OS/2-specific fixes, round II
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / lib / ExtUtils / MakeMaker / FAQ.pod
CommitLineData
479d2113 1package ExtUtils::MakeMaker::FAQ;
2
7292dc67 3use vars qw($VERSION);
58d32538 4$VERSION = '1.11_04';
479d2113 5
61;
7__END__
8
9=head1 NAME
10
11ExtUtils::MakeMaker::FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions About MakeMaker
12
13=head1 DESCRIPTION
14
15FAQs, tricks and tips for C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>.
16
03c94fc2 17
18=head2 Module Installation
19
20=over 4
21
58d32538 22=item How do I install a module into my home directory?
23
24If you're not the Perl administrator you probably don't have
25permission to install a module to its default location. Then you
26should install it for your own use into your home directory like so:
27
28 perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=~
29
30This will put modules into F<~/lib/perl5>, man pages into F<~/man> and
31programs into F<~/bin>.
32
33To ensure your Perl programs can see these newly installed modules,
34set your C<PERL5LIB> environment variable to F<~/lib/perl5> or tell
35each of your programs to look in that directory with the following:
36
37 use lib "$ENV{HOME}/lib/perl5";
38
39
40=item How do I get MakeMaker and Module::Build to install to the same place?
41
42Module::Build, as of 0.28, supports two ways to install to the same
43location as MakeMaker.
44
451) Use INSTALL_BASE / C<--install_base>
46
47MakeMaker (as of 6.31) and Module::Build (as of 0.28) both can install
48to the same locations using the "install_base" concept. See
49L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker/INSTALL_BASE> for details. To get MM and MB to
50install to the same location simply set INSTALL_BASE in MM and
51C<--install_base> in MB to the same location.
52
53 perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=/whatever
54 perl Build.PL --install_base /whatever
55
562) Use PREFIX / C<--prefix>
57
58Module::Build 0.28 added support for C<--prefix> which works like
59MakeMaker's PREFIX.
60
61 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/whatever
62 perl Build.PL --prefix /whatever
63
64
03c94fc2 65=item How do I keep from installing man pages?
66
67Recent versions of MakeMaker will only install man pages on Unix like
68operating systems.
69
70For an individual module:
71
72 perl Makefile.PL INSTALLMAN1DIR=none INSTALLMAN3DIR=none
73
74If you want to suppress man page installation for all modules you have
75to reconfigure Perl and tell it 'none' when it asks where to install
76man pages.
77
78
79=item How do I use a module without installing it?
80
81Two ways. One is to build the module normally...
82
83 perl Makefile.PL
84 make
58d32538 85 make test
03c94fc2 86
87...and then set the PERL5LIB environment variable to point at the
88blib/lib and blib/arch directories.
89
90The other is to install the module in a temporary location.
91
58d32538 92 perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=~/tmp
93 make
94 make test
95 make install
03c94fc2 96
58d32538 97And then set PERL5LIB to F<~/tmp/lib/perl5>. This works well when you
98have multiple modules to work with. It also ensures that the module
99goes through its full installation process which may modify it.
03c94fc2 100
101=back
102
103
479d2113 104=head2 Philosophy and History
105
106=over 4
107
108=item Why not just use <insert other build config tool here>?
109
110Why did MakeMaker reinvent the build configuration wheel? Why not
111just use autoconf or automake or ppm or Ant or ...
112
113There are many reasons, but the major one is cross-platform
114compatibility.
115
116Perl is one of the most ported pieces of software ever. It works on
117operating systems I've never even heard of (see perlport for details).
118It needs a build tool that can work on all those platforms and with
03c94fc2 119any wacky C compilers and linkers they might have.
479d2113 120
03c94fc2 121No such build tool exists. Even make itself has wildly different
122dialects. So we have to build our own.
479d2113 123
124
03c94fc2 125=item What is Module::Build and how does it relate to MakeMaker?
479d2113 126
127Module::Build is a project by Ken Williams to supplant MakeMaker.
128Its primary advantages are:
129
130=over 8
131
132=item * pure perl. no make, no shell commands
133
134=item * easier to customize
135
136=item * cleaner internals
137
138=item * less cruft
139
140=back
141
142Module::Build is the official heir apparent to MakeMaker and we
03c94fc2 143encourage people to work on M::B rather than spending time adding features
144to MakeMaker.
