3 # This module doesn't do much of anything itself, it inherits from the
4 # modules that do the real work. The only real thing it has to do is
5 # figure out which OS-specific module to pull in. Many of the
6 # OS-specific modules don't do anything either - most of the work is
7 # done in Module::Build::Base.
12 use File::Basename ();
14 use Module::Build::Base;
16 use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);
17 @ISA = qw(Module::Build::Base);
19 $VERSION = eval $VERSION;
21 # Okay, this is the brute-force method of finding out what kind of
22 # platform we're on. I don't know of a systematic way. These values
23 # came from the latest (bleadperl) perlport.pod.
68 # Inserts the given module into the @ISA hierarchy between
69 # Module::Build and its immediate parent
70 sub _interpose_module {
71 my ($self, $mod) = @_;
77 while (@{"${top_class}::ISA"}) {
78 last if ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0] eq $ISA[0];
79 $top_class = ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0];
82 @{"${top_class}::ISA"} = @ISA;
86 if (grep {-e File::Spec->catfile($_, qw(Module Build Platform), $^O) . '.pm'} @INC) {
87 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$^O");
89 } elsif (exists $OSTYPES{$^O}) {
90 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$OSTYPES{$^O}");
93 warn "Unknown OS type '$^O' - using default settings\n";
96 sub os_type { $OSTYPES{$^O} }
105 Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
110 Standard process for building & installing modules:
117 Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
118 the "./" notation, you can do this:
128 C<Module::Build> is a system for building, testing, and installing
129 Perl modules. It is meant to be an alternative to
130 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. Developers may alter the behavior of the
131 module through subclassing in a much more straightforward way than
132 with C<MakeMaker>. It also does not require a C<make> on your system
133 - most of the C<Module::Build> code is pure-perl and written in a very
134 cross-platform way. In fact, you don't even need a shell, so even
135 platforms like MacOS (traditional) can use it fairly easily. Its only
136 prerequisites are modules that are included with perl 5.6.0, and it
137 works fine on perl 5.005 if you can install a few additional modules.
139 See L<"MOTIVATIONS"> for more comparisons between C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
140 and C<Module::Build>.
142 To install C<Module::Build>, and any other module that uses
143 C<Module::Build> for its installation process, do the following:
145 perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
146 ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
147 ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
150 This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
151 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
152 action), 'test', and 'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
160 distcheck pure_install
170 install versioninstall
173 You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
176 =head1 GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION
178 The documentation for C<Module::Build> is broken up into three sections:
182 =item General Usage (L<Module::Build>)
184 This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
185 usage and background information. Its main purpose is to assist the
186 user who wants to learn how to invoke and control C<Module::Build>
187 scripts at the command line.
189 =item Authoring Reference (L<Module::Build::Authoring>)
191 This document describes the structure and organization of
192 C<Module::Build>, and the relevant concepts needed by authors who are
193 writing F<Build.PL> scripts for a distribution or controlling
194 C<Module::Build> processes programmatically.
196 =item API Reference (L<Module::Build::API>)
198 This is a reference to the C<Module::Build> API.
200 =item Cookbook (L<Module::Build::Cookbook>)
202 This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks. It
203 covers general command line usage and authoring of F<Build.PL>
204 scripts. Includes working examples.
211 There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when
212 building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed
213 above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing,
214 packaging, etc., tasks.
216 Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments
217 are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at C<perl Build.PL>
218 time (i.e. C<perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place>), in which case
219 their values last for the lifetime of the C<Build> script. They may
220 also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e.
221 C<Build test verbose=1>), in which case their values last only for the
222 lifetime of that command. Per-action command line parameters take
223 precedence over parameters specified at C<perl Build.PL> time.
