1PAR(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation PAR(3)
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6 PAR - Perl Archive Toolkit
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9 (If you want to make an executable that contains all module, scripts
10 and data files, please consult the pp utility instead. pp used to be
11 part of the PAR distribution but is now shipped as part of the
12 PAR::Packer distribution instead.)
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14 Following examples assume a foo.par file in Zip format.
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16 To use Hello.pm from ./foo.par:
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18 % perl -MPAR=./foo.par -MHello
19 % perl -MPAR=./foo -MHello # the .par part is optional
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21 Same thing, but search foo.par in @INC:
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23 % perl -MPAR -Ifoo.par -MHello
24 % perl -MPAR -Ifoo -MHello # ditto
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26 Following paths inside the PAR file are searched:
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28 /lib/
29 /arch/
30 /i386-freebsd/ # i.e. $Config{archname}
31 /5.8.0/ # i.e. $Config{version}
32 /5.8.0/i386-freebsd/ # both of the above
33 /
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35 PAR files may also (recursively) contain other PAR files. All files
36 under following paths will be considered as PAR files and searched as
37 well:
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39 /par/i386-freebsd/ # i.e. $Config{archname}
40 /par/5.8.0/ # i.e. $Config{version}
41 /par/5.8.0/i386-freebsd/ # both of the above
42 /par/
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44 Run script/test.pl or test.pl from foo.par:
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46 % perl -MPAR foo.par test.pl # only when $0 ends in '.par'
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48 However, if the .par archive contains either script/main.pl or main.pl,
49 then it is used instead:
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51 % perl -MPAR foo.par test.pl # runs main.pl; @ARGV is 'test.pl'
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53 Use in a program:
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55 use PAR 'foo.par';
56 use Hello; # reads within foo.par
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58 # PAR::read_file() returns a file inside any loaded PARs
59 my $conf = PAR::read_file('data/MyConfig.yaml');
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61 # PAR::par_handle() returns an Archive::Zip handle
62 my $zip = PAR::par_handle('foo.par')
63 my $src = $zip->memberNamed('lib/Hello.pm')->contents;
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65 You can also use wildcard characters:
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67 use PAR '/home/foo/*.par'; # loads all PAR files in that directory
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69 Since version 0.950, you can also use a different syntax for loading
70 .par archives:
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72 use PAR { file => 'foo.par' }, { file => 'otherfile.par' };
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74 Why? Because you can also do this:
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76 use PAR { file => 'foo.par, fallback => 1 };
77 use Foo::Bar;
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79 Foo::Bar will be searched in the system libs first and loaded from
80 foo.par if it wasn't found!
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82 use PAR { file => 'foo.par', run => 'myscript' };
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84 This will load foo.par as usual and then execute the script/myscript
85 file from the archive. Note that your program will not regain control.
86 When script/myscript exits, so does your main program. To make this
87 more useful, you can defer this to runtime: (otherwise equivalent)
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89 require PAR;
90 PAR->import( { file => 'foo.par', run => 'myscript' } );
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92 If you have PAR::Repository::Client installed, you can do this:
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94 use PAR { repository => 'http://foo/bar/' };
95 use Module; # not locally installed!
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97 And PAR will fetch any modules you don't have from the specified PAR
98 repository. For details on how this works, have a look at the SEE ALSO
99 section below. Instead of an URL or local path, you can construct an
100 PAR::Repository::Client object manually and pass that to PAR. If you
101 specify the "install => 1" option in the "use PAR" line above, the
102 distribution containing "Module" will be permanently installed on your
103 system. ("use PAR { repository => 'http://foo/bar', install => 1 };")
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105 Furthermore, there is an "upgrade => 1" option that checks for upgrades
106 in the repository in addition to installing. Please note that an
107 upgraded version of a module is only loaded on the next run of your
108 application.
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110 Adding the "dependencies => 1" option will enable
111 PAR::Repository::Client's static dependency resolution
112 (PAR::Repository::Client 0.23 and up).
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114 Finally, you can combine the "run" and "repository" options to run an
115 application directly from a repository! (And you can add the "install"
116 option, too.)
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118 use PAR { repository => 'http://foo/bar/', run => 'my_app' };
119 # Will not reach this point as we executed my_app,
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122 This module lets you use special zip files, called Perl Archives, as
123 libraries from which Perl modules can be loaded.
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125 It supports loading XS modules by overriding DynaLoader bootstrapping
126 methods; it writes shared object file to a temporary file at the time
127 it is needed.
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129 A .par file is mostly a zip of the blib/ directory after the build
130 process of a CPAN distribution. To generate a .par file yourself, all
131 you have to do is compress the modules under arch/ and lib/, e.g.:
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133 % perl Makefile.PL
134 % make
135 % cd blib
136 % zip -r mymodule.par arch/ lib/
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138 Afterward, you can just use mymodule.par anywhere in your @INC, use
139 PAR, and it will Just Work. Support for generating .par files is going
140 to be in the next (beyond 0.2805) release of Module::Build.
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142 For convenience, you can set the "PERL5OPT" environment variable to
143 "-MPAR" to enable "PAR" processing globally (the overhead is small if
144 not used); setting it to "-MPAR=/path/to/mylib.par" will load a
145 specific PAR file. Alternatively, consider using the par.pl utility
146 bundled with the PAR::Packer distribution, or using the self-contained
147 parl utility which is also distributed with PAR::Packer on machines
148 without PAR.pm installed.
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150 Note that self-containing scripts and executables created with par.pl
151 and pp may also be used as .par archives:
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153 % pp -o packed.exe source.pl # generate packed.exe (see PAR::Packer)
154 % perl -MPAR=packed.exe other.pl # this also works
155 % perl -MPAR -Ipacked.exe other.pl # ditto
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157 Please see "SYNOPSIS" for most typical use cases.
