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1 | This is a short set of guidelines for those patching |
2 | ExtUtils::MakeMaker. Its not an iron-clad set of rules, but just |
3 | things which make life easier when reading and integrating a patch. |
4 | |
5 | Lots of information can be found in makemaker.org. |
6 | |
7 | MakerMaker is being maintained until something else can replace it. |
8 | Bugs will be fixed and compatibility improved, but I would like to |
9 | avoid new features. If you want to add something to MakeMaker, |
10 | consider instead working on Module::Build, MakeMaker's heir apparent. |
11 | |
12 | |
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13 | Reporting bugs |
14 | |
15 | - Often the only information we have for fixing a bug is contained in your |
16 | report. So... |
17 | |
18 | - Please report your bugs via http://rt.cpan.org or by mailing to |
19 | makemaker@perl.org. RT is preferred. |
20 | |
21 | - Please report your bug immediately upon encountering it. Do not wait |
22 | until you have a patch to fix the bug. Patches are good, but not at |
23 | the expense of timely bug reports. |
24 | |
25 | - Please be as verbose as possible. Include the complete output of |
26 | your 'make test' or even 'make test TEST_VERBOSE=1' and a copy of the |
27 | generated Makefile. Err on the side of verbosity. The more data we |
28 | have to work with, the faster we can diagnose the problem. |
29 | |
30 | - If you find an undocumented feature, or if a feature has changed/been |
31 | added which causes a problem, report it. Do not assume it was done |
32 | deliberately. Even if it was done deliberately, we still want to hear |
33 | if it caused problems. |
34 | |
35 | |
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36 | Patching details |
37 | |
38 | - Please use unified diffs. (diff -u) |
39 | |
40 | - Patches against the latest development snapshot from makemaker.org are |
41 | preferred. Patches against the latest CPAN version are ok, too. |
42 | |
43 | - Post your patch to makemaker@perl.org. |
44 | |
45 | |
46 | Code formatting |
47 | |
48 | - No literal tabs (except where necessary inside Makefile code, obviously). |
49 | |
50 | - 4 character indentation. |
51 | |
52 | - this_style is prefered instead of studlyCaps. |
53 | |
54 | - Private subroutine names (ie. those used only in the same package |
55 | they're declared in) should start with an underscore (_sekret_method). |
56 | |
57 | - Protected subroutines (ie. ones intended to be used by other modules in |
58 | ExtUtils::*) should be named normally (no leading underscore) but |
59 | documented as protected (see Documentation below). |
60 | |
61 | - Do not use indirect object syntax (ie. new Foo::Bar (@args)) |
62 | |
63 | - make variables use dollar signs like Perl scalars. This causes problems |
64 | when you have to mix them both in a string. If you find yourself |
65 | backwacking lots of dollar signs because you have one interpolated |
66 | perl variable, like this: |
67 | |
68 | return <<'EOT' |
69 | |
70 | subdirs :: |
71 | \$(NOECHO)cd $subdir && \$(MAKE) -f \$(FIRST_MAKEFILE) all \$(PASTHRU) |
72 | EOT |
73 | |
74 | or are switching quoting contexts: |
75 | |
76 | return <<q{ |
77 | subdirs :: |
78 | $(NOECHO)cd }.$subdir.q{ && $(MAKE) -f $(FIRST_MAKEFILE) all $(PASTHRU) |
79 | }; |
80 | |
81 | consider using sprintf instead. |
82 | |
83 | return sprintf <<'EOT', $subdir; |
84 | |
85 | subdirs :: |
86 | $(NOECHO)cd %s && $(MAKE) -f $(FIRST_MAKEFILE) all $(PASTHRU) |
87 | EOT |
88 | |
89 | |
90 | Refactoring and Cleanup |
91 | |
92 | - MakeMaker is a mess. We like patches which clean things up. |
93 | |
94 | |
95 | Backwards Compatibility |
96 | |
97 | - MakeMaker must be backwards compatible to 5.5.3 (5.005_03). Avoid any |
98 | obvious 5.6-isms (threads, warnings.pm, Unicode, our, v1.2.3, attributes |
99 | open my $fh, lvalue subroutines, any new core modules, etc...). |
100 | |
101 | - MakeMaker should avoid having module dependencies. Avoid using modules |
102 | which didn't come with 5.5.3 and avoid using features from newer |
103 | versions. Sometimes this is unavoidable. |
104 | |
105 | |
106 | Cross-Platform Compatibility |
107 | |
108 | - MakeMaker must work on all architectures Perl works on (see perlport.pod) |
109 | and with many different versions of make. This means all Unixen |
110 | (including Cygwin and MacOS X), Windows (including DOS), MacOS Classic |
111 | and VMS. |
112 | |
113 | - Often when you patch ExtUtils::MM_Unix, similar patches must be done |
114 | to the other MM_* modules. If you can, please do this extra work |
115 | otherwise I have to. If you can't, that's ok. We can help. |
116 | |
117 | - If possible, please test your patch on two Very Different architectures. |
118 | Unix, Windows, MacOS Classic and VMS being Very Different. Note: Cygwin |
119 | and OS X are Unixen for our purposes. |
120 | |
121 | - If nothing else, at least try it on two different Unixen or Windows |
122 | machines (ie. Linux and IRIX or WinNT and Win95). |
123 | |
124 | - HP's TestDrive (www.testdrive.compaq.com) and SourceForge's |
125 | compile farm (www.sourceforge.net) are good sources of testing |
126 | machines of many different architectures and platforms. Accounts are |
127 | free. |
128 | |
129 | - If you find yourself writing "do_this if $^O eq 'That'" (ie. checks on |
130 | the OS type) perhaps your code belongs in one of the non-Unix MM_* |
131 | modules (ie. MM_Win32, MM_VMS, etc...). If one does not exist, consider |
132 | creating one. Its ok to have an MM_* module with only one method. |
133 | |
134 | - Some shells have very small buffers. This means command lines must |
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135 | be as small as possible. If your command is just too long, consider |
136 | making it an ExtUtils::Command::MM function. If your command might |
137 | receive many arguments (such as pod2man or pm_to_blib) consider |
138 | using split_command() to split it into several, shorter calls. |
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139 | |
140 | - Most shells quote differently. If you need to put a perl one-liner |
141 | in the Makefile, please use oneliner() to generate it. |
142 | |
143 | |
144 | Tests |
145 | |
146 | - Tests would be nice, but I'm not going to pretend testing MakeMaker |
147 | is easy. If nothing else, let us know how you tested your patch by |
148 | hand. |
149 | |
150 | |
151 | Documentation |
152 | |
153 | - Documentation would be nice. |
154 | |
155 | - If the new feature/method is private, please document it with POD |
156 | wrapped in "=begin/end private" tags. That way it will be documented, |
157 | but won't be displayed (future versions of perldoc may have options |
158 | to display). |
159 | |
160 | =begin private |
161 | |
162 | =item _foo_bar |
163 | |
164 | $mm->_foo_bar |
165 | |
166 | Blah blah blah |
167 | |
168 | =end private |
169 | |
170 | =cut |
171 | |
172 | sub _foo_bar { |
173 | ... |
174 | |
175 | - If you're overriding a method, document that its an override and |
176 | *why* its being overridden. Don't repeat the original documentation. |