3 # This module doesn't do much of anything itself, it inherits from the
4 # modules that do the real work. The only real thing it has to do is
5 # figure out which OS-specific module to pull in. Many of the
6 # OS-specific modules don't do anything either - most of the work is
7 # done in Module::Build::Base.
12 use File::Basename ();
15 use Module::Build::Base;
17 use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);
18 @ISA = qw(Module::Build::Base);
20 $VERSION = eval $VERSION;
23 # Inserts the given module into the @ISA hierarchy between
24 # Module::Build and its immediate parent
25 sub _interpose_module {
26 my ($self, $mod) = @_;
32 while (@{"${top_class}::ISA"}) {
33 last if ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0] eq $ISA[0];
34 $top_class = ${"${top_class}::ISA"}[0];
37 @{"${top_class}::ISA"} = @ISA;
41 if (grep {-e File::Spec->catfile($_, qw(Module Build Platform), $^O) . '.pm'} @INC) {
42 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$^O");
44 } elsif ( my $ostype = os_type() ) {
45 __PACKAGE__->_interpose_module("Module::Build::Platform::$ostype");
48 warn "Unknown OS type '$^O' - using default settings\n";
51 sub os_type { return Perl::OSType::os_type() }
53 sub is_vmsish { return Perl::OSType::is_os_type('VMS') }
54 sub is_windowsish { return Perl::OSType::is_os_type('Windows') }
55 sub is_unixish { return Perl::OSType::is_os_type('Unix') }
62 bindoc binhtml destdir distcheck distclean distdir distmeta distsign disttest
63 fakeinstall html installdirs installsitebin installsitescript installvendorbin
64 installvendorscript libdoc libhtml pardist ppd ppmdist realclean skipcheck
65 testall testcover testdb testpod testpodcoverage versioninstall
69 Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
73 Standard process for building & installing modules:
80 Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
81 the "./" notation, you can do this:
91 C<Module::Build> is a system for building, testing, and installing
92 Perl modules. It is meant to be an alternative to
93 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. Developers may alter the behavior of the
94 module through subclassing in a much more straightforward way than
95 with C<MakeMaker>. It also does not require a C<make> on your system
96 - most of the C<Module::Build> code is pure-perl and written in a very
97 cross-platform way. In fact, you don't even need a shell, so even
98 platforms like MacOS (traditional) can use it fairly easily. Its only
99 prerequisites are modules that are included with perl 5.6.0, and it
100 works fine on perl 5.005 if you can install a few additional modules.
102 See L<"MOTIVATIONS"> for more comparisons between C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
103 and C<Module::Build>.
105 To install C<Module::Build>, and any other module that uses
106 C<Module::Build> for its installation process, do the following:
108 perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
109 ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
110 ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
113 This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
114 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
115 action), 'test', and 'install'. Other actions defined so far include:
123 distcheck prereq_data
124 distclean prereq_report
126 distinstall realclean
131 fakeinstall testcover
134 install testpodcoverage
135 installdeps versioninstall
137 You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
140 =head1 GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION
142 The documentation for C<Module::Build> is broken up into sections:
146 =item General Usage (L<Module::Build>)
148 This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
149 usage and background information. Its main purpose is to assist the
150 user who wants to learn how to invoke and control C<Module::Build>
151 scripts at the command line.
153 =item Authoring Reference (L<Module::Build::Authoring>)
155 This document describes the structure and organization of
156 C<Module::Build>, and the relevant concepts needed by authors who are
157 writing F<Build.PL> scripts for a distribution or controlling
158 C<Module::Build> processes programmatically.
160 =item API Reference (L<Module::Build::API>)
162 This is a reference to the C<Module::Build> API.
164 =item Cookbook (L<Module::Build::Cookbook>)
166 This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks. It
167 covers general command line usage and authoring of F<Build.PL>
168 scripts. Includes working examples.
175 There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when
176 building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed
177 above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing,
178 packaging, etc., tasks.
180 Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments
181 are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at C<perl Build.PL>
182 time (i.e. C<perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place>), in which case
183 their values last for the lifetime of the C<Build> script. They may
184 also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e.
