1Module::Build(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Module::Build(3pm)
2
6 Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
7
9 Standard process for building & installing modules:
10 perl Build.PL
12 ./Build
13 ./Build test
14 ./Build install
15 Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
17 the "./" notation, you can do this:
18 perl Build.PL
20 Build
21 Build test
22 Build install
23
25 "Module::Build" is a system for building, testing, and installing Perl
26 modules. It is meant to be an alternative to "ExtUtils::MakeMaker".
27 Developers may alter the behavior of the module through subclassing in
28 a much more straightforward way than with "MakeMaker". It also does
29 not require a "make" on your system - most of the "Module::Build" code
30 is pure-perl and written in a very cross-platform way. In fact, you
31 don't even need a shell, so even platforms like MacOS (traditional) can
32 use it fairly easily. Its only prerequisites are modules that are
33 included with perl 5.6.0, and it works fine on perl 5.005 if you can
34 install a few additional modules.
35 See "MOTIVATIONS" for more comparisons between "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"
37 and "Module::Build".
38 To install "Module::Build", and any other module that uses
40 "Module::Build" for its installation process, do the following:
41 perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
43 ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
44 ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
45 ./Build install
46 This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
48 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
49 action), 'test', and 'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
50 <action_list>
52 You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
54
56 The documentation for "Module::Build" is broken up into three sections:
57 General Usage (Module::Build)
59 This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
60 usage and background information. Its main purpose is to assist
61 the user who wants to learn how to invoke and control
62 "Module::Build" scripts at the command line.
63 Authoring Reference (Module::Build::Authoring)
65 This document describes the structure and organization of
66 "Module::Build", and the relevant concepts needed by authors who
67 are writing Build.PL scripts for a distribution or controlling
68 "Module::Build" processes programmatically.
69 API Reference (Module::Build::API)
71 This is a reference to the "Module::Build" API.
72 Cookbook (Module::Build::Cookbook)
74 This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks. It
75 covers general command line usage and authoring of Build.PL
76 scripts. Includes working examples.
77
79 There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when
80 building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed
81 above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing, packaging,
82 etc., tasks.
83 Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments
85 are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at "perl Build.PL"
86 time (i.e. "perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place"), in which case
87 their values last for the lifetime of the "Build" script. They may
88 also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e. "Build test
89 verbose=1"), in which case their values last only for the lifetime of
90 that command. Per-action command line parameters take precedence over
91 parameters specified at "perl Build.PL" time.
92 The build process also relies heavily on the "Config.pm" module. If
94 the user wishes to override any of the values in "Config.pm", she may
95 specify them like so:
96 perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
98 The following build actions are provided by default.
100 build
102 [version 0.01]
103 If you run the "Build" script without any arguments, it runs the
105 "build" action, which in turn runs the "code" and "docs" actions.
106 This is analogous to the "MakeMaker" make all target.
108 clean
110 [version 0.01]
111 This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
113 created, including the "blib/" directory (but not including the
114 "_build/" directory and the "Build" script itself).
115 code
117 [version 0.20]
118 This action builds your code base.
120 By default it just creates a "blib/" directory and copies any ".pm"
122 and ".pod" files from your "lib/" directory into the "blib/"
123 directory. It also compiles any ".xs" files from "lib/" and places
124 them in "blib/". Of course, you need a working C compiler
125 (probably the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation
126 to work properly.
127 The "code" action also runs any ".PL" files in your lib/ directory.
129 Typically these create other files, named the same but without the
130 ".PL" ending. For example, a file lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL could create
131 the file lib/Foo/Bar.pm. The ".PL" files are processed first, so
132 any ".pm" files (or other kinds that we deal with) will get copied
133 correctly.
134 config_data
136 [version 0.26]
137 ...
139 diff
141 [version 0.14]
142 This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
144 installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be
145 shown (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your
146 PATH). For other files like compiled binary files, we simply
147 report whether they differ.
148 A "flags" parameter may be passed to the action, which will be
150 passed to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation
151 for the parameters it will accept - a good one is "-u":
152 ./Build diff flags=-u
154 dist
156 [version 0.02]
157 This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up
159 their module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN.
160 It will create a tarball of the files listed in MANIFEST and
161 compress the tarball using GZIP compression.
162 By default, this action will use the "Archive::Tar" module.
164 However, you can force it to use binary "tar" and "gzip"
165 executables by supplying an explicit "tar" (and optional "gzip")
166 parameter:
167 ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
169 distcheck
171 [version 0.05]
172 Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
174 MANIFEST file, and vice versa. (See manifest for details.)
175 distclean
177 [version 0.05]
178 Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
180 distdir
182 [version 0.05]
183 Creates a "distribution directory" named "$dist_name-$dist_version"
185 (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
186 copies all the files listed in the MANIFEST file to that directory.
