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 $VERSION;
21 # Okay, this is the brute-force method of finding out what kind of
22 # platform we're on. I don't know of a systematic way. These values
23 # came from the latest (bleadperl) perlport.pod.
66 # Inserts the given module into the @ISA hierarchy between
67 # Module::Build and its immediate parent
68 sub _interpose_module {
69 my ($self, $mod) = @_;
75 while (@{"${top_class}::ISA"}) {
76 last if ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0] eq $ISA[0];
77 $top_class = ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0];
80 @{"${top_class}::ISA"} = @ISA;
84 if (grep {-e File::Spec->catfile($_, qw(Module Build Platform), $^O) . '.pm'} @INC) {
85 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$^O");
87 } elsif (exists $OSTYPES{$^O}) {
88 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$OSTYPES{$^O}");
91 warn "Unknown OS type '$^O' - using default settings\n";
94 sub os_type { $OSTYPES{$^O} }
103 Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
108 Standard process for building & installing modules:
115 Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
116 the "./" notation, you can do this:
126 C<Module::Build> is a system for building, testing, and installing
127 Perl modules. It is meant to be an alternative to
128 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. Developers may alter the behavior of the
129 module through subclassing in a much more straightforward way than
130 with C<MakeMaker>. It also does not require a C<make> on your system
131 - most of the C<Module::Build> code is pure-perl and written in a very
132 cross-platform way. In fact, you don't even need a shell, so even
133 platforms like MacOS (traditional) can use it fairly easily. Its only
134 prerequisites are modules that are included with perl 5.6.0, and it
135 works fine on perl 5.005 if you can install a few additional modules.
137 See L<"MOTIVATIONS"> for more comparisons between C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
138 and C<Module::Build>.
140 To install C<Module::Build>, and any other module that uses
141 C<Module::Build> for its installation process, do the following:
143 perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
144 ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
145 ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
148 This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
149 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
150 action), 'test', and 'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
158 distcheck pure_install
165 fakeinstall testpodcoverage
170 You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
173 =head1 GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION
175 The documentation for C<Module::Build> is broken up into three sections:
179 =item General Usage (L<Module::Build>)
181 This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
182 usage and background information. Its main purpose is to assist the
183 user who wants to learn how to invoke and control C<Module::Build>
184 scripts at the command line.
186 =item Authoring Reference (L<Module::Build::Authoring>)
188 This document describes the C<Module::Build> API for authors who are
189 writing F<Build.PL> scripts for a distribution or controlling
190 C<Module::Build> processes programmatically. It describes the
191 methods available as well as providing general information on
192 subclassing C<Module::Build> to alter and extend its behavior. Also,
193 there is a section on controlling the Build process from other
194 scripts, including how to construct an object and how to invoke
195 actions through it from an external script.
197 =item Cookbook (L<Module::Build::Cookbook>)
199 This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks. It
200 covers general command line usage and authoring of F<Build.PL>
201 scripts. Includes working examples.
208 There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when
209 building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed
210 above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing,
211 packaging, etc., tasks.
213 Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments
214 are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at C<perl Build.PL>
215 time (i.e. C<perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place>), in which case
216 their values last for the lifetime of the C<Build> script. They may
217 also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e.
218 C<Build test verbose=1>), in which case their values last only for the
219 lifetime of that command. Per-action command line parameters take
220 precedence over parameters specified at C<perl Build.PL> time.
222 The build process also relies heavily on the C<Config.pm> module, and
223 all the key=value pairs in C<Config.pm> are available in
225 C<< $self->{config} >>. If the user wishes to override any of the
226 values in C<Config.pm>, she may specify them like so:
228 perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
230 The following build actions are provided by default.
238 If you run the C<Build> script without any arguments, it runs the
239 C<build> action, which in turn runs the C<code> and C<docs> actions.
241 This is analogous to the MakeMaker 'make all' target.
247 This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
248 created, including the C<blib/> directory (but not including the
249 C<_build/> directory and the C<Build> script itself).
255 This action builds your codebase.
257 By default it just creates a C<blib/> directory and copies any C<.pm>
258 and C<.pod> files from your C<lib/> directory into the C<blib/>
259 directory. It also compiles any C<.xs> files from C<lib/> and places
260 them in C<blib/>. Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably
261 the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation to work
264 The C<code> action also runs any C<.PL> files in your F<lib/>
265 directory. Typically these create other files, named the same but
266 without the C<.PL> ending. For example, a file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL>
267 could create the file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm>. The C<.PL> files are
268 processed first, so any C<.pm> files (or other kinds that we deal
269 with) will get copied correctly.
