[perl5.git] / lib / Module / Build / Changes

Revision history for Perl extension Module::Build.

 - On some systems (haven't identified the actual problem yet)
   $ENV{PERL5LIB} can grow to enormous enough sizes that we can't
   launch any more subprocesses because the environment table is full.
   This is the now-infamous "Couldn't run Build.PL: Argument list too
   long" error.  Now we detect such situations and trim the directory
   list to only include directories that actually exist, listed only
   once each.  Not the ideal solution, but it should work.

 - Silence a warning in M::B::ModuleInfo that happens when the author
   is using the "$VERSION = eval $VERSION" idiom.

 - When running the 'testcover' action, do "cover --delete" if any of
   the test files have changed (we already did so if any of the code
   under test has changed). [Suggested by Chris Dolan, RT #23584]

 - Fixed a broken link in the documentation about PREFIX. [Spotted by
   David Steinbrunner]

 - Changes to do_system() & friends on VMS to get system calls working
   much better there. [Craig Berry]

 - Added the "pardist" target which creates a PAR binary distribution
   akin to a PPM distribution. [Steffen Mueller]

 - Added the Interix platform as a Unix variant. [Stephen Hartland]

 - Improved the error message we emit when a distribution contains XS
   files but the user has no C compiler. [Suggested by Andreas Koenig]

0.2805_01  Thu Sep  7 21:57:29 CDT 2006

 - Because of a weird behavior of YAML::Node, any distribution that
   used version.pm objects to define their versions was generating the
   wrong syntax for the versions in their META.yml file.  They will
   now appear as strings like v3.42.1 or similar, including the
   leading v.

 - Upgraded to version 0.67 of version.pm. [John Peacock]

 - Added a contrib/ directory with a bash completion function for M::B
   actions and switches. [Julian Mehnle]

 - When we eval() the embedded version.pm code we will now die() if
   the eval() was unsuccessful, rather than continuing blindly on and
   dying mysteriously later.

 - Added a 'retest' action that lets users run the current regression
   tests on a previously-installed version of a distribution.

 * Instead of storing an entire dump of the Config.pm hash in the
   _build/ directory upon startup, we now just store any overrides the
   user or author has specified.  Note that if you were doing anything
   you weren't supposed to be doing, like poking around in the
   internals of $buld->{config}, your code might break, so I've put
   the asterisk of incompatibility on this one just to cover my
   tuchus.  [Idea originally by Randy Sims]

 - Made copying files via copy_if_modified() a little less chatty.

0.2805  Sat Jul 29 22:01:24 CDT 2006

 - We now embed a copy of version.pm right in the
   Module::Build::Version source code, with John Peacock's blessing,
   in case the user has a rough time installing version.pm.  This
   helps alleviate troubles people were still having with working out
   a seemingly circular dependency (even though version.pm now ships
   with a standard Makefile.PL too).  A version.pm >= 0.661 installed
   on the system will take precedence over our bundled one. [John
   Peacock]

 - Fix some test warnings (or failures?) related to version.pm
   numification. [John Peacock]

 - The top-level 'version' entry in META.yml files we'd generated was
   in the wrong format (it was being treated as a version.pm object
   rather than a serialized copy) due to a weird YAML::Node issue.
   Fixed.

 - Don't 'use base qw(version)' anymore in our M::B::Version wrapper,
   just set @ISA directly, because some people have reported that the
   'use base' line is croaking.

 - Added an 'allow_mb_mismatch' parameter to suppress the startup
   check that ensures the version of M::B currently running is the
   same as the one initially used to run the Build.PL.  Use with
   caution.

 - Module::Build::ModuleInfo will no longer detect things that look
   like $VERSION assignments after an __END__ or __DATA__ token.

 - Updated documentation to mention the new mailing list on perl.org
   rather than the old one on sourceforge.

0.2804  Sun Jul 16 16:41:25 CDT 2006

 - Added 'use version;' in Module::Build::Version, because some
   versions of base.pm won't automatically load version.pm when we do
   'use base qw/version/;'. [Spotted by Erik Tank]

0.2803  Sat Jul 15 08:26:34 CDT 2006

 - The META.yml file in the last release was all screwed up, so the
   distribution wasn't indexed properly.  Fixed in this release.

0.2802  Fri Jul 14 22:40:34 CDT 2006

 - Added reliance on version.pm, which means we should deal much
   better with the wide range of version specifications one finds on
   CPAN.  This is made possible by recent releases of version.pm that
   give the user a pure-perl option, so installing version.pm
   shouldn't be too onerous for most users.  [John Peacock]

 - We should be accepting the default when we're in unattended mode,
   not acting dumb and ignoring both the default and the [empty]
   answer from the user.  Fixed.  [Spotted by Nik Clayton]

0.2801  Sun May 21 00:07:40 CDT 2006

 - Module::Build::Compat's emulation of INC is incorrectly prepending
   a -I to the value of INC. This is incorrect because there should
   already be a -I on the value. I.E. it's "perl Makefile.PL INC=-Ifoo"
   not "perl Makefile.PL INC=foo" so Compat should not prefix a -I.
   [Michael Schwern]

 - Native batch scripts under Windows should not be converted by
   pl2bat. [Spotted by Ron Savage]

 - Tweaked the way we determine whether a file is executable on Unix.
   We use this determination to decide whether to make it executable
   during installation. [Julian Mehnle]

 - Replaced a vestigial 'next' with 'return' now that the code is in a
   subroutine (htmlify_pods()), not a loop. [Ron Savage]

 - Fixed a guaranteed failure in t/signature.t when TEST_SIGNATURE was
   set. [Eric R. Meyers]

 - Fixed a test failure that occurred when testing or installing in
   unattended mode - the code to test whether unattended mode and
   attended mode are working properly was assuming that we started out
   in attended mode. [Steve Peters]

 - Improved our stand-in YAML generator that we use to generate
   META.yaml when authors don't have a copy of YAML.pm installed on
   their machine.  It was unable to handle things like embedded
   newlines in the data, now it has a much more extensive escaping
   mechanism. [Stephen Adkins]

 - Revised the docs for --prefix and PREFIX. [Michael Schwern]

0.28  Thu Apr 27 22:25:00 CDT 2006

 - When y_n() or prompt() are called without a default value and the
   build seems to be unattended (e.g. in automatic CPAN testing), we
   now die() with an error message rather than silently returning
   undef for prompt(), or looping indefinitely for y_n().

 - When searching for '.modulebuildrc', return the first HOME-like
   directory that actually contains the file instead of the first
   existing directory. Document the search locations and the order
   searched. [Spotted by David Golden]

 - Split the API documentation out of Module::Build::Authoring into
   its own document: Module::Build::API.

 - We should not emit a warning if a Module::Build subclass is
   required in a Makefile.PL that is not bundled in the current
   distribution; it may be installed on the user's system. [Spotted by
   Tyler MacDonald]

 - copy_if_modified() now preserves the executable bit of the source
   file. [Spotted by Julian Mehnle]

 - Fixed compatibility of our screen-scraping the Test::Harness output
   so we can recognize the most recent Test::Harness version. [Steve
   Hay]

 - Backing out a requirement added in 0.27_06 on the method y_n()
   to always include a default. This behavior would cause existing
   build scripts to start failing. We now fail with a missing default
   only when $ENV{PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT} is set because there is no
   reasonable default.

 - Make install_types() method smarter with respect to custom install
   types.

 - Add documentation for the install_base_relpaths() and
   prefix_relpaths() methods. Improved their usage for a public API,
   and added tests.

0.27_10  Tue Mar 28 22:50:50 CST 2006

 - Added the create_packlist property, default true, which controls
   whether packlist files will be written during installation.  This
   was already part of Module::Build 0.2609, but for some reason we've
   forgotten it in the 0.27_xx series.  [Spotted by Steve Kirkup]

 - Document the versions of Module::Build where each feature, action,
   constructor argument, and method was first publicly documented.

 - More fixes for find_perl_interpreter() to work with BSD flavored
   UNIX: Ensure we always return absolute paths; throw an exception
   upon failure to find correct interperter; document everything.