187 This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
188 distmeta
190 [version 0.21]
191 Creates the META.yml file that describes the distribution.
193 META.yml is a file containing various bits of metadata about the
195 distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name,
196 version, abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data
197 about the distribution. This file is created as META.yml in YAML
198 format. It is recommended that the "YAML::Tiny" module be
199 installed to create it. If the "YAML::Tiny" module is not
200 installed, an internal module supplied with Module::Build will be
201 used to write the META.yml file, and this will most likely be fine.
202 META.yml file must also be listed in MANIFEST - if it's not, a
204 warning will be issued.
205 The current version of the META.yml specification can be found at
207 http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html
208 <http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
209 distsign
211 [version 0.16]
212 Uses "Module::Signature" to create a SIGNATURE file for your
214 distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
215 MANIFEST.
216 disttest
218 [version 0.05]
219 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory
221 and runs a "perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'test'
222 actions in that directory.
223 docs
225 [version 0.20]
226 This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and HTML
228 documents) for any installable items under blib/ that contain POD.
229 If there are no "bindoc" or "libdoc" installation targets defined
230 (as will be the case on systems that don't support Unix manpages)
231 no action is taken for manpages. If there are no "binhtml" or
232 "libhtml" installation targets defined no action is taken for HTML
233 documents.
234 fakeinstall
236 [version 0.02]
237 This is just like the "install" action, but it won't actually do
239 anything, it will just report what it would have done if you had
240 actually run the "install" action.
241 help
243 [version 0.03]
244 This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help
246 you use the build process. It will show you a list of available
247 build actions too.
248 With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. "Build
250 help test"), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation
251 it can find for that action.
252 html
254 [version 0.26]
255 This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library
257 files under blib/ that contain POD. The HTML documentation will
258 only be installed if the install paths can be determined from
259 values in "Config.pm". You can also supply or override install
260 paths on the command line by specifying "install_path" values for
261 the "binhtml" and/or "libhtml" installation targets.
262 install
264 [version 0.01]
265 This action will use "ExtUtils::Install" to install the files from
267 "blib/" into the system. See "INSTALL PATHS" for details about how
268 Module::Build determines where to install things, and how to
269 influence this process.
270 If you want the installation process to look around in @INC for
272 other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
273 you can use the "uninst" parameter, which tells "ExtUtils::Install"
274 to do so:
275 ./Build install uninst=1
277 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
279 module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
280 situation indeed.
281 installdeps
283 [version 0.36]
284 This action will use the "cpan_client" parameter as a command to
286 install missing prerequisites. You will be prompted whether to
287 install optional dependencies.
288 The "cpan_client" option defaults to 'cpan' but can be set as an
290 option or in .modulebuildrc. It must be a shell command that takes
291 a list of modules to install as arguments (e.g. 'cpanp -i' for
292 CPANPLUS). If the program part is a relative path (e.g. 'cpan' or
293 'cpanp'), it will be located relative to the perl program that
294 executed Build.PL.
295 /opt/perl/5.8.9/bin/perl Build.PL
297 ./Build installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
298 # installs to 5.8.9
299 manifest
301 [version 0.05]
302 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
304 installing modules. It will bring the MANIFEST up to date with the
305 files currently present in the distribution. You may use a
306 MANIFEST.SKIP file to exclude certain files or directories from
307 inclusion in the MANIFEST. MANIFEST.SKIP should contain a bunch of
308 regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution
309 directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be
310 included in the MANIFEST.
311 The following is a reasonable MANIFEST.SKIP starting point, you can
313 add your own stuff to it:
314 ^_build
316 ^Build$
317 ^blib
318 ~$
319 \.bak$
320 ^MANIFEST\.SKIP$
321 CVS
322 See the distcheck and skipcheck actions if you want to find out
324 what the "manifest" action would do, without actually doing
325 anything.
326 manpages
328 [version 0.28]
329 This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
331 blib/ that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if
332 the install paths can be determined from values in "Config.pm".
333 You can also supply or override install paths by specifying there
334 values on the command line with the "bindoc" and "libdoc"
335 installation targets.
336 pardist
338 [version 0.2806]
339 Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with PAR or PAR::Dist.
341 It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is
343 installed on your system.
