical to
"-prototypes", or "-noprototypes". See the xsubpp
documentation for details. MakeMaker defaults to the empty string.
- XS_VERSION
- Your version number for the .xs file of this package. This
defaults to the value of the VERSION attribute.
Additional lowercase attributes¶
can be used to pass parameters to the methods which implement that part of the
Makefile. Parameters are specified as a hash ref but are passed to the method
as a hash.
- clean
-
{FILES => "*.xyz foo"}
- depend
-
{ANY_TARGET => ANY_DEPENDENCY, ...}
(ANY_TARGET must not be given a double-colon rule by MakeMaker.)
- dist
-
{TARFLAGS => 'cvfF', COMPRESS => 'gzip', SUFFIX => '.gz',
SHAR => 'shar -m', DIST_CP => 'ln', ZIP => '/bin/zip',
ZIPFLAGS => '-rl', DIST_DEFAULT => 'private tardist' }
If you specify COMPRESS, then SUFFIX should also be altered, as it is needed
to tell make the target file of the compression. Setting DIST_CP to ln can
be useful, if you need to preserve the timestamps on your files. DIST_CP
can take the values 'cp', which copies the file, 'ln', which links the
file, and 'best' which copies symbolic links and links the rest. Default
is 'best'.
- dynamic_lib
-
{ARMAYBE => 'ar', OTHERLDFLAGS => '...', INST_DYNAMIC_DEP => '...'}
- linkext
-
{LINKTYPE => 'static', 'dynamic' or ''}
NB: Extensions that have nothing but *.pm files had to say
{LINKTYPE => ''}
with Pre-5.0 MakeMakers. Since version 5.00 of MakeMaker such a line can be
deleted safely. MakeMaker recognizes when there's nothing to be
linked.
- macro
-
{ANY_MACRO => ANY_VALUE, ...}
- postamble
- Anything put here will be passed to MY::postamble()
if you have one.
- realclean
-
{FILES => '$(INST_ARCHAUTODIR)/*.xyz'}
- test
-
{TESTS => 't/*.t'}
- tool_autosplit
-
{MAXLEN => 8}
Overriding MakeMaker Methods¶
If you cannot achieve the desired Makefile behaviour by specifying attributes
you may define private subroutines in the Makefile.PL. Each subroutine returns
the text it wishes to have written to the Makefile. To override a section of
the Makefile you can either say:
sub MY::c_o { "new literal text" }
or you can edit the default by saying something like:
package MY; # so that "SUPER" works right
sub c_o {
my $inherited = shift->SUPER::c_o(@_);
$inherited =~ s/old text/new text/;
$inherited;
}
If you are running experiments with embedding perl as a library into other
applications, you might find MakeMaker is not sufficient. You'd better have a
look at ExtUtils::Embed which is a collection of utilities for embedding.
If you still need a different solution, try to develop another subroutine that
fits your needs and submit the diffs to "makemaker@perl.org"
For a complete description of all MakeMaker methods see ExtUtils::MM_Unix.
Here is a simple example of how to add a new target to the generated Makefile:
sub MY::postamble {
return <<'MAKE_FRAG';
$(MYEXTLIB): sdbm/Makefile
cd sdbm && $(MAKE) all
MAKE_FRAG
}
The End Of Cargo Cult Programming¶
WriteMakefile() now does some basic sanity checks on its parameters to
protect against typos and malformatted values. This means some things which
happened to work in the past will now throw warnings and possibly produce
internal errors.
Some of the most common mistakes:
- "MAN3PODS => ' '"
- This is commonly used to suppress the creation of man
pages. MAN3PODS takes a hash ref not a string, but the above worked by
accident in old versions of MakeMaker.
The correct code is "MAN3PODS => { }".
Hintsfile support¶
MakeMaker.pm uses the architecture specific information from Config.pm. In
addition it evaluates architecture specific hints files in a
"hints/" directory. The hints files are expected to be named like
their counterparts in "PERL_SRC/hints", but with an ".pl"
file name extension (eg. "next_3_2.pl"). They are simply
"eval"ed by MakeMaker within the
WriteMakefile() subroutine,
and can be used to execute commands as well as to include special variables.
The rules which hintsfile is chosen are the same as in Configure.
The hintsfile is
eval()ed immediately after the arguments given to
WriteMakefile are stuffed into a hash reference $self but before this
reference becomes blessed. So if you want to do the equivalent to override or
create an attribute you would say something like
$self->{LIBS} = ['-ldbm -lucb -lc'];
Distribution Support¶
For authors of extensions MakeMaker provides several Makefile targets. Most of
the support comes from the ExtUtils::Manifest module, where additional
documentation can be found.
- make distcheck
- reports which files are below the build directory but not
in the MANIFEST file and vice versa. (See
ExtUtils::Manifest::fullcheck() for details)
- make skipcheck
- reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
"MANIFEST.SKIP" file (See ExtUtils::Manifest::skipcheck()
for details)
- make distclean
- does a realclean first and then the distcheck. Note that
this is not needed to build a new distribution as long as you are sure
that the MANIFEST file is ok.
- make manifest
- rewrites the MANIFEST file, adding all remaining files
found (See ExtUtils::Manifest::mkmanifest() for details)
- make distdir
- Copies all the files that are in the MANIFEST file to a
newly created directory with the name "$(DISTNAME)-$(VERSION)".