479d2113 145
146=back
147
03c94fc2 148
2530b651 149=head2 Module Writing
150
151=over 4
152
e3aa3ecb 153=item How do I keep my $VERSION up to date without resetting it manually?
2530b651 154
155Often you want to manually set the $VERSION in the main module
156distribution because this is the version that everybody sees on CPAN
157and maybe you want to customize it a bit. But for all the other
158modules in your dist, $VERSION is really just bookkeeping and all that's
159important is it goes up every time the module is changed. Doing this
160by hand is a pain and you often forget.
161
162Simplest way to do it automatically is to use your version control
163system's revision number (you are using version control, right?).
164
7292dc67 165In CVS, RCS and SVN you use $Revision$ (see the documentation of your
2977d345 166version control system for details). Every time the file is checked
167in the $Revision$ will be updated, updating your $VERSION.
2530b651 168
2977d345 169SVN uses a simple integer for $Revision$ so you can adapt it for your
170$VERSION like so:
2530b651 171
2977d345 172 $VERSION = (q$Revision$) =~ /(\d+)/g;
2530b651 173
2977d345 174In CVS and RCS version 1.9 is followed by 1.10. Since CPAN compares
175version numbers numerically we use a sprintf() to convert 1.9 to 1.009
176and 1.10 to 1.010 which compare properly.
177
178 $VERSION = sprintf "%d.%03d", q$Revision$ =~ /(\d+)\.(\d+)/g;
2530b651 179
7292dc67 180If branches are involved (ie. $Revision: 1.5.3.4$) its a little more
2530b651 181complicated.
182
183 # must be all on one line or MakeMaker will get confused.
7292dc67 184 $VERSION = do { my @r = (q$Revision$ =~ /\d+/g); sprintf "%d."."%03d" x $#r, @r };
2530b651 185
2977d345 186In SVN, $Revision$ should be the same for every file in the project so
187they would all have the same $VERSION. CVS and RCS have a different
188$Revision$ per file so each file will have a differnt $VERSION.
189Distributed version control systems, such as SVK, may have a different
190$Revision$ based on who checks out the file leading to a different $VERSION
191on each machine! Finally, some distributed version control systems, such
192as darcs, have no concept of revision number at all.
193
194
e3aa3ecb 195=item What's this F<META.yml> thing and how did it get in my F<MANIFEST>?!
c2990482 196
197F<META.yml> is a module meta-data file pioneered by Module::Build and
198automatically generated as part of the 'distdir' target (and thus
199'dist'). See L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker/"Module Meta-Data">.
200
201To shut off its generation, pass the C<NO_META> flag to C<WriteMakefile()>.
2530b651 202
58d32538 203
204=item How do I delete everything not in my F<MANIFEST>?
205
206Some folks are surpried that C<make distclean> does not delete
207everything not listed in their MANIFEST (thus making a clean
208distribution) but only tells them what they need to delete. This is
209done because it is considered too dangerous. While developing your
210module you might write a new file, not add it to the MANIFEST, then
211run a C<distclean> and be sad because your new work was deleted.
212
213If you really want to do this, you can use
214C<ExtUtils::Manifest::manifind()> to read the MANIFEST and File::Find
215to delete the files. But you have to be careful. Here's a script to
216do that. Use at your own risk. Have fun blowing holes in your foot.
217
218 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
219
220 use strict;
221
222 use File::Spec;
223 use File::Find;
224 use ExtUtils::Manifest qw(maniread);
225
226 my %manifest = map {( $_ => 1 )}
227 grep { File::Spec->canonpath($_) }
228 keys %{ maniread() };
229
230 if( !keys %manifest ) {
231 print "No files found in MANIFEST. Stopping.\n";
232 exit;
233 }
234
235 find({
236 wanted => sub {
237 my $path = File::Spec->canonpath($_);
238
239 return unless -f $path;
240 return if exists $manifest{ $path };
241
242 print "unlink $path\n";
243 unlink $path;
244 },
245 no_chdir => 1
246 },
247 "."
248 );
249
250
2530b651 251=back
252
479d2113 253=head2 XS
254
255=over 4
256
e3aa3ecb 257=item How to I prevent "object version X.XX does not match bootstrap parameter Y.YY" errors?
dedf98bc 258
259XS code is very sensitive to the module version number and will
260complain if the version number in your Perl module doesn't match. If
c2878c71 261you change your module's version # without rerunning Makefile.PL the old
dedf98bc 262version number will remain in the Makefile causing the XS code to be built
263with the wrong number.