344 ppd [version 0.20]
346 Build a PPD file for your distribution.
348 This action takes an optional argument "codebase" which is used in
350 the generated PPD file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
351 distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name
352 without any path information.
353 Example:
355 ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
357 ppmdist
359 [version 0.23]
360 Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file.
362 This action also invokes the "ppd" action, so it can accept the
363 same "codebase" argument described under that action.
364 This uses the same mechanism as the "dist" action to tar & zip its
366 output, so you can supply "tar" and/or "gzip" parameters to affect
367 the result.
368 prereq_data
370 [version 0.32]
371 This action prints out a Perl data structure of all prerequisites
373 and the versions required. The output can be loaded again using
374 "eval()". This can be useful for external tools that wish to query
375 a Build script for prerequisites.
376 prereq_report
378 [version 0.28]
379 This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions
381 required, and the versions actually installed. This can be useful
382 for reviewing the configuration of your system prior to a build, or
383 when compiling data to send for a bug report.
384 pure_install
386 [version 0.28]
387 This action is identical to the "install" action. In the future,
389 though, when "install" starts writing to the file
390 $(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod, "pure_install" won't, and that
391 will be the only difference between them.
392 realclean
394 [version 0.01]
395 This action is just like the "clean" action, but also removes the
397 "_build" directory and the "Build" script. If you run the
398 "realclean" action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
399 have to re-create the "Build" script again.
400 retest
402 [version 0.2806]
403 This is just like the "test" action, but doesn't actually build the
405 distribution first, and doesn't add blib/ to the load path, and
406 therefore will test against a previously installed version of the
407 distribution. This can be used to verify that a certain installed
408 distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
409 distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
410 skipcheck
412 [version 0.05]
413 Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
415 MANIFEST.SKIP file (See manifest for details)
416 test
418 [version 0.01]
419 This will use "Test::Harness" or "TAP::Harness" to run any
421 regression tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in
422 the standard places: a file called "test.pl" in the top-level
423 directory, or several files ending with ".t" in a "t/" directory.
424 If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test
426 execution rather than just summary information, pass the argument
427 "verbose=1".
428 If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
430 "debugger=1".
431 If you want to have Module::Build find test files with different
433 file name extensions, pass the "test_file_exts" argument with an
434 array of extensions, such as "[qw( .t .s .z )]".
435 If you want test to be run by "TAP::Harness", rather than
437 "Test::Harness", pass the argument "tap_harness_args" as an array
438 reference of arguments to pass to the TAP::Harness constructor.
439 In addition, if a file called "visual.pl" exists in the top-level
441 directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its
442 output will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put
443 speed tests or other tests that don't use the "Test::Harness"
444 format for output.
445 To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a "test_files"
447 argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts
448 to run. This is especially useful in development, when you only
449 want to run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain
450 bug yet:
451 ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
453 You may also pass several "test_files" arguments separately:
455 ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
457 or use a "glob()"-style pattern:
459 ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
461 testall
463 [version 0.2807]
464 [Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are
466 currently in alpha stage, see
467 "/www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html""
468 in "http: ]
469 Runs the "test" action plus each of the "test$type" actions defined
471 by the keys of the "test_types" parameter.
472 Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself
474 and enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
475 my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
477 code => q(
478 sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
479 sub ACTION_testauthor { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
480 )
481 )->new(
482 ...
483 test_types => {
484 special => '.st',
485 author => ['.at', '.pt' ],
486 },
487 ...
488 testcover
490 [version 0.26]
491 Runs the "test" action using "Devel::Cover", generating a code-
493 coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
494 exercised during the tests.
495 To pass options to "Devel::Cover", set the $DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS
497 environment variable:
498 DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
500 testdb
502 [version 0.05]
503 This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the "debugger=1"
505 argument.
506 testpod
508 [version 0.25]
509 This checks all the files described in the "docs" action and
511 produces "Test::Harness"-style output. If you are a module author,
512 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
513 testpodcoverage
515 [version 0.28]
516 This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and produces
518 "Test::Harness"-style output. If you are a module author, this is
519 useful to run before creating a new release.
520 versioninstall
522 [version 0.16]
523 ** Note: since "only.pm" is so new, and since we just recently
525 added support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
526 experimental. **
527 If you have the "only.pm" module installed on your system, you can
529 use this action to install a module into the version-specific
530 library trees. This means that you can have several versions of
531 the same module installed and "use" a specific one like this:
532 use only MyModule => 0.55;
534 To override the default installation libraries in "only::config",
536 specify the "versionlib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL"
537 script:
538 perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
540 To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
542 "versionlib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL" script:
543 perl Build.PL --version 0.50
545 See the "only.pm" documentation for more information on version-
547 specific installs.