225 The build process also relies heavily on the C<Config.pm> module, and
226 all the key=value pairs in C<Config.pm> are available in
228 C<< $self->{config} >>. If the user wishes to override any of the
229 values in C<Config.pm>, she may specify them like so:
231 perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
233 The following build actions are provided by default.
241 If you run the C<Build> script without any arguments, it runs the
242 C<build> action, which in turn runs the C<code> and C<docs> actions.
244 This is analogous to the MakeMaker 'make all' target.
250 This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
251 created, including the C<blib/> directory (but not including the
252 C<_build/> directory and the C<Build> script itself).
258 This action builds your codebase.
260 By default it just creates a C<blib/> directory and copies any C<.pm>
261 and C<.pod> files from your C<lib/> directory into the C<blib/>
262 directory. It also compiles any C<.xs> files from C<lib/> and places
263 them in C<blib/>. Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably
264 the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation to work
267 The C<code> action also runs any C<.PL> files in your F<lib/>
268 directory. Typically these create other files, named the same but
269 without the C<.PL> ending. For example, a file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL>
270 could create the file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm>. The C<.PL> files are
271 processed first, so any C<.pm> files (or other kinds that we deal
272 with) will get copied correctly.
284 This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
285 installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown
286 (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For
287 other files like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they
290 A C<flags> parameter may be passed to the action, which will be passed
291 to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the
292 parameters it will accept - a good one is C<-u>:
294 ./Build diff flags=-u
300 This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their
301 module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create a
302 tarball of the files listed in F<MANIFEST> and compress the tarball using
305 By default, this action will use the external C<tar> and C<gzip>
306 executables on Unix-like platforms, and the C<Archive::Tar> module
307 elsewhere. However, you can force it to use whatever executable you
308 want by supplying an explicit C<tar> (and optional C<gzip>) parameter:
310 ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
316 Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
317 F<MANIFEST> file, and vice versa. (See L<manifest> for details.)
323 Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
329 Creates a "distribution directory" named C<$dist_name-$dist_version>
330 (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
331 copies all the files listed in the F<MANIFEST> file to that directory.
332 This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
338 Creates the F<META.yml> file that describes the distribution.
340 F<META.yml> is a file containing various bits of "metadata" about the
341 distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name, version,
342 abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data about the
343 distribution. This file is created as F<META.yml> in YAML format.
344 It is recommended that the C<YAML> module be installed to create it.
345 If the C<YAML> module is not installed, an internal module supplied
346 with Module::Build will be used to write the META.yml file, and this
347 will most likely be fine.
349 F<META.yml> file must also be listed in F<MANIFEST> - if it's not, a
350 warning will be issued.
352 The current version of the F<META.yml> specification can be found at
353 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
359 Uses C<Module::Signature> to create a SIGNATURE file for your
360 distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
367 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and
368 runs a C<perl Build.PL>, followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in
375 This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and html
376 documents) for any installable items under B<blib/> that
377 contain POD. If there are no C<bindoc> or C<libdoc> installation
378 targets defined (as will be the case on systems that don't support
379 Unix manpages) no action is taken for manpages. If there are no
380 C<binhtml> or C<libhtml> installation targets defined no action is
381 taken for html documents.
387 This is just like the C<install> action, but it won't actually do
388 anything, it will just report what it I<would> have done if you had
389 actually run the C<install> action.
395 This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you
396 use the build process. It will show you a list of available build
399 With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. C<Build help
400 test>), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation it can
401 find for that action.
407 This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library files
408 under B<blib/> that contain POD. The HTML documentation will only be
409 installed if the install paths can be determined from values in
410 C<Config.pm>. You can also supply or override install paths on the
411 command line by specifying C<install_path> values for the C<binhtml>
412 and/or C<libhtml> installation targets.
418 This action will use C<ExtUtils::Install> to install the files from
419 C<blib/> into the system. See L<"INSTALL PATHS">
420 for details about how Module::Build determines where to install
421 things, and how to influence this process.