281 This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
282 installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown
283 (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For
284 other files like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they
287 A C<flags> parameter may be passed to the action, which will be passed
288 to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the
289 parameters it will accept - a good one is C<-u>:
291 ./Build diff flags=-u
297 This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their
298 module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create a
299 tarball of the files listed in F<MANIFEST> and compress the tarball using
302 By default, this action will use the external C<tar> and C<gzip>
303 executables on Unix-like platforms, and the C<Archive::Tar> module
304 elsewhere. However, you can force it to use whatever executable you
305 want by supplying an explicit C<tar> (and optional C<gzip>) parameter:
307 ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
313 Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
314 F<MANIFEST> file, and vice versa. (See L<manifest> for details.)
320 Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
326 Creates a "distribution directory" named C<$dist_name-$dist_version>
327 (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
328 copies all the files listed in the F<MANIFEST> file to that directory.
329 This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
335 Creates the F<META.yml> file that describes the distribution.
337 F<META.yml> is a file containing various bits of "metadata" about the
338 distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name, version,
339 abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data about the
340 distribution. This file is created as F<META.yml> in YAML format.
341 It is recommended that the C<YAML> module be installed to create it.
342 If the C<YAML> module is not installed, an internal module supplied
343 with Module::Build will be used to write the META.yml file, and this
344 will most likely be fine.
346 F<META.yml> file must also be listed in F<MANIFEST> - if it's not, a
347 warning will be issued.
349 The current version of the F<META.yml> specification can be found at
350 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-v1.2.html>
356 Uses C<Module::Signature> to create a SIGNATURE file for your
357 distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
364 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and
365 runs a C<perl Build.PL>, followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in
372 This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and html
373 documents) for any installable items under B<blib/> that
374 contain POD. If there are no C<bindoc> or C<libdoc> installation
375 targets defined (as will be the case on systems that don't support
376 Unix manpages) no action is taken for manpages. If there are no
377 C<binhtml> or C<libhtml> installation targets defined no action is
378 taken for html documents.
384 This is just like the C<install> action, but it won't actually do
385 anything, it will just report what it I<would> have done if you had
386 actually run the C<install> action.
392 This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you
393 use the build process. It will show you a list of available build
396 With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. C<Build help
397 test>), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation it can
398 find for that action.
404 This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library files
405 under B<blib/> that contain POD. The HTML documentation will only be
406 installed if the install paths can be determined from values in
407 C<Config.pm>. You can also supply or override install paths on the
408 command line by specifying C<install_path> values for the C<binhtml>
409 and/or C<libhtml> installation targets.
415 This action will use C<ExtUtils::Install> to install the files from
416 C<blib/> into the system. See L<INSTALL PATHS>
417 for details about how Module::Build determines where to install
418 things, and how to influence this process.
420 If you want the installation process to look around in C<@INC> for
421 other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
422 you can use the C<uninst> parameter, which tells C<ExtUtils::Install> to
425 ./Build install uninst=1
427 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
428 module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
435 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
436 installing modules. It will bring the F<MANIFEST> up to date with the
437 files currently present in the distribution. You may use a
438 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file to exclude certain files or directories from
439 inclusion in the F<MANIFEST>. F<MANIFEST.SKIP> should contain a bunch
440 of regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution
441 directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be included
444 The following is a reasonable F<MANIFEST.SKIP> starting point, you can
445 add your own stuff to it:
455 See the L<distcheck> and L<skipcheck> actions if you want to find out
456 what the C<manifest> action would do, without actually doing anything.
462 This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
463 B<blib/> that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if the
464 install paths can be determined from values in C<Config.pm>. You can
465 also supply or override install paths by specifying there values on
466 the command line with the C<bindoc> and C<libdoc> installation
473 Build a PPD file for your distribution.
475 This action takes an optional argument C<codebase> which is used in
476 the generated ppd file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
477 distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name without
478 any path information.