548
550 Command Line Options
551 The following options can be used during any invocation of "Build.PL"
552 or the Build script, during any action. For information on other
553 options specific to an action, see the documentation for the respective
554 action.
555 NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
557 familiar long option style. Most options can be preceded with the "--"
558 long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes (e.g.
559 "--use-rcfile"). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
560 optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
561 "no" or "no-" (e.g. "--noverbose" or "--no-verbose").
562 quiet
564 Suppress informative messages on output.
565 verbose
567 Display extra information about the Build on output.
568 cpan_client
570 Sets the "cpan_client" command for use with the "installdeps"
571 action. See "installdeps" for more details.
572 use_rcfile
574 Load the ~/.modulebuildrc option file. This option can be set to
575 false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
576 allow_mb_mismatch
578 Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of Module::Build
579 we're now running under is the same version that was initially
580 invoked when building the distribution (i.e. when the "Build.PL"
581 script was first run). As of 0.3601, a mismatch results in a
582 warning instead of a fatal error, so this option effectively just
583 suppresses the warning.
584 debug
586 Prints Module::Build debugging information to STDOUT, such as a
587 trace of executed build actions.
588 Default Options File (.modulebuildrc)
590 [version 0.28]
591 When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
593 $ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc. If it's not found there, it will look in
594 the the .modulebuildrc file in the directories referred to by the
595 environment variables "HOMEDRIVE" + "HOMEDIR", "USERPROFILE",
596 "APPDATA", "WINDIR", "SYS$LOGIN". If the file exists, the options
597 specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
598 command line. The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
599 on the command line.
600 The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
602 amount of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same
603 as they would be on the command line. They can be separated by any
604 amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace
605 at the beginning of each continued line. Anything following a hash
606 mark ("#") is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing. If
607 more than one line begins with the same action name, those lines are
608 merged into one set of options.
609 Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
611 key "*" (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied to
612 all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
613 when you invoke "perl Build.PL".
614 * verbose=1 # global options
616 diff flags=-u
617 install --install_base /home/ken
618 --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
619 installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
620 If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
622 can set the environment variable "MODULEBUILDRC" to the complete
623 absolute path of the file containing your options.
624 Environment variables
626 MODULEBUILDRC
627 [version 0.28]
628 Specifies an alternate location for a default options file as
630 described above.
631 PERL_MB_OPT
633 [version 0.36]
634 Command line options that are applied to Build.PL or any Build
636 action. The string is split as the shell would (e.g. whitespace)
637 and the result is prepended to any actual command-line arguments.
638
640 [version 0.19]
641 When you invoke Module::Build's "build" action, it needs to figure out
643 where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works is
644 that default installation locations are determined from Config.pm, and
645 they may be overridden by using the "install_path" parameter. An
646 "install_base" parameter lets you specify an alternative installation
647 root like /home/foo, and a "destdir" lets you specify a temporary
648 installation directory like /tmp/install in case you want to create
649 bundled-up installable packages.
650 Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for the
652 following types of installable items:
653 lib Usually pure-Perl module files ending in .pm.
655 arch
657 "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by
658 compiling XS, Inline, or similar code.
659 script
661 Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse, try to
662 make these as small as possible - put the code into modules
663 whenever possible.
664 bin "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code
666 or something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but
667 it happens.
668 bindoc
670 Documentation for the stuff in "script" and "bin". Usually
671 generated from the POD in those files. Under Unix, these are
672 manual pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
673 libdoc
675 Documentation for the stuff in "lib" and "arch". This is usually
676 generated from the POD in .pm files. Under Unix, these are manual
677 pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
678 binhtml
680 This is the same as "bindoc" above, but applies to HTML documents.
681 libhtml
683 This is the same as "bindoc" above, but applies to HTML documents.
684 Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
686 installation paths are determined:
687 installdirs
689 The default destinations for these installable things come from
690 entries in your system's "Config.pm". You can select from three
691 different sets of default locations by setting the "installdirs"
692 parameter as follows:
693 'installdirs' set to:
695 core site vendor
696 uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
698 lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
700 arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
701 script => installscript installsitebin installvendorbin
702 bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
703 bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
704 libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
705 binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
706 libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
707 * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for HTML documents is
709 determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
710 The default value of "installdirs" is "site". If you're creating
712 vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do
713 something like this:
714 perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
716 or
718 ./Build install --installdirs vendor
720 If you're installing an updated version of a module that was
722 included with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
723 "installdirs" to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
724 location.