 - We now include our own YAML.pm work-alike that we can use when the
   real YAML isn't installed.  We might soon even start using it when
   YAML is installed, because the YAML API and dependency chain have
   been changing in unfavorable ways lately. [Stephen Adkins]

 - Fixed some shell-argument-quoting issues on VMS.  In the process,
   we have added some support for avoiding tripping over
   shell-argument-quoting issues on other platforms too. [Initial
   patch by Craig A. Berry]

0.27_09  Sat Mar 11 22:48:54 EST 2006

 - Fixed find_perl_interpreter() so we can find the perl executable
   when running from uninstalled perl even when $^X contains a
   relative path. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - Fixed warning message where we were printing the wrong field names.
   [Chris Dolan]

 - Added a 'testpodcoverage' action that runs a POD coverage check for
   all modules in the distribution. [Yanick Champoux]

 - Added a Cookbook example of subclassing to modify an action. [Dylan
   Martin and David Golden]

 - When building HTML documentation, we were opening the POD file and
   not checking whether the open succeeded, which of course caused
   problems down the line if it failed.  Now we do "or die(...)" like
   everywhere else. [Spotted by Joerg Braun]

0.27_08  Fri Mar  3 21:22:41 CST 2006

 - Due to shell quoting issues and differences in syntax between
   various flavors of Windows, the code for the 'pl2bat' utility
   distributed with Perl has been incorporated into M::B::P::Windows.
   [Thanks to Dr Bean and Ron Savage for help testing and isolating
   the problem.]

 - Modify add_build_element() so that it only adds elements if they
   don't already exist. [David Wheeler]

 - Fixed a bug in the 'pass-through' Makefile.PL in which we would die
   if CPAN::Shell->install returned false, but apparently this return
   value is unreliable.  Now we only die if the module is actually
   unavailable after installation.

 - Fixed testing problems on VMS related to non-case-preserving
   filesystems.  We now bundle Tie::CPHash in the distribution (just
   for testing purposes, it doesn't get installed) to help with
   this. [Craig Berry and Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - We incorrectly documented the 'dynamic_config' flag in the META.yml
   file as having a default value of false, but according to the
   META.yml spec (which, for heaven's sake, we wrote) its default
   value is true.  Fixed. [Spotted by Adam Kennedy]

 - The have_c_compiler() method was dying if the ExtUtils::CBuilder
   module wasn't around, which is obviously an unhelpful thing to do.
   Now it just returns false. [Spotted by John Peacock]

 - Fix detection of $VERSION expressions that are not
   assignments. [Spotted by Chris Dolan]

 - Obfuscate one of our constructs that uses a $VERSION variable,
   because it was getting picked up by ExtUtils::MakeMaker's
   version-finder. [Spotted by Randal Schwartz]

 - The config_data script for querying and/or setting a module's
   config data was forgetting to call write() after setting config
   values (though setting feature values was working fine).
   Fixed. [Brian Duggan]

 - On Windows, remove the pl2bat generated 'Build.bat' script without
   the annoying "The batch file cannot be found." error.  [Solution
   provided by RazTK and foxidrive on newsgroup alt.msdos.batch]

 - Our version comparisons should now work correctly with modules that
   use version.pm to delcare their versions (e.g. "our $VERSION =
   version->new('1.0.0')"). [John Peacock and Ron Savage]

 - We now create a Build.bat script on versions of Windows where it
   makes sense. [Yves]

 - Fixed the verbiage around choosing the correct make-alike on
   different platforms to suggest using 'perl -V:make'. [Suggested by
   anonymous user]

0.27_07  Wed Feb  1 20:07:45 CST 2006

 - The notes() method now returns the new value when called with two
   arguments, just like when it's called with one argument. [Tyler
   MacDonald]

 - The notes() method now distinguishes among the values undef, 0, and
   the empty string, where previously it didn't. [Tyler MacDonald]

 - We now unshift(@INC) rather than push(@INC) for the directory where
   a build subclass lives, so that we're sure to pick up the right
   version and not some already-installed version. [perlmonkey]

 - The SIGNATURE file for version 0.27_06 (and I'm sure for lots of
   versions before that too!) was messed up, since we were modifying
   some files after signing.  This has been band-aided for the time
   being by signing twice. [Reported by Chris Dolan]

0.27_06  Mon Jan 23 21:44:54 CST 2006

 - Fixed an undefined-variable warning when building the META.yml file
   and the author hasn't used the 'module_name' mechanism. [Chris Dolan]

 - We should now work with recent (> 0.49) versions of YAML.pm when
   creating the META.yml file. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - The y_n() method now requires the default parameter, and the
   prompt() and y_n() methods have been improved with respect to
   how they behave/detect when there is no user to ask.  We're now
   more consistent with MakeMaker, including respecting the
   PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment variable. [Tyler MacDonald and
   Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - When building a README file using Pod::Text, work around a bug in
   Pod::Text 3.01, which expects Pod::Simple::parse_file to take input
   and output filehandles when it actually only takes an input
   filehandle. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

0.27_05  Thu Jan 12 17:39:21 CST 2006

 - In t/common.pl, we were attempting to let the user's installed
   Test::More take precedence over ours, but getting thwarted by all
   the test scripts' loading Test::More beforehand.  Fixed. [Spotted
   by Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - In various test scripts, we were outputting some strings that
   weren't strictly conformant with Test::Harness's expected input,
   though it didn't actually cause problems.  Now we're more
   conformant, though not yet strict. [Spotted by Yitzchak
   Scott-Thoennes]

0.27_04  Fri Dec 23 10:43:34 CST 2005

 - Removed experimental feature that extended the prerequisite system
   to apply ('requires', 'recommends', and 'conflicts') prereqs to all
   actions. Most of the internal extensiblity has been retained so
   that prereq types can easily be added, more selectively.

 - Added a 'prereq_report' action that shows the user a well-formatted
   list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and the versions
   actually installed. [David Wheeler]

 - Clarified the directory name that's created during the 'distdir'
   action. [Suggested by Tyler MacDonald]

 - Fixed a bug when creating the META.yml file without the help of
   YAML.pm - some common strings weren't quoted & escaped properly.
   Now only some uncommon ones are. [Spotted by Joshua ben Jore]

 - Fixed a bug in which an "UNINST=1" argument specified to a
   passthrough Makefile's "make install" wasn't actually seen by
   Module::Build.

 - Rather than dying when the Build script is run from the wrong
   directory, it now simply chdir()s into the right directory and
   keeps going. [Suggested by Dominique Quatravaux]

 - Added an "Examples on CPAN" section to the cookbook, with an
   initial entry pointing to John Peacock's SVN-Notify-Mirror
   distribution.

 - Add an invoked_action() method to return the name of the original
   action invoked by the user.

 - Add 'meta-spec' field to the generated META.yml file, including the
   version of the specification followed by the current Module::Build
   and the url where the specification can be found.

 - Introduced two actions, 'html' & 'manpages', that generate
   documentation for POD when the respective feature is enabled.  The
   actions will generate the documents even if there is no set place
   to install to.  However, if the actions are invoked as a dependency
   of another action (e.g. build), the documentation will only be
   built when there is a default or user-specified place to install to.

 - Added support for environment variable, 'MODULEBUILDRC', which can
   be used to specify the full path to an option file to use instead
   of the default location of ~/.modulebuildrc. A special undocumented
   setting of 'NONE' tells Module::Build not to load any user settings,
   so tests can be run without tainting from user options.

 - Documented and improved preliminary support for more Getopt::Long
   style options are supported, including boolean options (--verbose,
   --no-verbose), and use of hyphens in option names in addition to
   underscores.

 - The option to disable/enable reading of the ~/.modulebuildrc file
   is changed from 'skip_rcfile' to 'use_rcfile'

 - Allow the 'distmeta' action to continue when 'MANIFEST' is missing,
   omitting the generation of the 'provieds' field. [Steven Schubiger]

 - Fixed some failing regex from generated MANIFEST.SKIP file.

 - Fixed an edge case in $VERSION parsing where we thought a package()
   declaration was happening but it wasn't. [David Golden]

 - Added docs for the install_destination() and install_types() methods.

0.27_03 (Beta for 0.28)  Mon Oct 10 11:19:23 EDT 2005

 - We now use ExtUtils::CBuilder to do all compiling of C code (for
   example, when compiling XS modules).  (This change actually
   occurred in 0.27_01, but it was mistakenly omitted from the Changes
   file.)