423 If you want the installation process to look around in C<@INC> for
424 other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
425 you can use the C<uninst> parameter, which tells C<ExtUtils::Install> to
428 ./Build install uninst=1
430 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
431 module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
438 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
439 installing modules. It will bring the F<MANIFEST> up to date with the
440 files currently present in the distribution. You may use a
441 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file to exclude certain files or directories from
442 inclusion in the F<MANIFEST>. F<MANIFEST.SKIP> should contain a bunch
443 of regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution
444 directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be included
447 The following is a reasonable F<MANIFEST.SKIP> starting point, you can
448 add your own stuff to it:
458 See the L<distcheck> and L<skipcheck> actions if you want to find out
459 what the C<manifest> action would do, without actually doing anything.
465 This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
466 B<blib/> that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if the
467 install paths can be determined from values in C<Config.pm>. You can
468 also supply or override install paths by specifying there values on
469 the command line with the C<bindoc> and C<libdoc> installation
476 Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with L<PAR> or L<PAR::Dist>.
478 It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is
479 installed on your system.
485 Build a PPD file for your distribution.
487 This action takes an optional argument C<codebase> which is used in
488 the generated ppd file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
489 distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name without
490 any path information.
494 ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
500 Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file. This
501 action also invokes the 'ppd' action, so it can accept the same
502 C<codebase> argument described under that action.
504 This uses the same mechanism as the C<dist> action to tar & zip its
505 output, so you can supply C<tar> and/or C<gzip> parameters to affect
512 This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and
513 the versions actually installed. This can be useful for reviewing the
514 configuration of your system prior to a build, or when compiling data to send
521 This action is identical to the C<install> action. In the future,
522 though, if C<install> starts writing to the file file
523 F<$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod>, C<pure_install> won't, and that
524 will be the only difference between them.
530 This action is just like the C<clean> action, but also removes the
531 C<_build> directory and the C<Build> script. If you run the
532 C<realclean> action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
533 have to re-create the C<Build> script again.
539 This is just like the C<test> action, but doesn't actually build the
540 distribution first, and doesn't add F<blib/> to the load path, and
541 therefore will test against a I<previously> installed version of the
542 distribution. This can be used to verify that a certain installed
543 distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
544 distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
550 Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
551 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file (See L<manifest> for details)
557 This will use C<Test::Harness> to run any regression tests and report
558 their results. Tests can be defined in the standard places: a file
559 called C<test.pl> in the top-level directory, or several files ending
560 with C<.t> in a C<t/> directory.
562 If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution
563 rather than just summary information, pass the argument C<verbose=1>.
565 If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
568 In addition, if a file called C<visual.pl> exists in the top-level
569 directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output
570 will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or
571 other tests that don't use the C<Test::Harness> format for output.
573 To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a C<test_files>
574 argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts to
575 run. This is especially useful in development, when you only want to
576 run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain bug yet:
578 ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
580 You may also pass several C<test_files> arguments separately:
582 ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
584 or use a C<glob()>-style pattern:
586 ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
592 [Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are currently
594 L<"http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html"> ]
596 Runs the C<test> action plus each of the C<test$type> actions defined by
597 the keys of the C<test_types> parameter.
599 Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself and
600 enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
602 my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
604 sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
605 sub ACTION_testauthor { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
619 Runs the C<test> action using C<Devel::Cover>, generating a
620 code-coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
621 exercised during the tests.
623 To pass options to C<Devel::Cover>, set the C<$DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS>
624 environment variable:
626 DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
632 This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the C<debugger=1>
639 This checks all the files described in the C<docs> action and
640 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
641 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
643 =item testpodcoverage
647 This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and
648 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
649 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
655 ** Note: since C<only.pm> is so new, and since we just recently added
656 support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
659 If you have the C<only.pm> module installed on your system, you can
660 use this action to install a module into the version-specific library
661 trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same
662 module installed and C<use> a specific one like this:
664 use only MyModule => 0.55;
666 To override the default installation libraries in C<only::config>,
667 specify the C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
669 perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
671 To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
672 C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
674 perl Build.PL --version 0.50
676 See the C<only.pm> documentation for more information on
677 version-specific installs.
