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 $VERSION;
21 # Okay, this is the brute-force method of finding out what kind of
22 # platform we're on. I don't know of a systematic way. These values
23 # came from the latest (bleadperl) perlport.pod.
75 # Inserts the given module into the @ISA hierarchy between
76 # Module::Build and its immediate parent
77 sub _interpose_module {
78 my ($self, $mod) = @_;
84 while (@{"${top_class}::ISA"}) {
85 last if ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0] eq $ISA[0];
86 $top_class = ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0];
89 @{"${top_class}::ISA"} = @ISA;
93 if (grep {-e File::Spec->catfile($_, qw(Module Build Platform), $^O) . '.pm'} @INC) {
94 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$^O");
96 } elsif (exists $OSTYPES{$^O}) {
97 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$OSTYPES{$^O}");
100 warn "Unknown OS type '$^O' - using default settings\n";
103 sub os_type { $OSTYPES{$^O} }
105 sub is_vmsish { return ((os_type() || '') eq 'VMS') }
106 sub is_windowsish { return ((os_type() || '') eq 'Windows') }
107 sub is_unixish { return ((os_type() || '') eq 'Unix') }
116 Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
121 Standard process for building & installing modules:
128 Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
129 the "./" notation, you can do this:
139 C<Module::Build> is a system for building, testing, and installing
140 Perl modules. It is meant to be an alternative to
141 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. Developers may alter the behavior of the
142 module through subclassing in a much more straightforward way than
143 with C<MakeMaker>. It also does not require a C<make> on your system
144 - most of the C<Module::Build> code is pure-perl and written in a very
145 cross-platform way. In fact, you don't even need a shell, so even
146 platforms like MacOS (traditional) can use it fairly easily. Its only
147 prerequisites are modules that are included with perl 5.6.0, and it
148 works fine on perl 5.005 if you can install a few additional modules.
150 See L<"MOTIVATIONS"> for more comparisons between C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
151 and C<Module::Build>.
153 To install C<Module::Build>, and any other module that uses
154 C<Module::Build> for its installation process, do the following:
156 perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
157 ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
158 ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
161 This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
162 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
163 action), 'test', and 'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
171 distcheck pure_install
181 install versioninstall
185 You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
188 =head1 GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION
190 The documentation for C<Module::Build> is broken up into three sections:
194 =item General Usage (L<Module::Build>)
196 This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
197 usage and background information. Its main purpose is to assist the
198 user who wants to learn how to invoke and control C<Module::Build>
199 scripts at the command line.
201 =item Authoring Reference (L<Module::Build::Authoring>)
203 This document describes the structure and organization of
204 C<Module::Build>, and the relevant concepts needed by authors who are
205 writing F<Build.PL> scripts for a distribution or controlling
206 C<Module::Build> processes programmatically.
208 =item API Reference (L<Module::Build::API>)
210 This is a reference to the C<Module::Build> API.
212 =item Cookbook (L<Module::Build::Cookbook>)
214 This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks. It
215 covers general command line usage and authoring of F<Build.PL>
216 scripts. Includes working examples.
223 There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when
224 building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed
225 above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing,
226 packaging, etc., tasks.
228 Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments
229 are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at C<perl Build.PL>
230 time (i.e. C<perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place>), in which case
231 their values last for the lifetime of the C<Build> script. They may
232 also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e.
233 C<Build test verbose=1>), in which case their values last only for the
234 lifetime of that command. Per-action command line parameters take
235 precedence over parameters specified at C<perl Build.PL> time.