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160 Settings in META.yml packed inside the PAR file may affect PAR's
161 operation. For example, pp provides the "-C" ("--clean") option to
162 control the default behavior of temporary file creation.
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164 Currently, pp-generated PAR files may attach four PAR-specific
165 attributes in META.yml:
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167 par:
168 clean: 0 # default value of PAR_CLEAN
169 signature: '' # key ID of the SIGNATURE file
170 verbatim: 0 # was packed prerequisite's PODs preserved?
171 version: x.xx # PAR.pm version that generated this PAR
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173 User-defined environment variables, like PAR_GLOBAL_CLEAN, always
174 overrides the ones set in META.yml. The algorithm for generating
175 caching/temporary directory is as follows:
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177 · If PAR_GLOBAL_TEMP is specified, use it as the cache directory for
178 extracted libraries, and do not clean it up after execution.
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180 · If PAR_GLOBAL_TEMP is not set, but PAR_GLOBAL_CLEAN is specified,
181 set PAR_GLOBAL_TEMP to "TEMP/par-USERHEX/temp-PID/", cleaning it
182 after execution.
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184 · If both are not set, use "TEMP/par-USERHEX/cache-HASH/" as the
185 PAR_GLOBAL_TEMP, reusing any existing files inside.
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187 Here is a description of the variables the previous paths.
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189 · TEMP is a temporary directory, which can be set via
190 $ENV{PAR_GLOBAL_TMPDIR}, $ENV{TMPDIR}, $ENV{TEMPDIR}, $ENV{TEMP} or
191 $ENV{TMP}, in that order of priority. If none of those are set,
192 C:\TEMP, /tmp are checked. If neither of them exists, . is used.
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194 · USERHEX is derived from the user name, or SYSTEM if none can be
195 found. On Win32, this is $Win32::LoginName. On Unix, this is
196 $ENV{USERNAME} or $ENV{USER}. Encode the raw bytes of the user
197 name each as two hex digits to obtain USERHEX.
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199 · PID is the process ID. Forked children use the parent's PID.
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201 · HASH is a crypto-hash of the entire par file or executable,
202 calculated at creation time. This value can be overloaded with
203 "pp"'s --tempdir parameter.
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205 By default, PAR strips POD sections from bundled modules. In case that
206 causes trouble, you can turn this off by setting the environment
207 variable "PAR_VERBATIM" to 1.
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209 import options
210 When you "use PAR {...}" or call PAR->import({...}), the following
211 options are available.
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213 PAR->import({ file => 'foo.par' });
214 # or
215 PAR->import({ repository => 'http://foo/bar/' });
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217 file
218 The par filename.
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220 You must pass one option of either 'file' or 'repository'.
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222 repository
223 A par repository (exclusive of file)
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225 fallback
226 Search the system @INC before the par.
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228 Off by default for loading .par files via "file =" ...>. On by
229 default for PAR repositories.
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231 To prefer loading modules from a repository over the locally
232 installed modules, you can load the repository as follows:
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234 use PAR { repository => 'http://foo/bar/', fallback => 0 };
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236 run The name of a script to run in the par. Exits when done.
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238 no_shlib_unpack
239 Skip unpacking bundled dynamic libraries from shlib/$archname. The
240 client may have them installed, or you may wish to cache them
241 yourself. In either case, they must end up in the standard install
242 location (such as /usr/local/lib/) or in $ENV{PAR_TEMP} before you
243 require the module which needs them. If they are not accessible
244 before you require the dependent module, perl will die with a
245 message such as "cannot open shared object file..."
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248 PAR::Tutorial, PAR::FAQ
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250 The PAR::Packer distribution which contains the packaging utilities:
251 par.pl, parl, pp.
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253 PAR::Dist for details on PAR distributions.
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255 PAR::Repository::Client for details on accessing PAR repositories.
256 PAR::Repository for details on how to set up such a repository.
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258 Archive::Zip, "require" in perlfunc
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260 ex::lib::zip, Acme::use::strict::with::pride
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262 Steffen Mueller has detailed slides on using PAR for application
263 deployment at <http://steffen-mueller.net/talks/appdeployment/>.
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265 PAR supports the prefork module. It declares various run-time
266 dependencies so you can use the prefork module to get streamlined
267 processes in a forking environment.
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270 Nicholas Clark for pointing out the mad source filter hook within the
271 (also mad) coderef @INC hook, as well as (even madder) tricks one can
272 play with PerlIO to avoid source filtering.
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274 Ton Hospel for convincing me to ditch the "Filter::Simple"
275 implementation.
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277 Uri Guttman for suggesting "read_file" and "par_handle" interfaces.
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279 Antti Lankila for making me implement the self-contained executable
280 options via "par.pl -O".
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282 See the AUTHORS file in the distribution for a list of people who have
283 sent helpful patches, ideas or comments.
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286 Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>
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288 Steffen Mueller <smueller@cpan.org>
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290 You can write to the mailing list at <par@perl.org>, or send an empty
291 mail to <par-subscribe@perl.org> to participate in the discussion.
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293 Please submit bug reports to <bug-par@rt.cpan.org>. If you need
294 support, however, joining the <par@perl.org> mailing list is preferred.
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297 Copyright 2002-2010 by Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>. Copyright
298 2005-2010 by Steffen Mueller <smueller@cpan.org>
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300 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
301 under the same terms as Perl itself.
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303 See LICENSE.
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307perl v5.30.0 2019-07-26 PAR(3)