482 ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
488 Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file. This
489 action also invokes the 'ppd' action, so it can accept the same
490 C<codebase> argument described under that action.
492 This uses the same mechanism as the C<dist> action to tar & zip its
493 output, so you can supply C<tar> and/or C<gzip> parameters to affect
500 This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and
501 the versions actually installed. This can be useful for reviewing the
502 configuration of your system prior to a build, or when compiling data to send
509 This action is identical to the C<install> action. In the future,
510 though, if C<install> starts writing to the file file
511 F<$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod>, C<pure_install> won't, and that
512 will be the only difference between them.
518 This action is just like the C<clean> action, but also removes the
519 C<_build> directory and the C<Build> script. If you run the
520 C<realclean> action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
521 have to re-create the C<Build> script again.
527 Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
528 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file (See L<manifest> for details)
534 This will use C<Test::Harness> to run any regression tests and report
535 their results. Tests can be defined in the standard places: a file
536 called C<test.pl> in the top-level directory, or several files ending
537 with C<.t> in a C<t/> directory.
539 If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution
540 rather than just summary information, pass the argument C<verbose=1>.
542 If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
545 In addition, if a file called C<visual.pl> exists in the top-level
546 directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output
547 will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or
548 other tests that don't use the C<Test::Harness> format for output.
550 To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a C<test_files>
551 argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts to
552 run. This is especially useful in development, when you only want to
553 run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain bug yet:
555 ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
557 You may also pass several C<test_files> arguments separately:
559 ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
561 or use a C<glob()>-style pattern:
563 ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
569 Runs the C<test> action using C<Devel::Cover>, generating a
570 code-coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
571 exercised during the tests.
573 To pass options to C<Devel::Cover>, set the C<$DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS>
574 environment variable:
576 DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
582 This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the C<debugger=1>
589 This checks all the files described in the C<docs> action and
590 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
591 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
593 =item testpodcoverage
597 This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and
598 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
599 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
605 ** Note: since C<only.pm> is so new, and since we just recently added
606 support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
609 If you have the C<only.pm> module installed on your system, you can
610 use this action to install a module into the version-specific library
611 trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same
612 module installed and C<use> a specific one like this:
614 use only MyModule => 0.55;
616 To override the default installation libraries in C<only::config>,
617 specify the C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
619 perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
621 To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
622 C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
624 perl Build.PL --version 0.50
626 See the C<only.pm> documentation for more information on
627 version-specific installs.
634 =head2 Command Line Options
636 The following options can be used during any invocation of C<Build.PL>
637 or the Build script, during any action. For information on other
638 options specific to an action, see the documentation for the
641 NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
642 familiar long option style. Most options can be preceded with the
643 C<--> long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes
644 (e.g. --use-rcfile). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
645 optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
646 'no' or 'no-' (e.g. --noverbose or --no-verbose).
652 Suppress informative messages on output.
656 Load the F<~/.modulebuildrc> option file. This option can be set to
657 false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
661 Display extra information about the Build on output.
666 =head2 Default Options File (F<.modulebuildrc>)
670 When Module::Build starts up, it will look for a file,
671 F<$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc>. If the file exists, the options
672 specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
673 command line. The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
676 The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
677 amount of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same
678 as they would be on the command line. They can be separated by any
679 amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace at
680 the beginning of each continued line. Anything following a hash mark (C<#>)
681 is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing. If more than
682 one line begins with the same action name, those lines are merged into
685 Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
686 key C<*> (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied
687 to all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
688 when you invoke C<perl Build.PL>.
690 * verbose=1 # global options
692 install --install_base /home/ken
693 --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
695 If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
696 can set the environment variable 'MODULEBUILDRC' to the complete
697 absolute path of the file containing your options.
704 When you invoke Module::Build's C<build> action, it needs to figure
705 out where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works
706 is that default installation locations are determined from
707 F<Config.pm>, and they may be overridden by using the C<install_path>
708 parameter. An C<install_base> parameter lets you specify an
709 alternative installation root like F</home/foo>, and a C<destdir> lets
710 you specify a temporary installation directory like F</tmp/install> in
711 case you want to create bundled-up installable packages.