 - Fixed an issue on Win32 (and other case-tolerant
   non-case-preserving systems, possibly like VMS?) in which the
   current working directory would sometimes be reported with
   different case, fooling us into thinking that we were in the wrong
   directory. [David Golden]

 - The extra_compiler_flags setting was not actually being passed
   along to ExtUtils::CBuilder so it could pass it along to the
   compiler.  Now it is.

 - The synonyms 'scripts' and 'prereq' for 'script_files' and
   'requires' were broken in a previous version (0.27_01, probably),
   but now they're fixed. [David Golden]
 
 - Previously, we assumed that any custom subclass of Module::Build
   was located in _build/lib/.  This is only true if the author used
   the subclass() method, though.  We now use %INC to find where the
   custom subclass really is, so that we can "use lib" it.  We also
   issue a warning if it seems to be outside the build directory.
   [Spotted by Peter Tandler]

 - Added a URL for each license type that we know about, which will
   appear as resources=>license: in the generated META.yml file.

 - If the user passes a no_index parameter to our constructor, we now
   pass that through when building the META.yml file. [Richard
   Soderberg, RT #9603]

 - A few more status messages can now be suppressed by using 'quiet'
   mode.  [Dave Rolsky]

 - Added some more entries to the default MANIFEST.SKIP file. [Chris
   Dolan]

 - Our POD parser will now accept "AUTHORS" as well as "AUTHOR" when
   looking for the author list in a module. [David Wheeler]

 - When looking for the POD to auto-generate a README file, or for the
   AUTHOR or ABSTRACT for the distribution, we now also look for a
   *.pod with the same name as the *.pm file specified by
   'version_from'. [David Golden]

 - The recommended dependency on ExtUtils::ParseXS has been moved into
   the "C_support" auto_feature.

 - When building XS files, we now pass the -DVERSION and -DXS_VERSION
   flags to the compiler. [Spotted by Jerry Hedden]

 - If a distribution has XS files and Module::Build has not been
   configured with the "C_support" feature, we now issue a
   warning. [Suggested by Jerry Hedden]

 - Added a dir_contains() method.

 - Some versions of MakeMaker, CPANPLUS, and/or PAUSE thought that a
   certain line of our code was declaring a $VERSION when we didn't
   intend to.  The line has been obscurified so they won't think that
   anymore. [Jos Boumans, RT #14226]

 - Added the Apache, MIT, and Mozilla licenses to the list of licenses
   that this module knows about. [Bob Ippolito]

 - Fixed a pretty significant typo in the documentation for
   auto_features. [Spotted by Jonas B. Nielsen]

 - In order to aid people who want to do customization of the META.yml
   file, we've added a "metafile" property that can then be easily
   overridden in subclasses, changed do_create_meta_yml() to
   do_create_metafile(), and split out the code that actually
   generates the YAML into a new method, write_metafile(). [David
   Wheeler]

 - Fixed a couple of non-helpful behaviors with extra_compiler_flags
   and extra_linker_flags.  These will automatically be run through
   split_like_shell() when given to new() as strings.

 - When the user doesn't have ExtUtils::ParseXS installed and we use
   the old 'xsubpp', the displayed command line for creating the .c
   file from the .xs file was missing its newline.  Now it's got it.

0.27_02 (Beta for 0.28)  Fri Jul 15 07:34:58 CDT 2005

 - Provided initial support for the --prefix installation parameter,
   which acts like MakeMaker's PREFIX.  It is still highly recommended
   NOT to use it when you could reasonably use --install_base or
   --install_path or --install_dest, but that's just because the way
   --prefix is designed is weird and unpredictable.  Ultimately the
   choice rests with the installing user. [Patches by Michael Schwern
   and Rob Kinyon]

 - Fixed a bug in subclass() which prevented people from using it to
   subclass subclasses of Module::Build. [Chris Dolan]

 - Added a 'pure_install' action, which for the time being is
   identical to the 'install' action. [Jos Boumans]

 - Fixed a POD error in an L<http://...> tag. [Offer Kaye]

 - Note several options for automatically creating a new module dev
   tree. [Suggested by Eric Wilhelm]

 - Removed some hard-coded references to File::Spec::Unix in the
   creation of HTML docs, which should help that code work in more
   places, and help people not to panic when they look at it. [Spotted
   by Yves]

 - We now use Pod::Readme by default (instead of Pod::Text) to
   generate the README file when the 'create_readme' option is used.
   If Pod::Readme is not installed, we will still fall back to using
   Pod::Text.  [Robert Rothenberg]

 - The values of the "prefix", "install_base", "install_path", and
   "install_dest" parameters can now begin with "~" or "~user", and
   we'll de-tilde-ify them by using glob().

 - The (optional) auto-creation of the README and Makefile.PL files
   have been moved from the 'distdir' action to the 'distmeta'
   action. [David Golden]

 - When looking for a .modulebuildrc file, we now use a fancier method
   of trying to find the home directory, because $ENV{HOME} isn't a
   very cross-platform variable. [Robert Rothenberg]

 - We now memoize the output of the internal _default_INC() method,
   since it uses backticks and might be kind of slow.

 - When processing XS files, we now look for a typemap in lib/ as well
   as using the system's default typemap. [John Peacock]

 - The DESTDIR, PREFIX, and INSTALL_BASE arguments to "make install"
   are now supported for pass-through Makefiles (they've been
   supported for quite a while as arguments to "perl
   Makefile.PL"). [Requested by Guillaume Rousse]

 - Test::Harness has changed its output format in recent versions,
   which threw off one of our tests.  We now allow for this different
   format. [Reported by Scott Godin]

 - Fixed an issue that prevented Module::Build from upgrading itself
   using its own API (which is how CPANPLUS uses it).  There are still
   some issues with this solution, however.  See ticket #13169 in
   rt.cpan.org. [Reported by Jos Boumans]

 - Fixed a fatal error that occurred when a distribution's author
   could not be determined from its POD nor from the call to
   Module::Build->new() in its Build.PL.  See ticket #12318 in
   rt.cpan.org. [Reported by Jos Boumans]

 - Apparently on Windows and cygwin it's not possible to use the "-pi"
   switch to perl without a backup extension, so now we use ".bak" and
   remove the backup file when we're done.  Thus the "dist" action for
   Module::Build itself can now be run on those platforms. [Yitzchak
   Scott-Thoennes]

 - Improved the handling of auto_features in the config_data access
   script. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

0.27_01 (Beta for 0.28)  Fri Apr 15 21:12:57 CDT 2005

 Backward-incompatible (but better) changes:

 * When using the 'install_base' option to choose a directory for
   installing everything, perl modules now go into lib/perl5/ instead
   of just lib/.  It seems this is more consistent with people's
   expectations, and the way I had it before was a bit peculiar to the
   way I like things in my own home directory. [Michael Schwern]

 * When the user is using the 'install_base' option, scripts will now
   be installed by default in $install_base/bin/ rather than
   $install_base/script/ . [Jan Hudec and Michael Schwern]

 Major changes:

 - The auto_features mechanism will now re-evaluate dependencies every
   time feature() is called for an auto-feature, rather than freezing
   the success/failure value during 'perl Build.PL' and using that
   value for all eternity (or module update, whichever comes first).
   This applies to both $build->feature() and
   FooModule::ConfigData->feature() calls. [Requested by many]

 - Added the meta_add and meta_merge mechanisms, which let the module
   author add/merge arbitrary entries into the META.yml file.

 - Now reads per-action default options from '$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc'
   if it exists. Command line options override anything set in the rc file.

 - We now use ExtUtils::CBuilder to do all compiling of C code (for
   example, when compiling XS modules).

 - The creation of Unix man pages is no longer a strict necessity - it
   has now been turned into an 'auto-feature' contingent on the
   presence of Pod::Man and a location specified for man pages to go.

 - A user-specified 'install_path' setting will now take precedence
   over an 'install_base' setting.  This allows the user to use
   'install_base' to set the base for all elements in one go, and then
   use 'install_path' to override specific paths or add paths for
   additional kinds of targets.

 - Split the main documentation from 'Module/Build.pm' into two
   sections. The user level documentation and overview remains in
   'Module/Build.pm', while a new document,
   'Module/Build/Authoring.pod', has been created for module authors.