If that directory exists, it will be removed first.
Additionally, it will create a META.yml module meta-data file in the distdir
and add this to the distdir's MANIFEST. You can shut this behavior off
with the NO_META flag.
- make disttest
- Makes a distdir first, and runs a "perl
Makefile.PL", a make, and a make test in that directory.
- make tardist
- First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which
defaults to a null command, followed by $(TO_UNIX), which defaults to a
null command under UNIX, and will convert files in distribution directory
to UNIX format otherwise. Next it runs "tar" on that directory
into a tarfile and deletes the directory. Finishes with a command
$(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command.
- make dist
- Defaults to $(DIST_DEFAULT) which in turn defaults to
tardist.
- make uutardist
- Runs a tardist first and uuencodes the tarfile.
- make shdist
- First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which
defaults to a null command. Next it runs "shar" on that
directory into a sharfile and deletes the intermediate directory again.
Finishes with a command $(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command. Note:
For shdist to work properly a "shar" program that can handle
directories is mandatory.
- make zipdist
- First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which
defaults to a null command. Runs "$(ZIP) $(ZIPFLAGS)" on that
directory into a zipfile. Then deletes that directory. Finishes with a
command $(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command.
- make ci
- Does a $(CI) and a $(RCS_LABEL) on all files in the
MANIFEST file.
Customization of the dist targets can be done by specifying a hash reference to
the dist attribute of the WriteMakefile call. The following parameters are
recognized:
CI ('ci -u')
COMPRESS ('gzip --best')
POSTOP ('@ :')
PREOP ('@ :')
TO_UNIX (depends on the system)
RCS_LABEL ('rcs -q -Nv$(VERSION_SYM):')
SHAR ('shar')
SUFFIX ('.gz')
TAR ('tar')
TARFLAGS ('cvf')
ZIP ('zip')
ZIPFLAGS ('-r')
An example:
WriteMakefile(
...other options...
dist => {
COMPRESS => "bzip2",
SUFFIX => ".bz2"
}
);
Long plaguing users of MakeMaker based modules has been the problem of getting
basic information about the module out of the sources
without running
the
Makefile.PL and doing a bunch of messy heuristics on the resulting
Makefile. To this end a simple module meta-data file has been
introduced,
META.yml.
META.yml is a YAML document (see
http://www.yaml.org) containing basic
information about the module (name, version, prerequisites...) in an easy to
read format. The format is developed and defined by the Module::Build
developers (see
http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec.html)
MakeMaker will automatically generate a
META.yml file for you and add it
to your
MANIFEST as part of the 'distdir' target (and thus the 'dist'
target). This is intended to seamlessly and rapidly populate CPAN with module
meta-data. If you wish to shut this feature off, set the "NO_META"
"WriteMakefile()" flag to true.
Disabling an extension¶
If some events detected in
Makefile.PL imply that there is no way to
create the Module, but this is a normal state of things, then you can create a
Makefile which does nothing, but succeeds on all the "usual"
build targets. To do so, use
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker qw(WriteEmptyMakefile);
WriteEmptyMakefile();
instead of
WriteMakefile().
This may be useful if other modules expect this module to be
built OK, as
opposed to
work OK (say, this system-dependent module builds in a
subdirectory of some other distribution, or is listed as a dependency in a
CPAN::Bundle, but the functionality is supported by different means on the
current architecture).
Other Handy Functions¶
- prompt
-
my $value = prompt($message);
my $value = prompt($message, $default);
The "prompt()" function provides an easy way to request user input
used to write a makefile. It displays the $message as a prompt for input.
If a $default is provided it will be used as a default. The function
returns the $value selected by the user.
If "prompt()" detects that it is not running interactively and
there is nothing on STDIN or if the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment
variable is set to true, the $default will be used without prompting. This
prevents automated processes from blocking on user input.
If no $default is provided an empty string will be used instead.
ENVIRONMENT¶
- PERL_MM_OPT
- Command line options used by
"MakeMaker->new()", and thus by "WriteMakefile()".
The string is split on whitespace, and the result is processed before any
actual command line arguments are processed.
- PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT
- If set to a true value then MakeMaker's prompt function
will always return the default without waiting for user input.
- PERL_CORE
- Same as the PERL_CORE parameter. The parameter overrides
this.
SEE ALSO¶
Module::Build is a pure-Perl alternative to MakeMaker which does not rely on
make or any other external utility. It is easier to extend to suit your needs.
Module::Install is a wrapper around MakeMaker which adds features not normally
available.
ExtUtils::ModuleMaker and Module::Starter are both modules to help you setup
your distribution.
AUTHORS¶
Andy Dougherty "doughera@lafayette.edu", Andreas Koenig
"andreas.koenig@mind.de", Tim Bunce "timb@cpan.org". VMS
support by Charles Bailey "bailey@newman.upenn.edu". OS/2 support by
Ilya Zakharevich "ilya@math.ohio-state.edu".
Currently maintained by Michael G Schwern "schwern@pobox.com"
Send patches and ideas to "makemaker@perl.org".
Send bug reports via
http://rt.cpan.org/. Please send your generated Makefile
along with your report.
For more up-to-date information, see <
http://www.makemaker.org>.
Repository available at
http://github.com/schwern/extutils-makemaker
<
http://github.com/schwern/extutils-makemaker>.
LICENSE¶
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.
See <
http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>