1Inline-FAQ(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Inline-FAQ(3)
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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 tradi‐
17 tional 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
26 directories. Since they are created automatically, they are completely
27 disposable. I delete them all the time. And it is fine to have a dif‐
28 ferent one for each project. In fact as long as you don't have
29 ~/.Inline/ defined, Inline will create a new ./_Inline directory. You
30 can move that to ./.Inline and it will continue to work if you want to
31 give it more longevity and hide it from view. There is a long compli‐
32 cated list of rules about how [_.]Inline/ directories are used/created.
33 But it was designed to give you the most flexibility/ease-of-use. Never
34 be afraid to nuke 'em. They'll just pop 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 seman‐
39 tics, but thought it better to remove it, so people wouldn't try to use
40 it the old way. There is now _INSTALL_ (but you're not supposed to know
41 that :). It works magically through the use of Inline::MakeMaker. I
42 explained this earlier but it's worth going through again because it's
43 the biggest change for 0.40. Here's how to 'permanently' install an
44 Inline extension (Inline based module) with 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 Make‐
62 file.PL parameters 'perl -MInline=INSTALL ./Foo.pm - PRE‐
63 FIX=/home/ingy/perl' and things like that. It will also make use of a
64 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;
69 with or without distributing the C code! And I've decided to share it
70 with all of you :)
71 NOTE: Future versions of Inline will make this process a one line com‐
73 mand. But for now just use this simple recipe.
74 ---
76 The Inline 0.40 distribution comes with a sample extension module
78 called Math::Simple. Theoretically you could distribute this module on
79 CPAN. It has all the necessary support for installation. You can find
80 it in Inline-0.40/modules/Math/Simple/. Here are the steps for convert‐
81 ing this into a binary distribution *without* C source code.
82 NOTE: The recipient of this binary distribution will need to have the
84 PPM.pm module installed. This module requires a lot of other CPAN mod‐
85 ules. ActivePerl (available for Win32, Linux, and Solaris) has all of
86 these bundled. While ActivePerl isn't required, it makes things (a lot)
87 easier.
88 1) cd Inline-0.40/Math/Simple/
90 2) Divide Simple.pm into two files:
92 ---8<--- (Simple.pm)
94 package Math::Simple;
95 use strict;
96 require Exporter;
97 @Math::Simple::ISA = qw(Exporter);
98 @Math::Simple::EXPORT = qw(add subtract);
99 $Math::Simple::VERSION = '1.23';
100 use Inline (C => 'src/Simple.c' =>
102 NAME => 'Math::Simple',
103 VERSION => '1.23',
104 );
105 1;
106 ---8<---
107 ---8<--- (src/Simple.c)
108 int add (int x, int y) {
109 return x + y;
110 }
111 int subtract (int x, int y) {
113 return x - y;
114 }
115 ---8<---
116 So now you have the Perl in one file and the C in the other. The C code
118 must be in a subdirectory.
119 3) Note that I also changed the term 'DATA' to the name of the C file.
121 This will work just as if the C were still inline.
122 4) Run 'perl Makefile.PL'
124 5) Run 'make test'
126 6) Get the MD5 key from 'blib/arch/auto/Math/Simple/Simple.inl'
128 7) Edit 'blib/lib/Math/Simple.pm'. Change 'src/Simple.c' to
130 '02c61710cab5b659efc343a9a830aa73' (the MD5 key)
131 8) Run 'make ppd'
133 9) Edit 'Math-Simple.ppd'. Fill in AUTHOR and ABSTRACT if you wish.
135 Then change:
136 <CODEBASE HREF="" />
138 to
140 <CODEBASE HREF="Math-Simple.tar.gz" />
142 10) Run:
144 tar cvf Math-Simple.tar blib
146 gzip --best Math-Simple.tar
147 11) Run:
149 tar cvf Math-Simple-1.23.tar Math-Simple.ppd Math-Simple.tar.gz
151 gzip --best Math-Simple-1.23.tar
152 12) Distribute Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz with the following instructions:
154 A) Run:
156 gzip -d Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz
158 tar xvzf Math-Simple-1.23.tar
159 B) Run 'ppm install Math-Simple.ppd'
161 C) Delete Math-Simple.tar and Math-Simple.ppd.
163 D) Test with:
165 perl -MMath::Simple -le 'print add(37, 42)'
167 ---
169 That's it. The process should also work with zip instead of tar, but I
171 haven't tried it.
172 The recipient of the binary must have Perl built with a matching archi‐
174 tecture. Luckily, ppm will catch this.
175 For a binary dist *with* C source code, simply omit steps 2, 3, 6, and
177 7.
178 If this seems too hard, then in a future version you should be able to
180 just type:
181 make ppm
183perl v5.8.8 2002-10-28 Inline-FAQ(3)