 Minor changes:

 - new_from_context() was losing its arguments in some cases (and not
   because of inadequate training in forensic debate) - we now pass its
   arguments directly to the Build.PL script rather than merging them
   in afterwards.

 - Let resume() return an object blessed into the appropriate class
   if the user has provided a subclass, as specified by the
   'build_class' property. This allows current() and new_from_context()
   to behave more like factory methods returning objects of the correct
   class based on context. [Ray Zimmerman]

 - Refactored methods relating to parsing perl module files for
   package, version, and pod data into a new class:
   Module::Build::ModuleInfo.  It should not be considered part of
   Module::Build's API, because we may split it out entirely as a
   separate CPAN module that we depend on.

 - Added new method Module::Build::prepare_metadata() for authors to
   override in order to add custom fields to META.yml.

 - We now use Test::More for our regression tests.  If the user
   doesn't have it installed, we include a copy in t/lib/ that we can
   use during testing.

 - When copying files in the 'distdir' action, set permissions to match
   the original files. [Julian Mehnle]

 - When adding files like META.yml to the MANIFEST, we now tell the
   user we're doing so by printing one of the "Added to MANIFEST: ..."
   lines.  [Ron Savage]

 - Added a runtime_params() method, which lets a module author see
   which parameters were overridden by the user on the command line
   (or in whatever paradigm the user originally invoked Module::Build
   from). [David Wheeler]

 - Added the current_action() method, which, surprisingly, returns the
   name of the currently running action. [David Wheeler]

 - Added docs for run_perl_script().

 - Added some stuff to the docs about why PREFIX is unsupported, and
   what to use instead. [Steve Purkis]

 - The simple get/set accessor methods for all the 'parameters' like
   verbose(), license(), etc. now have auto-generated documentation in
   Module/Build.pm.

 - Created a Cookbook entry for 'Adding new elements to the install
   process'

 - We now add META.yml to the MANIFEST when META.yml is created, not
   when MANIFEST is created. [Spotted by Ron Savage]

 - Added some additional patterns to the suggested MANIFEST.SKIP
   contents, and changed the docs so that we encourage the user to use
   the MANIFEST.SKIP.  [Ron Savage]

 - Eliminated a redundant recipe from the Cookbook, now that there are
   some more extensive recipes on how to add stuff to the
   build/install sequences.

 - Eliminated an undefined-variable warning when testing under perl 5.005

 - When building HTML documentation, 'html_backlink' and 'html_css'
   properties are now first-class properties, so they can be set from
   the command line. [Suggested by Sagar R. Shah]

 - Have script_files default to everything in bin.  I believe this is
   the least surprising behavior. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]

 - If script_files is given a directory, consider each file in that
   directory tree as a script to be installed.  This avoids having to
   remember to add to the script_files list every time you add a
   program. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]

 - We now only load Pod::Man when we actually need to build man pages.

 - We now make Test::Harness use our carefully-selected path to a perl
   executable regardless of Test::Harness's version.  Previously we
   let it figure stuff out for itself if it was a reasonably modern
   version, but it's safer to make sure we're using the same perl
   everywhere.

0.2610  Fri Apr 15 08:25:01 CDT 2005

 - new_from_context() was losing its arguments in some cases (and not
   because of inadequate training in debate) - we now pass its
   arguments directly to the Build.PL script rather than merging them
   in afterwards. [Ray Zimmerman]

 - Fixed a bug in which config_data and feature data were being
   forgotten and no ConfigData.pm module would get written. [Ray
   Zimmerman]

 - Added a recipe to the cookbook showing how to run a single test
   file from the command line. [William McKee]

 - For command-line arguments, we now accept the syntax "--foo=bar" in
   addition to "--foo bar" and "foo=bar".  This seems to fit well with
   what GNU getopt and Getopt::Long do, and with people's
   expectations. [Adam Spiers]

0.2609  Wed Mar 16 22:18:35 CST 2005

 - The html docs that were created during the first invokation of
   './Build' were being found and treated as pod that needed to be
   converted to html during subsequent invokations. We now are more
   specific about the directories we scan for pod that needs to be
   converted, effectively avoiding blib/html. [Ray Zimmerman]

 - If Pod::Man is not available, we now skip building man pages
   (rather than dying) and tell the user why.

 - We now write a .packlist file upon installation, in the same place
   that ExtUtils::MakeMaker does. [Johnny Lam]

 - On some Unix platforms (BSD derivatives, mostly) perl's $^X
   variable isn't set to the full path of the perl executable, just
   'perl', when the 'Build' script is run as './Build' and not 'perl
   ./Build'.  This can lead to some other modules (maybe
   Test::Harness, maybe IO::File, I dunno...) getting very confused
   about where they are, and they try to load stuff from the wrong
   perl lib, and big trouble ensues.  To fix this, we now set $^X to
   the value of Module::Build->find_perl_interpreter().

 - The 'distcheck' action will now die() if it finds an error in the
   MANIFEST, rather than just printing on STDOUT. [David Golden]

 - When the README and/or Makefile.PL are autogenerated using
   create_readme or create_makefile_pl, we now automatically make sure
   they're also listed in the MANIFEST file. [Suggested by Michael
   Schwern]

 - Got rid of the t/MANIFEST file - it's superfluous, and it had
   zero-length, which some versions of Tar don't like. [William
   Underwood]

 - Added a mention in the documentation that each property that new()
   accepts also has a corresponding get/set accessor.  (In the version
   0.27_0x series each accessor method is mentioned explicitly in the
   docs.) [Omission spotted by Ian Langworth]

0.2608  Wed Jan 26 19:46:09 CST 2005

 - Add workaround for test files because Devel::Cover causes
   require to fail when the argument to require is an expression
   involving File::Spec. We now assign the result of the File::Spec
   call to a variable and then call require with that variable.

 - Tilde-expansion is now performed on arguments passed to a
   compatibility-Makefile.PL [Spotted by Sam Vilain]

 - We now run the 'gzip' and 'tar' values through split_like_shell()
   when running the 'dist' action, so that e.g. the 'gzip' value can
   be set to something like "gzip -f --best" and it'll work
   correctly. [Spotted by Chris Dolan]

 - Work around some bad mojo between Fedora Core [with its very long
   @INC] and old versions of Test::Harness [with its propensity to
   compound the number of @INC entries] that produced an "argument
   list too long" error during testing.  [assisted by Ville Skytta,
   David Golden, & Randy Sims]

 - Killed an infinite loop that would happen in y_n() in interactive
   mode if the author provided no default value. [Max Maischein]

0.2607 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)  Sat Dec 18 14:14:09 CST 2004

 - Instead of freezing @INC in the 'Build' script to the value it had
   when Build.PL was run, we now just add those additional values that
   aren't part of the default compiled-in @INC. [Michael Schwern]

 - The run_perl_script() method will now propagate any extra entries
   in @INC (such as those added by "use lib" or the -I command-line
   switch) to the subprocess.  This helps situations in which you want
   to tell the subprocess where to find a certain module, for
   instance.  [Michael Schwern]

0.2606 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Tue Dec  7 22:33:11 CST 2004

 - Fixed a linking bug on Win32, in which compiled C code object files
   never got linked in with the modules being built. [Dominic
   Mitchell]

 - Fixed a bug in the new_from_context() method in which any arguments
   passed made us die. [Spotted by Jos Boumans]

0.2605 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Tue Nov 30 07:16:13 CST 2004

 - Fixed a bug in which zero-length arguments for hash-valued
   parameters (e.g. " --config foo= ") weren't being allowed.

 - The tests now play better with environments in which version.pm is
   pre-loaded, like in bleadperl. [John Peacock & Michael Schwern]

 - Fixed a syntax error in one of the tests under perl 5.005.

0.2604 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Wed Nov 17 14:32:42 CST 2004

 - Fixed a split_like_shell() bug introduced in 0.2603 for Windows, in
   which an array reference passed as an argument was returned as an
   array reference, rather than as a list. [Spotted by Steve Hay]

 - module_name() will now return '' instead of undef when module_name
   is not set.  This eliminates a couple uninitialized-value
   warnings. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]

 - The expand_test_dir() method will now skip dotfiles (like ._foo.t,
   which sometimes gets automatically created on Mac systems) when
   'recursive_test_files' is in effect. [Tom Insam]

0.2603 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Mon Nov 15 10:28:00 CST 2004

 - Added documentation for the new_from_context() method.