713 Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for
714 the following types of installable items:
720 Usually pure-Perl module files ending in F<.pm>.
724 "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by compiling
725 XS, Inline, or similar code.
729 Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse, try to make
730 these as small as possible - put the code into modules whenever
735 "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code or
736 something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but it
741 Documentation for the stuff in C<script> and C<bin>. Usually
742 generated from the POD in those files. Under Unix, these are manual
743 pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
747 Documentation for the stuff in C<lib> and C<arch>. This is usually
748 generated from the POD in F<.pm> files. Under Unix, these are manual
749 pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
753 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
757 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to html documents.
761 Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
762 installation paths are determined:
768 The default destinations for these installable things come from
769 entries in your system's C<Config.pm>. You can select from three
770 different sets of default locations by setting the C<installdirs>
771 parameter as follows:
773 'installdirs' set to:
776 uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
778 lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
779 arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
780 script => installscript installsitebin installvendorbin
781 bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
782 bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
783 libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
784 binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
785 libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
787 * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for html documents is
788 determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
790 The default value of C<installdirs> is "site". If you're creating
791 vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do something
794 perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
798 ./Build install --installdirs vendor
800 If you're installing an updated version of a module that was included
801 with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
802 C<installdirs> to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
805 (Note that the 'script' line is different from MakeMaker -
806 unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
807 "installvendorscript" entry in C<Config.pm>, so we use the
808 "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
809 general location right. In the future, if C<Config.pm> adds some more
810 appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
814 Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
816 On the command line, that would look like this:
818 perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
822 ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
826 You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying the
827 C<install_base> parameter to point to a directory on your system. For
828 instance, if you set C<install_base> to "/home/ken" on a Linux
829 system, you'll install as follows:
831 lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
832 arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
833 script => /home/ken/bin
835 bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
836 libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
837 binhtml => /home/ken/html
838 libhtml => /home/ken/html
840 Note that this is I<different> from how MakeMaker's C<PREFIX>
841 parameter works. See L</"Why PREFIX is not recommended"> for more
842 details. C<install_base> just gives you a default layout under the
843 directory you specify, which may have little to do with the
844 C<installdirs=site> layout.
846 The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system -
847 we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
851 If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
852 (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a package
853 manager like C<rpm> or C<dpkg> could create a package from), you can
854 use the C<destdir> parameter:
856 perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
860 ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
862 This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
863 "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
864 C<File::Spec> to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
865 platform you're installing on.
869 =head2 About PREFIX Support
873 First, it is necessary to understand the original idea behind
874 C<PREFIX>. If, for example, the default installation locations for
875 your machine are F</usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.5> for modules,
876 F</usr/local/bin> for executables, F</usr/local/man/man1> and
877 F</usr/local/man/man3> for manual pages, etc., then they all share the
878 same "prefix" F</usr/local>. MakeMaker's C<PREFIX> mechanism was
879 intended as a way to change an existing prefix that happened to occur
880 in all those paths - essentially a C<< s{/usr/local}{/foo/bar} >> for
883 However, the real world is more complicated than that. The C<PREFIX>
884 idea is fundamentally broken when your machine doesn't jibe with
885 C<PREFIX>'s worldview.
890 =item Why PREFIX is not recommended
896 Many systems have Perl configs that make little sense with PREFIX.
897 For example, OS X, where core modules go in
898 F</System/Library/Perl/...>, user-installed modules go in
899 F</Library/Perl/...>, and man pages go in F</usr/share/man/...>. The
900 PREFIX is thus set to F</>. Install L<Foo::Bar> on OS X with
901 C<PREFIX=/home/spurkis> and you get things like
902 F</home/spurkis/Library/Perl/5.8.1/Foo/Bar.pm> and
903 F</home/spurkis/usr/share/man/man3/Foo::Bar.3pm>. Not too pretty.
905 The problem is not limited to Unix-like platforms, either - on Windows
906 builds (e.g. ActiveState perl 5.8.0), we have user-installed modules
907 going in F<C:\Perl\site\lib>, user-installed executables going in
908 F<C:\Perl\bin>, and PREFIX=F<C:\Perl\site>. The prefix just doesn't
909 apply neatly to the executables.