725 (Note that the 'script' line is different from "MakeMaker" -
727 unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
728 "installvendorscript" entry in "Config.pm", so we use the
729 "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
730 general location right. In the future, if "Config.pm" adds some
731 more appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
732 install_path
734 Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
735 On the command line, that would look like this:
737 perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
739 or this:
741 ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
743 install_base
745 You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying
746 the "install_base" parameter to point to a directory on your
747 system. For instance, if you set "install_base" to "/home/ken" on
748 a Linux system, you'll install as follows:
749 lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
751 arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
752 script => /home/ken/bin
753 bin => /home/ken/bin
754 bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
755 libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
756 binhtml => /home/ken/html
757 libhtml => /home/ken/html
758 Note that this is different from how "MakeMaker"'s "PREFIX"
760 parameter works. "install_base" just gives you a default layout
761 under the directory you specify, which may have little to do with
762 the "installdirs=site" layout.
763 The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system
765 - we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
766 destdir
768 If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
769 (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a
770 package manager like "rpm" or "dpkg" could create a package from),
771 you can use the "destdir" parameter:
772 perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
774 or
776 ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
778 This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
780 "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
781 "File::Spec" to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
782 platform you're installing on.
783 prefix
785 Provided for compatibility with "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"'s PREFIX
786 argument. "prefix" should be used when you wish Module::Build to
787 install your modules, documentation and scripts in the same place
788 "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" does.
789 The following are equivalent.
791 perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
793 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
794 Because of the very complex nature of the prefixification logic,
796 the behavior of PREFIX in "MakeMaker" has changed subtly over time.
797 Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic
798 found in "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" 6.30.
799 If you do not need to retain compatibility with
801 "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" or are starting a fresh Perl installation we
802 recommend you use "install_base" instead (and "INSTALL_BASE" in
803 "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"). See "Instaling in the same location as
804 ExtUtils::MakeMaker" in Module::Build::Cookbook for further
805 information.
806
808 There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix what
809 I didn't like about "MakeMaker":
810 · I don't like the core idea of "MakeMaker", namely that "make"
812 should be involved in the build process. Here are my reasons:
813 + When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume
815 about their environment? Can you assume they have "make"? No,
816 but you can assume they have some version of Perl.
817 + When a person is writing a Perl module for intended
819 distribution, can you assume that they know how to build a
820 Makefile, so they can customize their build process? No, but
821 you can assume they know Perl, and could customize that way.
822 For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
824 build/install process to do what they want.
825 · There are several architectural decisions in "MakeMaker" that make
827 it very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when
828 using "MakeMaker" you do "use ExtUtils::MakeMaker", but the object
829 created in "WriteMakefile()" is actually blessed into a package
830 name that's created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
831 "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". There is a workaround "MY" package that
832 lets you override certain "MakeMaker" methods, but only certain
833 explicitly preselected (by "MakeMaker") methods can be overridden.
834 Also, the method of customization is very crude: you have to modify
835 a string containing the Makefile text for the particular target.
836 Since these strings aren't documented, and can't be documented
837 (they take on different values depending on the platform, version
838 of perl, version of "MakeMaker", etc.), you have no guarantee that
839 your modifications will work on someone else's machine or after an
840 upgrade of "MakeMaker" or perl.
841 · It is risky to make major changes to "MakeMaker", since it does so
843 many things, is so important, and generally works. "Module::Build"
844 is an entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I
845 want, without worrying about backward compatibility.
846 · Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
848 Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of
849 building and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch
850 of stupid little ".pm" files that just need to be copied from one
851 place to another? My sense was that we could design a system to
852 accomplish this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or
853 die trying.
854
856 The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
857 derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
858 requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
859 NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5
860 signature or the like, if available. See "cons" for an example.
861 - append to perllocal.pod
863 - add a 'plugin' functionality
864
866 Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
867 Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
869 Module-Build mailing list at <module-build@perl.org>.
870 Bug reports are also welcome at
872 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
873 The latest development version is available from the Subversion
875 repository at <https://svn.perl.org/modules/Module-Build/trunk/>
876
878 Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
879 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
881 under the same terms as Perl itself.
882
884 perl(1), Module::Build::Cookbook, Module::Build::Authoring,
885 Module::Build::API, ExtUtils::MakeMaker, YAML::Tiny
886 META.yml Specification:
888 http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html
889 <http://module-build.sourceforge.net/META-spec-current.html>
890 <http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>
892 <http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>
894perl v5.12.4 2011-06-07 Module::Build(3pm)