 - Completely rewrote the split_like_shell() method for the Windows
   platform so it works like the command.com shell. [Randy Sims]

0.2602 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Thu Nov  4 11:19:29 CST 2004

 - The two bug fixes in 0.2601 gnashed against each other incorrectly,
   resulting in a Win32 bug in split_like_shell().  Fixed.  [Spotted
   by Steve Hay & Randy Sims]

 - Removed a couple of 'use warnings' statements from the code - they
   were causing compile failures on 5.005_04, where warnings.pm isn't
   available. [Blair Zajac]

0.2601 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Wed Nov  3 20:09:27 CST 2004

 - Fixed some backslash problems with split_like_shell() on
   Win32. [Steve Hay]

 - Fixed a bug in split_like_shell() in which leading whitespace was
   creating an empty word, manifesting as something like "gcc - no
   such file or directory" during tests. [Spotted by Warren L. Dodge]

0.26  Sat Oct  9 17:51:01 CDT 2004

 - Removed some language from the Module::Build::Compat documentation
   that encouraged people to include a Build.PL without a Makefile.PL.
   Also changed "a replacement for MakeMaker" to "an alternative to
   MakeMaker" in the main documentation, which is basically what I
   meant all along (i.e. a replacement for MakeMaker in your
   particular build process - MakeMaker is never going to be fully
   replaced in the perl world at large, of course), but some people
   got the impression I was a little more truculent toward MakeMaker
   than I really am.

 - Added the formal concepts of "features" and "config data" for
   distributions.  This allows the module author to define a certain
   set of features that the user can switch on and off (usually
   according to whether they have the proper prerequisites for them),
   and to save build-time configuration information in a standardized
   format.  See the main documentation of Module::Build for more
   details.  (Note that the name of this system was called
   "BuildConfig" for a while in beta, but now it's called
   "ConfigData".)

 - Added an 'auto_features' capability, which simplifies the process
   of defining features that depend on a set of prerequisites.

 - Added the 'get_options' parameter, which lets module authors
   declare certain command-line arguments their Build.PL can accept
   [David Wheeler]

 - Changed the split_like_shell() method to use the shellwords()
   function from Text::ParseWords (a core module since 5.0), which
   does a much better job than the split() we were using.

 - Added a 'testpod' action, which checks the syntactic validity of
   all POD files in the distribution using Test::Pod.  This eliminates
   the need for doing so in a regression test. [Initial patch by Mark
   Stosberg]

 - Added a process_files_by_extension() method, which generalizes the
   kind of processing (essentially just copying) that happens for .pm
   and .pod files, and makes it available to other user-defined types
   of files.  See the new cookbook entry.

 - Improved compatibility with version.pm when authors are using
   version objects as their $VERSION variables.  Now
   version_from_file() can deal with these objects.  Currently we
   stringify them right away, but perhaps in the future we will
   preserve them as objects for a while.

 - During 'distdir' and 'distmeta' actions, die a bit more gracefully
   if there's no MANIFEST (i.e. explicitly say that a MANIFEST is
   required). [Spotted by Adrian Howard]

 - Eliminated a recursive dependency between creating the MANIFEST
   file and creating the META.yml file.  [Spotted by Dave Rolsky]

 - On Win32, where a single directory might be known variously as
   "Module-Build-0.25_03" or "MODULE~1.25_", we now use
   Win32::GetShortPathName($cwd) to verify that the 'Build' script is
   being run from the correct directory, rather than just a string
   comparison.

 - The add_to_cleanup() method will now accept glob()-style patterns
   in addition to explicit filenames.  Also documented the fact that
   they can be specified in either Unix-style or native-style
   notation.

 - Passing a PREFIX value to a pass-through Makefile 'make install'
   now has the same effect as passing it to 'perl Makefile.PL' (it
   dies with a helpful message).

 - Added the 'testcover' action, which runs a test suite using
   Devel::Cover.  [Dave Rolsky]

 - Added the 'lib' and 'arch' installation directories to the search
   path for the 'diff' action, since they won't necessarily (though
   they usually will) be in @INC at installation time. [Suggested by
   Kevin Baker]

 - The "=head3" POD directive isn't supported in older podlators
   (particularly Pod::Man), so we don't use it anymore.

 - Fixed a typo & improved the docs in the SUBCLASSING section. [Ron
   Savage]

 - Added the '.tmp' suffix to the default MANIFEST.SKIP file, which
   should avoid adding things like pod2htmi.tmp to the MANIFEST [Ron
   Savage]

 - Backup files from Emacs, containing the string '.#' in their names,
   should no longer find their way into the blib/ directory (and from
   there into installation directories).

 - Worked around an unpleasant interaction between version.pm and the
   version-checking code that makes sure Module::Build's version
   hasn't changed during the lifetime of the 'Build' script. [Reported
   by Trevor Schellhorn]

 - Fixed a problem in htmlify_pods() that would produce test failures
   on Cygwin (and probably elsewhere).  [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - Fixed a test failure on Cygwin (and probably elsewhere) in
   t/compat.t, resulting from empty environment variables being set to
   the empty string (as opposed to simply being unset) by their mere
   presence in the "EXPORT:" list.

 - Fixed a fatal error that occurred when the author specified
   'dist_author' manually in their Build.PL script. [Spotted by Ron
   Savage]

 - The 'provides' section of the META.yml file wasn't being built
   properly on Win32, because of a mismatch between URL-format and
   native-format pathnames.  Fixed.  [Reported by Robert Rothenberg]

 - The progress message "lib/Foo.xs -> lib/Foo.c" was previously being
   output even when the Foo.c file wasn't being rebuilt.  It's now
   fixed.

 - Fixed a couple of places in Compat.pm where it could have forgotten
   which perl interpreter it had been run with ($^X isn't very
   trustworthy).

 - On some systems, the way we updated the timestamp on the
   "lib/Foo.bs" file (one of the output files for XS-based modules)
   was failing.  It's been replaced by a simple call to utime().

 - Fixed a problem in t/compat.t that prevented it from being run
   individually using 'make test TEST_FILES=t/compat.t'.  The problem
   was that a couple environment variables (TEST_FILES, MAKEFLAGS)
   were being passed through to subprocesses, and confused them.

 - Fixed an important typo in the documentation for the 'install_base'
   parameter ('libdoc' and 'bindoc' were switched). [Ray Zimmerman]

 - The pass-through Makefiles (type 'small' or 'passthrough') now
   support the TEST_FILES parameter to 'make test'.

 - Fixed a fatal error that would occur on perl 5.005 when building
   HTML documentation, because its version of Pod::Html was old and
   didn't like some of the parameters we fed it. [Spotted by Blair
   Zajac]

 - The final line of the generated pass-through Makefile was missing
   its trailing newline, which is now fixed. [Chip Salzenberg]

 - We now depend on YAML version at least 0.35 and at most version
   0.49, so that we don't pick up a new (and backward-incompatible) beta
   version from CPAN.

 - Squashed a warning in t/basic.t about '"Foo::Module::VERSION" used
   only once', and one in PPMMaker about $^V being undefined. [Blair
   Zajac]

 - Added a couple temporary output files from HTML documentation
   generation to the cleanup list.  [Toby Ovod-Everett]

 - The PodParser module will now only extract paragraphs in the
   'AUTHOR' section of the pod if they contain an '@' character.  This
   tends to do a better job, heuristically speaking, of returning
   relevant stuff.

 - Added regression tests and a helper method ( add_build_elements() )
   for adding new elements to the build process.  Also some
   documentation.

 - Wrote a recipe in the Cookbook for adding new elements to the build
   process, and a recipe for changing the order in which the steps in
   the build process will occur.

0.25  Sun Apr 25 11:12:36 CDT 2004

 - During the 'distdir' action, if no MANIFEST.SKIP file exists, we
   will now create a reasonable default one. [Randy Sims]

 - In Makefile compatibility mode, some arguments (like UNINST,
   TEST_VERBOSE, etc.) given to 'make' are now recognized and passed
   through to Module::Build. [Randy Sims]

 - The regression tests now make sure that several pass-through
   Makefile.PL parameters are dealt with correctly.