684 =head2 Command Line Options
686 The following options can be used during any invocation of C<Build.PL>
687 or the Build script, during any action. For information on other
688 options specific to an action, see the documentation for the
691 NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
692 familiar long option style. Most options can be preceded with the
693 C<--> long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes
694 (e.g. --use-rcfile). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
695 optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
696 'no' or 'no-' (e.g. --noverbose or --no-verbose).
702 Suppress informative messages on output.
706 Load the F<~/.modulebuildrc> option file. This option can be set to
707 false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
711 Display extra information about the Build on output.
713 =item allow_mb_mismatch
715 Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of Module::Build
716 we're now running under is the same version that was initially invoked
717 when building the distribution (i.e. when the C<Build.PL> script was
718 first run). Use with caution.
723 =head2 Default Options File (F<.modulebuildrc>)
727 When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
728 F<$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc>. If it's not found there, it will look
729 in the the F<.modulebuildrc> file in the directories referred to by
730 the environment variables C<HOMEDRIVE> + C<HOMEDIR>, C<USERPROFILE>,
731 C<APPDATA>, C<WINDIR>, C<SYS$LOGIN>. If the file exists, the options
732 specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
733 command line. The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
736 The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
737 amount of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same
738 as they would be on the command line. They can be separated by any
739 amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace at
740 the beginning of each continued line. Anything following a hash mark (C<#>)
741 is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing. If more than
742 one line begins with the same action name, those lines are merged into
745 Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
746 key C<*> (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied
747 to all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
748 when you invoke C<perl Build.PL>.
750 * verbose=1 # global options
752 install --install_base /home/ken
753 --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
755 If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
756 can set the environment variable 'MODULEBUILDRC' to the complete
757 absolute path of the file containing your options.
764 When you invoke Module::Build's C<build> action, it needs to figure
765 out where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works
766 is that default installation locations are determined from
767 F<Config.pm>, and they may be overridden by using the C<install_path>
768 parameter. An C<install_base> parameter lets you specify an
769 alternative installation root like F</home/foo>, and a C<destdir> lets
770 you specify a temporary installation directory like F</tmp/install> in
771 case you want to create bundled-up installable packages.
773 Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for
774 the following types of installable items:
780 Usually pure-Perl module files ending in F<.pm>.
784 "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by compiling
785 XS, Inline, or similar code.
789 Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse, try to make
790 these as small as possible - put the code into modules whenever
795 "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code or
796 something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but it
801 Documentation for the stuff in C<script> and C<bin>. Usually
802 generated from the POD in those files. Under Unix, these are manual
803 pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
807 Documentation for the stuff in C<lib> and C<arch>. This is usually
808 generated from the POD in F<.pm> files. Under Unix, these are manual
809 pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
813 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
817 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
821 Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
822 installation paths are determined:
828 The default destinations for these installable things come from
829 entries in your system's C<Config.pm>. You can select from three
830 different sets of default locations by setting the C<installdirs>
831 parameter as follows:
833 'installdirs' set to:
836 uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
838 lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
839 arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
840 script => installscript installsitebin installvendorbin
841 bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
842 bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
843 libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
844 binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
845 libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
847 * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for html documents is
848 determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
850 The default value of C<installdirs> is "site". If you're creating
851 vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do something
854 perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
858 ./Build install --installdirs vendor
860 If you're installing an updated version of a module that was included
861 with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
862 C<installdirs> to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
865 (Note that the 'script' line is different from MakeMaker -
866 unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
867 "installvendorscript" entry in C<Config.pm>, so we use the
868 "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
869 general location right. In the future, if C<Config.pm> adds some more
870 appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
874 Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
876 On the command line, that would look like this:
878 perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
882 ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
886 You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying the
887 C<install_base> parameter to point to a directory on your system. For
888 instance, if you set C<install_base> to "/home/ken" on a Linux
889 system, you'll install as follows:
891 lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
892 arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
893 script => /home/ken/bin
895 bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
896 libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
897 binhtml => /home/ken/html
898 libhtml => /home/ken/html
900 Note that this is I<different> from how MakeMaker's C<PREFIX>
901 parameter works. C<install_base> just gives you a default layout under the
902 directory you specify, which may have little to do with the
903 C<installdirs=site> layout.
905 The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system -
906 we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
910 If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
911 (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a package
912 manager like C<rpm> or C<dpkg> could create a package from), you can
913 use the C<destdir> parameter:
915 perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
919 ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
921 This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
922 "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
923 C<File::Spec> to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
924 platform you're installing on.
928 Provided for compatibility with ExtUtils::MakeMaker's PREFIX argument.
929 C<prefix> should be used when you wish Module::Build to install your
930 modules, documentation and scripts in the same place
931 ExtUtils::MakeMaker does.
933 The following are equivalent.
935 perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
936 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
938 Because of the very complex nature of the prefixification logic, the
939 behavior of PREFIX in MakeMaker has changed subtly over time.
940 Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic found
941 in ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.30.
943 If you do not need to retain compatibility with ExtUtils::MakeMaker or
944 are starting a fresh Perl installation we recommand you use
945 C<install_base> instead (and C<INSTALL_BASE> in ExtUtils::MakeMaker).
946 See L<Module::Build::Cookbook/Instaling in the same location as
947 ExtUtils::MakeMaker> for further information.
955 There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix
956 what I didn't like about MakeMaker:
962 I don't like the core idea of MakeMaker, namely that C<make> should be
963 involved in the build process. Here are my reasons:
969 When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume about
970 their environment? Can you assume they have C<make>? No, but you can
971 assume they have some version of Perl.
975 When a person is writing a Perl module for intended distribution, can
976 you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so they can
977 customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know Perl,
978 and could customize that way.
982 For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
983 build/install process to do what they want.
987 There are several architectural decisions in MakeMaker that make it
988 very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when using
989 MakeMaker you do C<use ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, but the object created in
990 C<WriteMakefile()> is actually blessed into a package name that's
991 created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
992 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. There is a workaround C<MY> package that lets
993 you override certain MakeMaker methods, but only certain explicitly
994 preselected (by MakeMaker) methods can be overridden. Also, the method
995 of customization is very crude: you have to modify a string containing
996 the Makefile text for the particular target. Since these strings
997 aren't documented, and I<can't> be documented (they take on different
998 values depending on the platform, version of perl, version of
999 MakeMaker, etc.), you have no guarantee that your modifications will
1000 work on someone else's machine or after an upgrade of MakeMaker or
1005 It is risky to make major changes to MakeMaker, since it does so many
1006 things, is so important, and generally works. C<Module::Build> is an
1007 entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I want, without
1008 worrying about backward compatibility.
1012 Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
1013 Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of building
1014 and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of stupid
1015 little C<.pm> files that just need to be copied from one place to
1016 another? My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish
1017 this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or die trying.
1024 The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
1025 derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
1026 requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
1027 NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5
1028 signature or the like, if available. See C<cons> for an example.
1030 - append to perllocal.pod
1031 - add a 'plugin' functionality
1036 Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
1038 Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
1039 Module-Build mailing list at <module-build@perl.org>.
1041 Bug reports are also welcome at
1042 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
1044 The latest development version is available from the Subversion
1045 repository at <https://svn.perl.org/modules/Module-Build/trunk/>
1050 Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
1052 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
1053 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
1058 perl(1), L<Module::Build::Cookbook>, L<Module::Build::Authoring>,
1059 L<Module::Build::API>, L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, L<YAML>
1061 F<META.yml> Specification:
1062 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
1064 L<http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>
1066 L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>