237 The build process also relies heavily on the C<Config.pm> module.
238 If the user wishes to override any of the
239 values in C<Config.pm>, she may specify them like so:
241 perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
243 The following build actions are provided by default.
251 If you run the C<Build> script without any arguments, it runs the
252 C<build> action, which in turn runs the C<code> and C<docs> actions.
254 This is analogous to the MakeMaker 'make all' target.
260 This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
261 created, including the C<blib/> directory (but not including the
262 C<_build/> directory and the C<Build> script itself).
268 This action builds your codebase.
270 By default it just creates a C<blib/> directory and copies any C<.pm>
271 and C<.pod> files from your C<lib/> directory into the C<blib/>
272 directory. It also compiles any C<.xs> files from C<lib/> and places
273 them in C<blib/>. Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably
274 the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation to work
277 The C<code> action also runs any C<.PL> files in your F<lib/>
278 directory. Typically these create other files, named the same but
279 without the C<.PL> ending. For example, a file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL>
280 could create the file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm>. The C<.PL> files are
281 processed first, so any C<.pm> files (or other kinds that we deal
282 with) will get copied correctly.
294 This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
295 installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown
296 (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For
297 other files like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they
300 A C<flags> parameter may be passed to the action, which will be passed
301 to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the
302 parameters it will accept - a good one is C<-u>:
304 ./Build diff flags=-u
310 This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their
311 module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create a
312 tarball of the files listed in F<MANIFEST> and compress the tarball using
315 By default, this action will use the external C<tar> and C<gzip>
316 executables on Unix-like platforms, and the C<Archive::Tar> module
317 elsewhere. However, you can force it to use whatever executable you
318 want by supplying an explicit C<tar> (and optional C<gzip>) parameter:
320 ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
326 Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
327 F<MANIFEST> file, and vice versa. (See L<manifest> for details.)
333 Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
339 Creates a "distribution directory" named C<$dist_name-$dist_version>
340 (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
341 copies all the files listed in the F<MANIFEST> file to that directory.
342 This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
348 Creates the F<META.yml> file that describes the distribution.
350 F<META.yml> is a file containing various bits of "metadata" about the
351 distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name, version,
352 abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data about the
353 distribution. This file is created as F<META.yml> in YAML format.
354 It is recommended that the C<YAML> module be installed to create it.
355 If the C<YAML> module is not installed, an internal module supplied
356 with Module::Build will be used to write the META.yml file, and this
357 will most likely be fine.
359 F<META.yml> file must also be listed in F<MANIFEST> - if it's not, a
360 warning will be issued.
362 The current version of the F<META.yml> specification can be found at
363 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
369 Uses C<Module::Signature> to create a SIGNATURE file for your
370 distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
377 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and
378 runs a C<perl Build.PL>, followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in
385 This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and html
386 documents) for any installable items under B<blib/> that
387 contain POD. If there are no C<bindoc> or C<libdoc> installation
388 targets defined (as will be the case on systems that don't support
389 Unix manpages) no action is taken for manpages. If there are no
390 C<binhtml> or C<libhtml> installation targets defined no action is
391 taken for html documents.
397 This is just like the C<install> action, but it won't actually do
398 anything, it will just report what it I<would> have done if you had
399 actually run the C<install> action.
405 This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you
406 use the build process. It will show you a list of available build
409 With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. C<Build help
410 test>), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation it can
411 find for that action.
417 This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library files
418 under B<blib/> that contain POD. The HTML documentation will only be
419 installed if the install paths can be determined from values in
420 C<Config.pm>. You can also supply or override install paths on the
421 command line by specifying C<install_path> values for the C<binhtml>
422 and/or C<libhtml> installation targets.
428 This action will use C<ExtUtils::Install> to install the files from
429 C<blib/> into the system. See L<"INSTALL PATHS">
430 for details about how Module::Build determines where to install
431 things, and how to influence this process.
433 If you want the installation process to look around in C<@INC> for
434 other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
435 you can use the C<uninst> parameter, which tells C<ExtUtils::Install> to
438 ./Build install uninst=1
440 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
441 module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
448 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
449 installing modules. It will bring the F<MANIFEST> up to date with the
450 files currently present in the distribution. You may use a
451 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file to exclude certain files or directories from
452 inclusion in the F<MANIFEST>. F<MANIFEST.SKIP> should contain a bunch
453 of regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution
454 directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be included
457 The following is a reasonable F<MANIFEST.SKIP> starting point, you can
458 add your own stuff to it:
468 See the L<distcheck> and L<skipcheck> actions if you want to find out
469 what the C<manifest> action would do, without actually doing anything.