 - Added support for the 'LIB' parameter to passthrough
   Makefile.PLs. [Spotted by Jesse Erlbaum]

 - Passing a 'PREFIX' parameter to a passthrough Makefile.PL was
   supposed to make it die with a helpful error message, but instead
   it just ignored it and blindly tried to install to the wrong place.
   This is now fixed.  [Spotted by Jesse Erlbaum]

 - Added an extra_compiler_flags() accessor method.

 - If the 'recursive_test_files' option was turned on, the test files
   weren't sorted, but returned in an apparently random order.  Now
   they're sorted.  [Martyn Peck]

 - Documented the 'tar' and 'gzip' parameters to the 'dist' and
   'ppmdist' actions.

 - The generation of HTML documentation now works (it was accidentally
   partially implemented with an itchy patch-application finger in
   0.24).  [Randy Kobes]

 - Fixed a fatal bug when building META.yml with YAML.pm and
   'dynamic_config' is set. [Reported by Jaap Karssenberg]

 - Fixed some incorrect error messages that occurred when
   compiling/linking C sources went awry.

 - If the author uses a custom builder subclass, that subclass will
   now be loaded correctly in the passthrough Makefile.PL if the
   author uses the 'small' or 'passthrough' Makefile.PL options in
   Module::Build::Compat. [Martyn Peck and Jaap Karssenberg]

 - If the author uses a custom builder subclass created dynamically
   through the subclass() method, passthrough Makefile.PLs (of type
   'passthrough' or 'small') didn't work properly, because the custom
   builder module wouldn't be loaded at the right time.  This has been
   fixed.  [Reported by Toby Ovod-Everett]

 - In M::B-generated 'traditional' Makefile.PLs, the entries in
   'PREREQ_PM' are now sorted ASCIIbetically rather than randomly.

 - The install_types() method will now return any additional types
   given as 'install_path' arguments, as well as all elements of the
   current 'install_sets' entry.  This makes it easier to add new
   types of installable objects to the mix.

 - As a consequence of the previous change, there is no longer any
   need to have an explicit 'install_types' data member, so it has
   been removed.

 - In the second example code for the Module::Build->subclass()
   method, the Module::Build module needed to be loaded before calling
   its methods. [John Peacock]

 - Fixed minor error in the POD structure of Module::Build and
   Module::Build::Platform::VMS docs.


0.24  Wed Feb 25 15:57:00 CST 2004

 - Fixed a problem with incude_dirs not being propagated to the 'ccs'
   file when compiling XS files on Win32. [Randy Sims and Steve Hay]

 - In 0.23, Module::Build::Compat->fake_makefile() started choking
   when no 'build_class' parameter was supplied in the Makefile.PL.
   Since these Makefile.PLs still exist on CPAN, we now default
   'build_class' to 'Module::Build', which was the old 0.22 behavior
   anyway.  [Reported by Martin Titz and Jeremy Seitz]

 - Added documentation for the 'include_dirs' parameter to
   new(). [Steve Hay]

 - Changed the no-op command on Win32 from 'rem' to 'rem>nul' inside
   pass-through Makefiles. [Randy Sims]

 - The 'autosplit' parameter now accepts an array reference if
   multiple files should be split. [Jaap Karssenberg]

 - find_perl_interpreter() will now use $^X (if absolute), $ENV{PATH}
   (if $^X isn't absolute), and $Config{perlpath}, in that order.
   Also, we now make darn sure the result is the same version of perl,
   by checking Config::myconfig() for a match against the current
   perl.  [Reported by Edward Sabol]

 - Fixed a fatal error on Win32 (and any other platform that doesn't
   define an installation location for Unix-style man pages) during
   installation.

0.23  Sun Feb  8 22:01:18 CST 2004

 - Fixed a compatibility problem in pass-through Makefiles (created by
   Module::Build::Compat).  Some 'make' utilities (for example, BSD
   make) didn't like a '@' by itself on a line, so we stole some
   'NOOP' code from MakeMaker to fix it. [Reported by Mathieu Arnold]

 - Added a 'ppm_dist' action, which just makes the PPD file and then
   makes a tarball out of the blib/ directory. [Randy Sims]

 - The @INC of the parent process is now propagated to child processes
   when processing *.PL files. [Reported by Jaap Karssenberg]

 - We now only attempt to fix the shebang line on a script if the
   shebang line matches the regex /perl/i .  This fixes some instances
   where people put shell scripts in their distributions. [Jaap
   Karssenberg]

 - We no longer generate a 'requires', 'recommends', 'conflicts',
   etc. entry in the META.yml file if there's no data to go in it.

 - Added a documentation reference to Michael Schwern's wiki for tips
   on conversion from MakeMaker to M::B. [Randy Sims]

 - If there are script_files, we now add EXE_FILES to the
   'traditional' Makefile.PL generated by M::B::Compat. [Suggested by
   Yuval Kogman]

 - Documented the 'test_files' parameter to new(). [Reported by Tony
   Bowden]

 - Fixed a problem in "Build help <action>", which didn't find the
   correct help chunk if <action> was the final element in a POD
   list. [Jaap Karssenberg]

 - Fixed a problem in the get_action_docs() method which gave
   incorrect results if the method was called more than once in the
   same program.

 - Fixed a problem in which actions defined by user subclasses
   wouldn't be available via the pass-through Makefiles created by
   Module::Build::Compat. [Reported by Jaap Karssenberg]

 - We now use Data::Dumper instead of our own ad-hoc serialization
   routines to create the 'traditional' Makefile.PL
   arguments. [Suggested by Yuval Kojman]

0.22  Sat Jan 10 22:05:39 CST 2004

 - On Unixish platforms, the syntax "FOO=BAR /bin/baz arg arg" now
   works when present in $Config{ld}.  This solves a problem on Mac OS
   X 10.3. [Reported by Adam Foxson]

 - The have_c_compiler() now also tests whether the linker seems to
   work too.

 - Fixed a problem with creating the distribution tarball in which
   permissions would usually be all read-only.  We now use our own
   file-copying routines rather than those in ExtUtils::Manifest,
   because those do some annoying extra permissions-setting stuff for
   no apparent reason.  It makes me happy that this was a very very
   easy patch to make.  [Reported by Thomas Klausner]

 - The compile_c() method now includes $Config{cccdlflags} in its
   command invocation.  It's usually empty, but not always, so we
   didn't notice for a while. [Richard Clamp]

 - On some platforms it's common to have a $Config{make} defined, but
   no 'make' utility actually available.  We now detect this and skip
   some 'make' compatibility tests. [Randy Sims]

 - Fixed a spurious testing failure on non-Unix platforms that
   happened because we accidentally call localize_file_path() on empty
   strings in the test suite. [Spotted by Randy Sims on Windows]

 - Made the 'name', 'abstract', 'author', and 'version' properties
   required when building a PPD file. [Spotted by Randy Sims, Dave
   Rolsky, & Glenn Linderman]

 - When building a 'traditional' Makefile.PL with
   Module::Build::Compat, we now use 'VERSION_FROM' when possible,
   rather than always using 'VERSION'.  This way the Makefile.PL
   doesn't have to get modified every release.

 - Made some fixups to the 'PPM' info-file, improving compatibility
   with ActiveState's PPM tools. [Randy Sims, Glenn Linderman]

 - The 'dist_author' property can now accept multiple authors, see the
   docs for more info. [Randy Sims]

 - If the user doesn't have YAML.pm installed during ACTION_dist, we
   now create a minimal YAML.pm anyway, without any dependency
   information.

 - The 'distribution_type' field is no longer created in META.yml
   files, in accordance with the finding made at the London CLPAN
   meeting that it's essentially meaningless and ill-defined.

 - The 'dist' action now accepts an optional 'tar' parameter to use a
   system utility for building the tarball, and a 'gzip' parameter for
   compressing it.  If these are used, Archive::Tar won't be invoked.
   This was added because Archive::Tar is producing some very
   non-cross-platform tarballs that many tar utilities can't handle.

 - During testing, if YAML.pm isn't installed, then we won't try
   making a tarball either, since this would invoke YAML to create the
   META.yml file.