913 The PREFIX logic is too complicated and hard to predict for the user.
914 It's hard to document what exactly is going to happen. You can't give
915 a user simple instructions like "run perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~ and
916 then set PERL5LIB=~/lib/perl5".
920 The results from PREFIX will change if your configuration of Perl
921 changes (for example, if you upgrade Perl). This means your modules
922 will end up in different places.
926 The results from PREFIX can change with different releases of
927 MakeMaker. The logic of PREFIX is subtle and it has been altered in
928 the past (mostly to limit damage in the many "edge cases" when its
929 behavior was undesirable).
933 PREFIX imposes decisions made by the person who configured Perl onto
934 the person installing a module. The person who configured Perl could
935 have been you or it could have been some guy at Redhat.
940 =item Alternatives to PREFIX
942 Module::Build offers L</install_base> as a simple, predictable, and
943 user-configurable alternative to ExtUtils::MakeMaker's C<PREFIX>.
944 What's more, MakeMaker will soon accept C<INSTALL_BASE> -- we strongly
945 urge you to make the switch.
947 Here's a quick comparison of the two when installing modules to your
948 home directory on a unix box:
952 % perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/spurkis
953 PERL5LIB=/home/spurkis/lib/perl5/5.8.5:/home/spurkis/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5
954 PATH=/home/spurkis/bin
955 MANPATH=/home/spurkis/man
959 % perl Build.PL install_base=/home/spurkis
960 PERL5LIB=/home/spurkis/lib/perl5
961 PATH=/home/spurkis/bin
962 MANPATH=/home/spurkis/man
964 [*] Note that MakeMaker's behaviour cannot be guaranteed in even this
965 common scenario, and differs among different versions of MakeMaker.
967 In short, using C<install_base> is similar to the following MakeMaker usage:
969 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/spurkis LIB=/home/spurkis/lib/perl5
971 See L</INSTALL PATHS> for details on other
972 installation options available and how to configure them.
979 There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix
980 what I didn't like about MakeMaker:
986 I don't like the core idea of MakeMaker, namely that C<make> should be
987 involved in the build process. Here are my reasons:
993 When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume about
994 their environment? Can you assume they have C<make>? No, but you can
995 assume they have some version of Perl.
999 When a person is writing a Perl module for intended distribution, can
1000 you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so they can
1001 customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know Perl,
1002 and could customize that way.
1006 For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
1007 build/install process to do what they want.
1011 There are several architectural decisions in MakeMaker that make it
1012 very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when using
1013 MakeMaker you do C<use ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, but the object created in
1014 C<WriteMakefile()> is actually blessed into a package name that's
1015 created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
1016 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. There is a workaround C<MY> package that lets
1017 you override certain MakeMaker methods, but only certain explicitly
1018 preselected (by MakeMaker) methods can be overridden. Also, the method
1019 of customization is very crude: you have to modify a string containing
1020 the Makefile text for the particular target. Since these strings
1021 aren't documented, and I<can't> be documented (they take on different
1022 values depending on the platform, version of perl, version of
1023 MakeMaker, etc.), you have no guarantee that your modifications will
1024 work on someone else's machine or after an upgrade of MakeMaker or
1029 It is risky to make major changes to MakeMaker, since it does so many
1030 things, is so important, and generally works. C<Module::Build> is an
1031 entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I want, without
1032 worrying about backward compatibility.
1036 Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
1037 Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of building
1038 and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of stupid
1039 little C<.pm> files that just need to be copied from one place to
1040 another? My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish
1041 this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or die trying.
1048 The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
1049 derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
1050 requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
1051 NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5
1052 signature or the like, if available. See C<cons> for an example.
1054 - append to perllocal.pod
1055 - add a 'plugin' functionality
1060 Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
1062 Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
1063 Module-Build mailing list at <module-build-general@lists.sourceforge.net>.
1065 Bug reports are also welcome at
1066 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
1068 An anonymous CVS repository containing the latest development version
1069 is available; see <http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=45731> for the
1070 details of how to access it.
1075 Copyright (c) 2001-2005 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
1077 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
1078 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
1083 perl(1), Module::Build::Cookbook(3), Module::Build::Authoring(3),
1084 ExtUtils::MakeMaker(3), YAML(3)
1086 F<META.yml> Specification:
1087 L<http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-v1.2.html>
1089 L<http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>