1Module::Install::FAQ(3)User Contributed Perl DocumentatioMnodule::Install::FAQ(3)
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NAME

6       Module::Install::FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions for Module::Install
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DESCRIPTION

9       Though Module::Install itself has a general FAQ section in the pod,
10       it's more for advocacy. Here's an incomplete and growing list of the
11       actual questions I have been frequently asked (or found on the net)
12       about Module::Install.
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14   Do I also have to update my CPAN modules every time Module::Install is
15       updated?
16       The point of Module::Install is let module authors take care of
17       everything related to updating toolchains for the sake of module users.
18       So, if you choose to use Module::Install, it's you who should update
19       toolchains, i.e. Module::Install and other bundled modules. You should
20       check if there's any significant change/fix in your toolchains. You
21       should check if your toolchains go along with other tools users use to
22       install your distributions, or with the systems users are in, or
23       whatever that matters. In the end, you are expected to have much more
24       knowledge and willingness than average users.
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26       That being said, practically, you don't have to update your
27       distributions if they are working well. But if you do find issues,
28       please update your distributions, even when you have nothing to change
29       in your own modules. Module::Install is not only a tool to write
30       better, but also a tool to encourage you to help others.
31
32   Do I really have to avoid auto_install()?
33       Not at all, using auto_install() is just fine. While it indeed behaved
34       erratically in older Module::Install versions, there have been no
35       reported issues since mid-2009. As far as compatibility with various
36       CPAN clients: several rather large projects on CPAN (including Catalyst
37       and DBIx::Class), are using "auto_install" without any issues reported
38       by their substantial userbases.
39
40       That said, if all you want to do is make it easy for a contributor to
41       checkout your code and quickly install necessary dependencies, there
42       are alternatives to "auto_install".
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44       If your CPAN module is new enough, you can pass a dot to the cpan
45       command it provides, and it will install all the required distributions
46       from the CPAN:
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48         $ cpan .
49
50       The same is true for the cpanm command from App::cpanminus, with which
51       you even can write like "cpanm --installdeps ."
52
53   Should I put an "inc" directory Module::Install automatically creates into
54       a repository for my projects?
55       Depends. If the repository is private and only for you, you usually
56       don't want to put it in your repository to let you always use the
57       latest Module::Install you have (the "inc" directory is recreated each
58       time you run "perl Makefile.PL").
59
60       If not, but you alone are the release manager and know what you have to
61       do when you release, putting the "inc" directory into your repository
62       may help other casual contributors, especially if you use minor (or
63       private) non-core extensions in your Makefile.PL.
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65       However, if you generously allow other people to release, or you're not
66       so familiar with how Module::Install works and don't know what you have
67       to do in the above situation, don't put it in the repository. It may be
68       the cause of troubles including a wrong version in the "META.yml".
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70       If you feel sorry about the inconvenience for your fellow contributors,
71       you may want to add explicitly "use
72       Module::Install::<ExtensionYouWantToUse>;" after "use
73       inc::Module::Install;" in your Makefile.PL. It doesn't do any harm, and
74       it makes clear which extensions they need to install.
75
76   What're there in the "inc" directory?
77       Module::Install puts its components (sometimes with extra modules)
78       under the "inc" directory to be released with a distribution.  Those
79       modules will not be installed into your system, unless explicitly
80       copied into somewhere. They are only used to help configuration, tests,
81       and/or installation.
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83       If there's no "inc" directory, Module::Install will automatically
84       create it when you run "perl Makefile.PL". And if that happens, a
85       directory (as of this writing, ".author") will also be created under
86       the "inc" directory. If the ".author" directory exists, the "inc"
87       directory will be recreated each time you run "perl Makefile.PL" to
88       make sure everything you need is included and up-to-date. This
89       ".author" directory will not be included in a distribution.
90
91   "perl Makefile.PL" doesn't work or does a strange behavior for me. Why?
92       Module::Install uses an Autoloader magic to delegate command handling
93       to the extensions in the "inc" directory. This works while everything
94       is in order, but when it finds something it can't understands, it dies
95       with a compile error, or does what you don't expect.
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97       To prevent the latter strange behavior, Module::Install 0.96 and above
98       dies when it tries to process unknown commands. In most cases (other
99       than typos), these unknown commands are from non-core extensions on the
100       CPAN, and they should hopefully have predictable names that you can
101       easily tell from which extension they come, though some may be a bit
102       hard to find.
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104       If you are trying to contribute to some project, and having a trouble
105       to run "Makefile.PL", please contact the author of the project to learn
106       what you have to install. If the distribution is already on the CPAN,
107       you may also want to look into the MANIFEST file to see which
108       extensions are included in the "inc" directory before you ask.
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110       This usually does not happen in the user land as distributions that use
111       Module::Install should have all the necessary extensions under the
112       "inc" directory. If this should happen, that's most probably because
113       the release manager shipped the distribution under a non-author mode.
114       Please contact the author to fix the issue.
115
116   Why can't I do <anything> with Module::Install that I can do with
117       ExtUtils::MakeMaker?
118       Module::Install is just a wrapper of ExtUtils::MakeMaker. You can do
119       almost everything you can do with ExtUtils::MakeMaker by passing
120       arbitrary attributes to ExtUtils::MakeMaker in the backend via
121       "makemaker_args" like this:
122
123         use inc::Module::Install;
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125         all_from 'lib/Foo/Bar.pm';
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127         makemaker_args(
128           dist => { PREOP => '...' },
129           PL_FILES => {'bin/foobar.PL' => 'bin/foobar'},
130         );
131         WriteAll;
132
133       However, by the singleton nature of Module::Install, it may fail to
134       process Makefile.PLs in subdirectories correctly now, and you may need
135       to override attributes explicitly in some cases where Module::Install
136       provides other default values than ExtUtils::MakeMaker does. Please see
137       also the ExtUtils::MakeMaker's pod for further instructions.
138
139   I added MyMakefile.PL to my distribution, but it doesn't work as I
140       expected. Why?
141       ExtUtils::MakeMaker (and Module::Build also) treats "*.PL" files in the
142       top level directory as something special to generate other files. So,
143       if you add something that has ".PL" extension like "MyMakefile.PL" in
144       the top level directory, it also runs automatically when you run
145       Makefile.PL.
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147       If you don't like this behavior, use "makemaker_args" to pass an
148       anonymous hash to "PL_FILES".
149
150         makemaker_args(PL_FILES => {});
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AUTHOR

153       Kenichi Ishigaki <ishigaki@cpan.org>
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156       Copyright 2010 Kenichi Ishigaki.
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158       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
159       under the same terms as Perl itself.
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163perl v5.36.0                      2023-01-20           Module::Install::FAQ(3)
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