 - Fixed a problem with chmod() being called incorrectly on MacOS
   (i.e. MacPerl, not Mac OS X).  [Spotted by Paul Sanford Toney]

 - Fixed a problem with the --config flag not being treated properly
   (essentially ignored) on the command line for 'perl Build.PL' or
   'Build <action>'. [Spotted by Jakub Bogusz]

 - Added a new config() method to get at the Build object's notion of
   the %Config hash.

 - Test::Harness is starting to contend for the Most Crotchety Module
   Award.  Work around a few of its nits when setting harness
   switches. [Spotted by Diab Jerius]

 - Now the Build script will die() if we're run from the wrong
   directory, rather than trying to chdir() to what it thinks is the
   right directory and do its work there.  See
   https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=4039 . [Chris Dolan]

 - Changed the manpage separator on OS/2 to '.'. [Ilya Zakharevich]

 - On OS/2, disable C compilation, since apparently it isn't working
   there. [Reported by Ilya Zakharevich]

 - Inserted a comment into auto-generated Makefile.PLs saying it was
   auto-generated. [Randy Sims]

 - Fixed some annoying behavior in generated passthrough Makefile.PLs
   when the user chose not to install Module::Build, or if
   installation failed. [Reported by Ilya Zakharevich and Richard
   Clamp]

 - Moved the documentation for 'codebase' to the section where it's
   relevant. [Randy Sims, Glenn Linderman]

 - Fixed a have_c_compiler() failure on some platforms, we now define
   a boot_compilet() function (since we're compiling a library, not an
   executable). [Randy Sims]

 - Added a recipe to the Module::Build::Cookbook describing how to
   maintain compatibility with older versions of CPAN.pm [Jim Cromie]

 - Removed caveat about "looking for alternatives" in how hashes are
   specified on the command line, since an alternative has been found.

 - Previously most warnings about optional prerequisites looked like
   they were actually error messages about required prerequisites.
   This has been corrected. [Reported again by Sagar Shah]

 - Added support for building XS (and C in general) stuff on AIX.
   This was done by a small reorganization of prelink_c() method from
   Windows.pm to Build.pm, and it is only invoked for the platforms
   that need it invoked.  AIX also massages some very naughty bits
   (MakeMaker macro variables) in $Config{lddlflags} that should never
   have been put there, but alas, they're there, so we find & resolve
   them.

 - Added OS/2 ($^O = 'os2') to the list of Unix-like platforms.  This
   basically means that most platform-specific operations will be done
   in a Unix-like manner.

 - Pass-through Makefiles will now die() when they're given a PREFIX
   parameter, and suggest using 'destdir' or 'install_base' instead.
   Previously they just ignored the parameter and tried to install to
   the default location, which is clearly not what the user wanted.

 - Updated my email address in the documentation to a more recent
   variant.

 - Add NetBSD to the list of Unix-like systems. [Adrian Bunk]

 - Add SVR5 to the list of Unix-like systems. [Rafael Garcia-Suarez]

 - We now use Pod::Parser to find the ABSTRACT and AUTHOR when it's
   available on the system. [initial patch by Randy Sims]

 - Fixed a little scalar/list buglet in a documentation example.

0.21  Wed Oct 15 20:47:05 CDT 2003

 - Added a have_c_compiler() method.

 - Added documentation for the requires(), recommends(),
   build_requires(), and conflicts() methods.

 - On Unix platforms, we now create the "Build" script with a #! line
   matching the perl interpreter that was used to invoke the Build.PL
   script, rather than whatever is in $Config{startperl}.  This avoids
   a potential warning about the interpreters not matching. [Spotted
   by Ken Y. Clark]

 - The Unix version now uses the safer multi-argument form of system()
   when building distribution tarballs.

 - Added a regression test for the 'dist' action to the t/runthrough.t
   test.

 - Fixed a problem with File::Spec usage when creating the names of
   'libdoc' manual pages - the code wasn't dealing with the volume or
   file portions correctly on certain platforms.

 - When creating the names of the 'libdoc' manual pages, we no longer
   assume that pods are under the hard-coded paths 'blib/lib' or
   'blib/arch'.

 - Fixed a crashing bug that could sometimes occur when the
   distribution contained no 'lib' directory. [Chris Dolan]

 - Fixed a crashing bug that happened when the user had .PL files in
   the lib/ directory and didn't explicitly name them in a hash
   reference to the new() constructor. [Chris Reinhardt, bug #4036]

 - .PL files are now passed the names of their target file(s) on the
   command line when they run.

 - When YAML.pm wasn't installed, t/runthrough.t wasn't properly
   skipping some tests that required YAML.  This is now fixed.
   [Stephen J. Smith]

 - Added documentation for the dist_version() and dist_name()
   methods. [Spotted by Johan Vromans]

 - Existing values in $ENV{HARNESS_PERL_SWITCHES} are now respected
   and not squashed when we run the 'test' action. [Paul Johnson]

 - On cygwin, the separator string for manual page names has been set
   to '.'.  Previously it was '::', inherited from Unix. [Yitzchak
   Scott-Thoennes]

 - Avoid a warning when Build.PL is run (i.e. when the new() method is
   called) and no MANIFEST file exists. [Michael Schwern and Kevin
   Ruscoe]

 - Added documentation for the 'code' and 'docs' actions. [Steve
   Purkis and Mark Stosberg]

 - The internal method compile_support_files() has been renamed to
   process_support_files() in order to make it consistent with other
   processing methods.  Note that it was never documented using the
   old name.  It's still not documented, actually.  Maybe later.

 - Skip the 'write' pseudo-entry in the 'diff' action's installation
   map. [Chris Dolan]

 - Fixed a bug in which notes() set in the Build.PL before
   create_build_script() was called would get lost unless more notes()
   were also set afterwards. [Spotted by Dave Rolsky]

 - The process of building elements of the distribution is now driven
   by a list of build elements, paving the way for letting people add
   their own types of build elements in future versions of
   Module::Build (or in the current version with some difficulty).

 - Fixed some linking errors on Cygwin. [Randy Sims, Terrence Brannon]

 - Fixed a line-ending problem with detecting the dist_abstract
   properly on Cygwin. [Randy Sims]

 - Fixed a problem with signatures that occurred if 'distsign' was
   called before 'distdir' - the signature would be generated twice.

 - Added a 'create_readme' parameter to new(), which will use
   Pod::Text to generate a README from the main (dist_version_from)
   module file during the 'distdir' action.

 - We now refuse to run the 'Build' script if it was created using a
   different version of Module::Build.  This has caused a couple of
   nasty bugs in the past, I don't want to know what it would cause in
   the future.

 - Documentation for do_system() has been added. [Dave Rolsky]

 - run_perl_script() is now available as a class method, though it
   will need to (re-)find the perl interpreter in this case.

 - Added a new_from_context() method that authors of automated tools
   like CPANPLUS and CPAN can use instead of running all tasks as
   sub-processes.  We also use it in the regression tests for
   Module::Build itself.  ** Note that this method is currently
   undocumented because its name may change in the future. **

 - When signing distributions with Module::Signature, we now
   automatically add the SIGNATURE file to the MANIFEST, avoiding an
   unpleasant chicken/egg problem for the module author.
   [unpleasantness spotted by sungo]

 - In Module::Build::Compat, added support for the 'verbose' parameter
   to Makefile.PL [spotted by Soren Andersen, fixed by Michael
   Schwern]

 - The Module::Build distribution now has a cryptographic 'SIGNATURE'
   file created by Module::Signature.

 - Added proper documentation for the subclass() method. [spotted by
   Jonathan Steinert]

 - Worked around a Config.pm bug in Red Hat 9 which prevented man
   pages from being installed in the correct places. [spotted by Ville
   Skytta]

 - Fixed a Module::Build::Compat bug in which setting INSTALLDIRS
   caused a crash. [spotted by Ilya Martynov]

0.20  Tue Aug 26 14:34:07 CDT 2003

 - Separated the 'build' action into two separate actions, 'code' and
   'docs'.  This is similar to MakeMaker's separation of the 'all'
   target into 'pure_all' and 'manifypods'.  This fixes a permissions
   hassle in which doing 'sudo Build install' would often create local
   doc files that needed superuser permissions to delete.