475 This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
476 B<blib/> that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if the
477 install paths can be determined from values in C<Config.pm>. You can
478 also supply or override install paths by specifying there values on
479 the command line with the C<bindoc> and C<libdoc> installation
486 Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with L<PAR> or L<PAR::Dist>.
488 It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is
489 installed on your system.
495 Build a PPD file for your distribution.
497 This action takes an optional argument C<codebase> which is used in
498 the generated ppd file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
499 distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name without
500 any path information.
504 ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
510 Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file. This
511 action also invokes the 'ppd' action, so it can accept the same
512 C<codebase> argument described under that action.
514 This uses the same mechanism as the C<dist> action to tar & zip its
515 output, so you can supply C<tar> and/or C<gzip> parameters to affect
522 This action prints out a Perl data structure of all prerequsites and the versions
523 required. The output can be loaded again using C<eval()>. This can be useful for
524 external tools that wish to query a Build script for prerequisites.
530 This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and
531 the versions actually installed. This can be useful for reviewing the
532 configuration of your system prior to a build, or when compiling data to send
539 This action is identical to the C<install> action. In the future,
540 though, when C<install> starts writing to the file
541 F<$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod>, C<pure_install> won't, and that
542 will be the only difference between them.
548 This action is just like the C<clean> action, but also removes the
549 C<_build> directory and the C<Build> script. If you run the
550 C<realclean> action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
551 have to re-create the C<Build> script again.
557 This is just like the C<test> action, but doesn't actually build the
558 distribution first, and doesn't add F<blib/> to the load path, and
559 therefore will test against a I<previously> installed version of the
560 distribution. This can be used to verify that a certain installed
561 distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
562 distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
568 Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
569 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file (See L<manifest> for details)
575 This will use C<Test::Harness> or C<TAP::Harness> to run any regression
576 tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in the standard
577 places: a file called C<test.pl> in the top-level directory, or several
578 files ending with C<.t> in a C<t/> directory.
580 If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution
581 rather than just summary information, pass the argument C<verbose=1>.
583 If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
586 If you want to have Module::Build find test files with different file
587 name extensions, pass the C<test_file_exts> argument with an array
588 of extensions, such as C<[qw( .t .s .z )]>.
590 If you want test to be run by C<TAP::Harness>, rather than C<Test::Harness>,
591 pass the argument C<tap_harness_args> as an array reference of arguments to
592 pass to the TAP::Harness constructor.
594 In addition, if a file called C<visual.pl> exists in the top-level
595 directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output
596 will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or
597 other tests that don't use the C<Test::Harness> format for output.
599 To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a C<test_files>
600 argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts to
601 run. This is especially useful in development, when you only want to
602 run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain bug yet:
604 ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
606 You may also pass several C<test_files> arguments separately:
608 ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
610 or use a C<glob()>-style pattern:
612 ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
618 [Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are currently
620 L<"http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html"> ]
622 Runs the C<test> action plus each of the C<test$type> actions defined by
623 the keys of the C<test_types> parameter.
625 Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself and
626 enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
628 my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
630 sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
631 sub ACTION_testauthor { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
637 author => ['.at', '.pt' ],
645 Runs the C<test> action using C<Devel::Cover>, generating a
646 code-coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
647 exercised during the tests.
649 To pass options to C<Devel::Cover>, set the C<$DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS>
650 environment variable:
652 DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
658 This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the C<debugger=1>
665 This checks all the files described in the C<docs> action and
666 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
667 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
669 =item testpodcoverage
673 This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and
674 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
675 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
681 ** Note: since C<only.pm> is so new, and since we just recently added
682 support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
685 If you have the C<only.pm> module installed on your system, you can
686 use this action to install a module into the version-specific library
687 trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same
688 module installed and C<use> a specific one like this:
690 use only MyModule => 0.55;
692 To override the default installation libraries in C<only::config>,
693 specify the C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
695 perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
697 To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
698 C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
700 perl Build.PL --version 0.50
702 See the C<only.pm> documentation for more information on
703 version-specific installs.