264
265To avoid this, you can force the Makefile to be rebuilt whenever you
266change the module containing the version number by adding this to your
267WriteMakefile() arguments.
268
269 depend => { '$(FIRST_MAKEFILE)' => '$(VERSION_FROM)' }
270
271
e3aa3ecb 272=item How do I make two or more XS files coexist in the same directory?
479d2113 273
274Sometimes you need to have two and more XS files in the same package.
275One way to go is to put them into separate directories, but sometimes
276this is not the most suitable solution. The following technique allows
277you to put two (and more) XS files in the same directory.
278
279Let's assume that we have a package C<Cool::Foo>, which includes
280C<Cool::Foo> and C<Cool::Bar> modules each having a separate XS
281file. First we use the following I<Makefile.PL>:
282
283 use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
284
285 WriteMakefile(
286 NAME => 'Cool::Foo',
287 VERSION_FROM => 'Foo.pm',
288 OBJECT => q/$(O_FILES)/,
289 # ... other attrs ...
290 );
291
292Notice the C<OBJECT> attribute. MakeMaker generates the following
293variables in I<Makefile>:
294
295 # Handy lists of source code files:
296 XS_FILES= Bar.xs \
297 Foo.xs
298 C_FILES = Bar.c \
299 Foo.c
300 O_FILES = Bar.o \
301 Foo.o
302
303Therefore we can use the C<O_FILES> variable to tell MakeMaker to use
304these objects into the shared library.
305
306That's pretty much it. Now write I<Foo.pm> and I<Foo.xs>, I<Bar.pm>
307and I<Bar.xs>, where I<Foo.pm> bootstraps the shared library and
308I<Bar.pm> simply loading I<Foo.pm>.
309
310The only issue left is to how to bootstrap I<Bar.xs>. This is done
311from I<Foo.xs>:
312
313 MODULE = Cool::Foo PACKAGE = Cool::Foo
314
315 BOOT:
316 # boot the second XS file
317 boot_Cool__Bar(aTHX_ cv);
318
319If you have more than two files, this is the place where you should
320boot extra XS files from.
321
322The following four files sum up all the details discussed so far.
323
324 Foo.pm:
325 -------
326 package Cool::Foo;
327
328 require DynaLoader;
329
330 our @ISA = qw(DynaLoader);
331 our $VERSION = '0.01';
332 bootstrap Cool::Foo $VERSION;
333
334 1;
335
336 Bar.pm:
337 -------
338 package Cool::Bar;
339
340 use Cool::Foo; # bootstraps Bar.xs
341
342 1;
343
344 Foo.xs:
345 -------
346 #include "EXTERN.h"
347 #include "perl.h"
348 #include "XSUB.h"
349
350 MODULE = Cool::Foo PACKAGE = Cool::Foo
351
352 BOOT:
353 # boot the second XS file
354 boot_Cool__Bar(aTHX_ cv);
355
356 MODULE = Cool::Foo PACKAGE = Cool::Foo PREFIX = cool_foo_
357
358 void
359 cool_foo_perl_rules()
360
361 CODE:
362 fprintf(stderr, "Cool::Foo says: Perl Rules\n");
363
364 Bar.xs:
365 -------
366 #include "EXTERN.h"
367 #include "perl.h"
368 #include "XSUB.h"
369
370 MODULE = Cool::Bar PACKAGE = Cool::Bar PREFIX = cool_bar_
371
372 void
373 cool_bar_perl_rules()
374
375 CODE:
376 fprintf(stderr, "Cool::Bar says: Perl Rules\n");
377
378And of course a very basic test:
379
58d32538 380 t/cool.t:
479d2113 381 --------
382 use Test;
383 BEGIN { plan tests => 1 };
384 use Cool::Foo;
385 use Cool::Bar;
386 Cool::Foo::perl_rules();
387 Cool::Bar::perl_rules();
388 ok 1;
389
390This tip has been brought to you by Nick Ing-Simmons and Stas Bekman.
391
392=back
393
394=head1 PATCHING
395
396If you have a question you'd like to see added to the FAQ (whether or
397not you have the answer) please send it to makemaker@perl.org.
398
399=head1 AUTHOR
400
401The denizens of makemaker@perl.org.
402
403=head1 SEE ALSO
404
405L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
406
407=cut