 - Enhanced the 'help' action - 'Build help foo' will now show the POD
   documentation for the 'foo' action.

 - Added a notes() feature, which helps share data transparently
   between the Build.PL and t/*.t scripts.

 - The installation process will now create man(1) and man(3) pages
   from POD in modules & scripts, and install them.  We don't build
   man pages when there's nowhere to install them, such as on some
   Win32 or most Mac systems.  [large patch by Steve Purkis, 5.005 fix
   by Mathieu Arnold]

 - The 'distdir' action now copies files to the distribution
   directory, rather than making them hard links to the original
   files.  This allows authors to do last-minute alterations of the
   files without affecting the originals. [Dave Rolsky]

 - If the author uses XS files in nonstandard locations, the copied
   versions of those files will now be cleaned up properly.

 - In invoking the 'test' action or invoking 'xsubpp', we now use the
   same perl executable as we use everywhere else, rather than blindly
   using $^X or $Config{perlpath} (neither of which are very
   reliable).

 - Fixed a problem with the 'install_path' parameter given to
   'Build.PL' being lost in subsequent actions. [Reported by Mathieu
   Arnold]

 - Fixed yet another bug with installation directories, in which the
   'install_base' parameter wasn't being respected on the command
   line.  [Spotted by Jonathan Swartz]

 - Changed the way the depends_on() method works inside action
   subroutines - now each action will only run once per dispatch()
   invocation (similar to how perl's require() function works).  This
   helps avoid some difficult problems with dependency loops.

 - Changed the documentation for the 'autosplit' parameter to give
   reasons why it may not be a good idea to use, but no longer
   threaten to remove it.  [Suggested by Martyn J. Pearce]

 - Improved the formatting of the 'traditional' Makefile.PL generated
   by Module::Build::Compat->create_makefile_pl. [Michael Schwern]

 - The 'traditional' Makefile.PL will now use the 'module_name'
   parameter (as NAME) if it's available, otherwise it will continue
   to use the 'dist_name' (as DISTNAME). [Michael Schwern]

 - Created read/write accessor methods for all our 'properties'.
   [Michael Schwern]

 - The 'test_files' parameter can now be specified using glob() syntax
   (i.e. 't/*.t'), and the corresponding test_files() method is now a
   read/write accessor.

 - The location of the 'blib' directory is now a property of the Build
   object - nobody is likely to notice this change, with any luck, but
   it makes the design and code cleaner.

 - The 'disttest' and 'distsign' methods now chdir() back to the
   directory where they started, rather than to the base_dir of the
   build.

 - Improved comparisons of version strings containing underscore
   characters (indicating "beta" status). [Steve Purkis]

 - Added documentation for the 'dist_author', 'dist_abstract', and
   'codebase' parameters to new(), and for the 'ppd' action. [Dave
   Rolsky]

 - Added documentation for the up_to_date() and contains_pod()
   methods. [Dave Rolsky]

 - 'traditional' pass-through Makefile.PLs will now contain an
   INSTALLDIRS parameter matching the Build.PL's 'installdirs'
   setting.

 - version_from_file() now ignores $VERSION variables that are defined
   in POD or comments.  It can still be tricked by $VERSIONs in string
   literals, though.  [Steve Purkis]

 - The code to find packages in module files now uses Steve's scanning
   method (above) to skip package-declaration-lookalikes in POD or
   comments.

 - The 'disttest' action will now propagate its @INC settings to its
   subprocesses.

0.19  Wed Jul  9 22:34:02 CDT 2003

 - Added support for the 'install_path' parameter, which allows custom
   specification of where things should be installed.  This is a major
   improvement to Module::Build's functionality.

 - Added the 'install_base' parameter.  Provides an easy way to
   install to local or alternative directory trees.

 - We now install scripts by default to $Config{installsitebin}
   instead of $Config{installscript}.  Neither is a great choice, but
   the former is likely to be [analogous to] /usr/local/bin, and the
   latter is likely to be [something like] /usr/bin .  If/when there's
   a $Config{installsitescript}, we'll start using that automatically.

 - Fixed a problem on Win32 in which C and XS files wouldn't be
   compiled properly, and the user would see an error about 'Can't
   locate object method "format_compiler_cmd"'.
   (http://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=2391)

 - We now use the correct perl interpreter (via
   Module::Build->find_perl_interpreter) in pass-through makefiles.

 - The t/compat.t test now uses $Config{make} instead of just 'make'
   to test makefile compatibility.  This fixes some failures on Win32.
   We also skip this test entirely if no make utility is available.

 - Alternative distribution layouts are now supported via the
   'pm_files', 'pod_files', 'xs_files', 'PL_files', and 'script_files'
   parameters to new().  This should help people transition from
   MakeMaker, and might even help us write an automatic transition
   tool.

 - Added tests to t/runthrough.t that check to see installation is
   happening correctly.

 - Added experimental code to build a .ppd file, in support of
   ActiveState's "Perl Package Manager". [original patch by Dave
   Rolsky]
 
 - For authors who use Module::Signature to sign their distributions,
   we now create the SIGNATURE file right in the distribution
   directory, rather than creating it in the top-level directory and
   copying it into place.  This solves problems related to having
   files get out of date with respect to their signatures.
 
 - We now don't depend on Module::Info to scan for packages during the
   'dist' action anymore, because it's way too aggressive about
   loading other modules that you may not want loaded.  We now just
   (ick, yuck) scan the .pm files with a regular expression to find
   "package Foo::Bar;" statements.

 - Silenced some annoying copyright/logo output from Microsoft 'nmake'
   during Makefile compatibility testing. [Randy W. Sims]

 - Command-line arguments may now either be specified using the syntax
   '--foo foovalue' as well as the traditional syntax 'foo=foovalue'.
   The former is often more convenient for shell tab-completion when
   the value is a filename (as in 'Build test --test_files t/basic.t').

 - Command-line arguments may now include non-named parameters, which
   make some actions more natural.  For instance, the 'diff' action
   may now be invoked as 'Build diff -u' rather than as
   'Build diff flags=-u'.

 - Pass-through Makefile.PLs now convert unknown Makefile.PL
   parameters to lower-case and hand them to Build.PL, rather than
   ignoring them.  This means we only have to account for the
   differences in the interface, not the entire interface, in
   translating parameters.

 - We now issue a warning & don't proceed if asked to make a distdir
   and there's no MANIFEST or it's empty.

 - Moved INSTALL to INSTALL.txt to increase compatibility with various
   odd versions of 'make' during 'make install' on case-insensitive
   filesystems (like nmake on Win32, often).  Only affects the
   Makefile compatibility layer.  [reported by Andrew Savige]

 - Module::Build->known_actions() now works as a class method.

 - Pass-through makefiles now list each action individually rather
   than using a ".DEFAULT" catch-all.  This improves compatibility
   with 'nmake' on Win32, and probably some other less common 'make'
   dialects.  [Andrew Savige]

 - We're now more aggressive about testing the pass-through makefiles,
   e.g. making sure they can run 'all' and 'test' targets, and making
   sure the Makefile itself actually exists.

 - Fixed a problem with check_installed_status() when installed
   version contains non-numeric characters like underscores.

 - Fixed a problem with a bareword 'File::Spec' in one of the test
   scripts that caused it not to compile under 5.8.0 (but is fine
   under 5.6).

 - Fixed a problem with the 'destdir' installation parameter on
   platforms that have volume identifiers in path names (like "C:" on
   Win32).  The identifier is now stripped from installation
   directories before prepending the destdir path.  The destdir path
   may still have a volume identifier on it.

 - Added an 'add_to_cleanup' parameter to new() that calls
   add_to_cleanup() immediately for the given files.

 - The distribution directory (e.g. Sample-Module-0.13/ ) will now be
   deleted during the 'clean' or 'realclean' actions.
 
 - During testing of modules, blib/lib and blib/arch are now added as
   absolute paths, not relative.  This helps tests that load the
   modules at runtime and may change the current working directory
   (like Module::Build itself does during testing).
 
 - The $Config{cc} entry on some people's systems is something like
   'ccache gcc', so we now split that string using split_like_shell().
   [Richard Clamp]

 - Added documentation for 'extra_linker_flags' parameter, and added a
   corresponding 'extra_compiler_flags' parameter. [original patch by
   Richard Clamp]