710 =head2 Command Line Options
712 The following options can be used during any invocation of C<Build.PL>
713 or the Build script, during any action. For information on other
714 options specific to an action, see the documentation for the
717 NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
718 familiar long option style. Most options can be preceded with the
719 C<--> long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes
720 (e.g. --use-rcfile). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
721 optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
722 'no' or 'no-' (e.g. --noverbose or --no-verbose).
728 Suppress informative messages on output.
732 Load the F<~/.modulebuildrc> option file. This option can be set to
733 false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
737 Display extra information about the Build on output.
739 =item allow_mb_mismatch
741 Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of Module::Build
742 we're now running under is the same version that was initially invoked
743 when building the distribution (i.e. when the C<Build.PL> script was
744 first run). Use with caution.
749 =head2 Default Options File (F<.modulebuildrc>)
753 When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
754 F<$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc>. If it's not found there, it will look
755 in the the F<.modulebuildrc> file in the directories referred to by
756 the environment variables C<HOMEDRIVE> + C<HOMEDIR>, C<USERPROFILE>,
757 C<APPDATA>, C<WINDIR>, C<SYS$LOGIN>. If the file exists, the options
758 specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
759 command line. The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
762 The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
763 amount of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same
764 as they would be on the command line. They can be separated by any
765 amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace at
766 the beginning of each continued line. Anything following a hash mark (C<#>)
767 is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing. If more than
768 one line begins with the same action name, those lines are merged into
771 Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
772 key C<*> (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied
773 to all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
774 when you invoke C<perl Build.PL>.
776 * verbose=1 # global options
778 install --install_base /home/ken
779 --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
781 If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
782 can set the environment variable 'MODULEBUILDRC' to the complete
783 absolute path of the file containing your options.
790 When you invoke Module::Build's C<build> action, it needs to figure
791 out where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works
792 is that default installation locations are determined from
793 F<Config.pm>, and they may be overridden by using the C<install_path>
794 parameter. An C<install_base> parameter lets you specify an
795 alternative installation root like F</home/foo>, and a C<destdir> lets
796 you specify a temporary installation directory like F</tmp/install> in
797 case you want to create bundled-up installable packages.
799 Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for
800 the following types of installable items:
806 Usually pure-Perl module files ending in F<.pm>.
810 "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by compiling
811 XS, Inline, or similar code.
815 Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse, try to make
816 these as small as possible - put the code into modules whenever
821 "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code or
822 something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but it
827 Documentation for the stuff in C<script> and C<bin>. Usually
828 generated from the POD in those files. Under Unix, these are manual
829 pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
833 Documentation for the stuff in C<lib> and C<arch>. This is usually
834 generated from the POD in F<.pm> files. Under Unix, these are manual
835 pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
839 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
843 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
847 Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
848 installation paths are determined:
854 The default destinations for these installable things come from
855 entries in your system's C<Config.pm>. You can select from three
856 different sets of default locations by setting the C<installdirs>
857 parameter as follows:
859 'installdirs' set to:
862 uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
864 lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
865 arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
866 script => installscript installsitebin installvendorbin
867 bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
868 bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
869 libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
870 binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
871 libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
873 * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for html documents is
874 determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
876 The default value of C<installdirs> is "site". If you're creating
877 vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do something
880 perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
884 ./Build install --installdirs vendor
886 If you're installing an updated version of a module that was included
887 with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
888 C<installdirs> to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
891 (Note that the 'script' line is different from MakeMaker -
892 unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
893 "installvendorscript" entry in C<Config.pm>, so we use the
894 "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
895 general location right. In the future, if C<Config.pm> adds some more
896 appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
900 Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
902 On the command line, that would look like this:
904 perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
908 ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
912 You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying the
913 C<install_base> parameter to point to a directory on your system. For
914 instance, if you set C<install_base> to "/home/ken" on a Linux
915 system, you'll install as follows:
917 lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
918 arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
919 script => /home/ken/bin
921 bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
922 libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
923 binhtml => /home/ken/html
924 libhtml => /home/ken/html
926 Note that this is I<different> from how MakeMaker's C<PREFIX>
927 parameter works. C<install_base> just gives you a default layout under the
928 directory you specify, which may have little to do with the
929 C<installdirs=site> layout.
931 The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system -
932 we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
936 If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
937 (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a package
938 manager like C<rpm> or C<dpkg> could create a package from), you can
939 use the C<destdir> parameter:
941 perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
945 ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
947 This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
948 "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
949 C<File::Spec> to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
950 platform you're installing on.
954 Provided for compatibility with ExtUtils::MakeMaker's PREFIX argument.
955 C<prefix> should be used when you wish Module::Build to install your
956 modules, documentation and scripts in the same place
957 ExtUtils::MakeMaker does.
959 The following are equivalent.
961 perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
962 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
964 Because of the very complex nature of the prefixification logic, the
965 behavior of PREFIX in MakeMaker has changed subtly over time.
966 Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic found
967 in ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.30.
969 If you do not need to retain compatibility with ExtUtils::MakeMaker or
970 are starting a fresh Perl installation we recommand you use
971 C<install_base> instead (and C<INSTALL_BASE> in ExtUtils::MakeMaker).
972 See L<Module::Build::Cookbook/Instaling in the same location as
973 ExtUtils::MakeMaker> for further information.
981 There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix
982 what I didn't like about MakeMaker:
988 I don't like the core idea of MakeMaker, namely that C<make> should be
989 involved in the build process. Here are my reasons:
995 When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume about
996 their environment? Can you assume they have C<make>? No, but you can
997 assume they have some version of Perl.
1001 When a person is writing a Perl module for intended distribution, can
1002 you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so they can
1003 customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know Perl,
1004 and could customize that way.
1008 For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
1009 build/install process to do what they want.
1013 There are several architectural decisions in MakeMaker that make it
1014 very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when using
1015 MakeMaker you do C<use ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, but the object created in
1016 C<WriteMakefile()> is actually blessed into a package name that's
1017 created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
1018 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. There is a workaround C<MY> package that lets
1019 you override certain MakeMaker methods, but only certain explicitly
1020 preselected (by MakeMaker) methods can be overridden. Also, the method
1021 of customization is very crude: you have to modify a string containing
1022 the Makefile text for the particular target. Since these strings
1023 aren't documented, and I<can't> be documented (they take on different
1024 values depending on the platform, version of perl, version of
1025 MakeMaker, etc.), you have no guarantee that your modifications will
1026 work on someone else's machine or after an upgrade of MakeMaker or
1031 It is risky to make major changes to MakeMaker, since it does so many
1032 things, is so important, and generally works. C<Module::Build> is an
1033 entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I want, without
1034 worrying about backward compatibility.
1038 Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
1039 Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of building
1040 and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of stupid
1041 little C<.pm> files that just need to be copied from one place to
1042 another? My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish
1043 this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or die trying.
1050 The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
1051 derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
1052 requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
1053 NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5
1054 signature or the like, if available. See C<cons> for an example.
1056 - append to perllocal.pod
1057 - add a 'plugin' functionality
1062 Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
1064 Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
1065 Module-Build mailing list at <module-build@perl.org>.
1067 Bug reports are also welcome at
1068 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
1070 The latest development version is available from the Subversion
1071 repository at <https://svn.perl.org/modules/Module-Build/trunk/>
1076 Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
1078 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
1079 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
1084 perl(1), L<Module::Build::Cookbook>, L<Module::Build::Authoring>,
1085 L<Module::Build::API>, L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, L<YAML>
1087 F<META.yml> Specification:
1088 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
1090 L<http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>
1092 L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>