1Inline-FAQ(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Inline-FAQ(3)
2
6 Inline-FAQ - The Inline FAQ
7
9 Welcome to the official Inline FAQ. In this case, FAQ means:
10 Formerly Answered Questions
12 This is a collection of old, long-winded emails that myself and others
14 have sent to the Inline mailing list. (inline@perl.org) They have been
15 reviewed and edited for general Inline edification. Some of them may be
16 related to a specific language. They are presented here in a
17 traditional FAQ layout.
18
20 Since there is only a handful of content so far, all FAQs are currently
21 under this heading.
22 How disposable is a .Inline or _Inline directory?
24 I probably need to be more emphatic about the roll of _Inline/ cache
25 directories. Since they are created automatically, they are completely
26 disposable. I delete them all the time. And it is fine to have a
27 different one for each project. In fact as long as you don't have
28 ~/.Inline/ defined, Inline will create a new ./_Inline directory. You
29 can move that to ./.Inline and it will continue to work if you want to
30 give it more longevity and hide it from view. There is a long
31 complicated list of rules about how [_.]Inline/ directories are
32 used/created. But it was designed to give you the most
33 flexibility/ease-of-use. Never be afraid to nuke 'em. They'll just pop
34 right back next time. :)
35 Whatever happened to the SITE_INSTALL option?
37 SITE_INSTALL is gone. I was going to leave it in and change the
38 semantics, but thought it better to remove it, so people wouldn't try
39 to use it the old way. There is now _INSTALL_ (but you're not supposed
40 to know that :). It works magically through the use of
41 Inline::MakeMaker. I explained this earlier but it's worth going
42 through again because it's the biggest change for 0.40. Here's how to
43 'permanently' install an Inline extension (Inline based module) with
44 0.40:
45 1) Create a module with Inline.
47 2) Test it using the normal/local _Inline/ cache.
48 3) Create a Makefile.PL (like the one produced by h2xs)
49 4) Change 'use ExtUtils::MakeMaker' to 'use Inline::MakeMaker'
50 5) Change your 'use Inline C => DATA' to 'use Inline C => DATA => NAME
51 => Foo => VERSION => 1.23'
52 6) Make sure NAME matches your package name ('Foo'), or begins with
53 'Foo::'.
54 7) Make sure VERSION matches $Foo::VERSION. This must be a string (not a
55 number) matching /^\d\.\d\d$/
56 8) Do the perl/make/test/install dance (thanks binkley :)
57 With Inline 0.41 (or thereabouts) you can skip steps 3 & 4, and just
59 say 'perl -MInline=INSTALL ./Foo.pm'. This will work for non-Inline
60 modules too. It will become the defacto standard (since there is no
61 easy standard) way of installing a Perl module. It will allow
62 Makefile.PL parameters 'perl -MInline=INSTALL ./Foo.pm -
63 PREFIX=/home/ingy/perl' and things like that. It will also make use of
64 a MANIFEST if you provide one.
65 How do I create a binary distribution using Inline?
67 I've figured out how to create and install a PPM binary distribution;
68 with or without distributing the C code! And I've decided to share it
69 with all of you :)
70 NOTE: Future versions of Inline will make this process a one line
72 command. But for now just use this simple recipe.
73 ---
75 The Inline 0.40 distribution comes with a sample extension module
77 called Math::Simple. Theoretically you could distribute this module on
78 CPAN. It has all the necessary support for installation. You can find
79 it in Inline-0.40/modules/Math/Simple/. Here are the steps for
80 converting this into a binary distribution *without* C source code.
81 NOTE: The recipient of this binary distribution will need to have the
83 PPM.pm module installed. This module requires a lot of other CPAN
84 modules. ActivePerl (available for Win32, Linux, and Solaris) has all
85 of these bundled. While ActivePerl isn't required, it makes things (a
86 lot) easier.
87 1) cd Inline-0.40/Math/Simple/
89 2) Divide Simple.pm into two files:
91 ---8<--- (Simple.pm)
93 package Math::Simple;
94 use strict;
95 require Exporter;
96 @Math::Simple::ISA = qw(Exporter);
97 @Math::Simple::EXPORT = qw(add subtract);
98 $Math::Simple::VERSION = '1.23';
99 use Inline (C => 'src/Simple.c' =>
101 NAME => 'Math::Simple',
102 VERSION => '1.23',
103 );
104 1;
105 ---8<---
106 ---8<--- (src/Simple.c)
107 int add (int x, int y) {
108 return x + y;
109 }
110 int subtract (int x, int y) {
112 return x - y;
113 }
114 ---8<---
115 So now you have the Perl in one file and the C in the other. The C code
117 must be in a subdirectory.
118 3) Note that I also changed the term 'DATA' to the name of the C file.
120 This will work just as if the C were still inline.
121 4) Run 'perl Makefile.PL'
123 5) Run 'make test'
125 6) Get the MD5 key from 'blib/arch/auto/Math/Simple/Simple.inl'
127 7) Edit 'blib/lib/Math/Simple.pm'. Change 'src/Simple.c' to
129 '02c61710cab5b659efc343a9a830aa73' (the MD5 key)
130 8) Run 'make ppd'
132 9) Edit 'Math-Simple.ppd'. Fill in AUTHOR and ABSTRACT if you wish.
134 Then change:
135 <CODEBASE HREF="" />
137 to
139 <CODEBASE HREF="Math-Simple.tar.gz" />
141 10) Run:
143 tar cvf Math-Simple.tar blib
145 gzip --best Math-Simple.tar
146 11) Run:
148 tar cvf Math-Simple-1.23.tar Math-Simple.ppd Math-Simple.tar.gz
150 gzip --best Math-Simple-1.23.tar
151 12) Distribute Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz with the following instructions:
153 A) Run:
155 gzip -d Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz
157 tar xvzf Math-Simple-1.23.tar
158 B) Run 'ppm install Math-Simple.ppd'
160 C) Delete Math-Simple.tar and Math-Simple.ppd.
162 D) Test with:
164 perl -MMath::Simple -le 'print add(37, 42)'
166 ---
168 That's it. The process should also work with zip instead of tar, but I
170 haven't tried it.
171 The recipient of the binary must have Perl built with a matching
173 architecture. Luckily, ppm will catch this.
174 For a binary dist *with* C source code, simply omit steps 2, 3, 6, and
176 7.
177 If this seems too hard, then in a future version you should be able to
179 just type:
180 make ppm
182perl v5.12.1 2010-01-27 Inline-FAQ(3)