185 C<Build test verbose=1>), in which case their values last only for the
186 lifetime of that command. Per-action command line parameters take
187 precedence over parameters specified at C<perl Build.PL> time.
189 The build process also relies heavily on the C<Config.pm> module.
190 If the user wishes to override any of the
191 values in C<Config.pm>, she may specify them like so:
193 perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
195 The following build actions are provided by default.
203 If you run the C<Build> script without any arguments, it runs the
204 C<build> action, which in turn runs the C<code> and C<docs> actions.
206 This is analogous to the C<MakeMaker> I<make all> target.
212 This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
213 created, including the C<blib/> directory (but not including the
214 C<_build/> directory and the C<Build> script itself).
220 This action builds your code base.
222 By default it just creates a C<blib/> directory and copies any C<.pm>
223 and C<.pod> files from your C<lib/> directory into the C<blib/>
224 directory. It also compiles any C<.xs> files from C<lib/> and places
225 them in C<blib/>. Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably
226 the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation to work
229 The C<code> action also runs any C<.PL> files in your F<lib/>
230 directory. Typically these create other files, named the same but
231 without the C<.PL> ending. For example, a file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL>
232 could create the file F<lib/Foo/Bar.pm>. The C<.PL> files are
233 processed first, so any C<.pm> files (or other kinds that we deal
234 with) will get copied correctly.
246 This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
247 installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown
248 (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For
249 other files like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they
252 A C<flags> parameter may be passed to the action, which will be passed
253 to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the
254 parameters it will accept - a good one is C<-u>:
256 ./Build diff flags=-u
262 This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their
263 module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create a
264 tarball of the files listed in F<MANIFEST> and compress the tarball using
267 By default, this action will use the C<Archive::Tar> module. However, you can
268 force it to use binary "tar" and "gzip" executables by supplying an explicit
269 C<tar> (and optional C<gzip>) parameter:
271 ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
277 Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
278 F<MANIFEST> file, and vice versa. (See L<manifest> for details.)
284 Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
290 Creates a "distribution directory" named C<$dist_name-$dist_version>
291 (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
292 copies all the files listed in the F<MANIFEST> file to that directory.
293 This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
299 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and runs a
300 C<perl Build.PL>, followed by the 'build' and 'install' actions in that
301 directory. Use PERL_MB_OPT or F<.modulebuildrc> to set options that should be
302 applied during subprocesses
308 Creates the F<META.yml> file that describes the distribution.
310 F<META.yml> is a file containing various bits of I<metadata> about the
311 distribution. The metadata includes the distribution name, version,
312 abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data about the
313 distribution. This file is created as F<META.yml> in a simplified YAML format.
315 F<META.yml> file must also be listed in F<MANIFEST> - if it's not, a
316 warning will be issued.
318 The current version of the F<META.yml> specification can be found
319 on CPAN as L<CPAN::Meta::Spec>.
325 Uses C<Module::Signature> to create a SIGNATURE file for your
326 distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
333 Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and runs a
334 C<perl Build.PL>, followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in that directory.
335 Use PERL_MB_OPT or F<.modulebuildrc> to set options that should be applied
343 This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and HTML
344 documents) for any installable items under B<blib/> that
345 contain POD. If there are no C<bindoc> or C<libdoc> installation
346 targets defined (as will be the case on systems that don't support
347 Unix manpages) no action is taken for manpages. If there are no
348 C<binhtml> or C<libhtml> installation targets defined no action is
349 taken for HTML documents.
355 This is just like the C<install> action, but it won't actually do
356 anything, it will just report what it I<would> have done if you had
357 actually run the C<install> action.
363 This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you
364 use the build process. It will show you a list of available build
367 With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. C<Build help
368 test>), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation it can
369 find for that action.
375 This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library files
376 under B<blib/> that contain POD. The HTML documentation will only be
377 installed if the install paths can be determined from values in
378 C<Config.pm>. You can also supply or override install paths on the
379 command line by specifying C<install_path> values for the C<binhtml>
380 and/or C<libhtml> installation targets.
386 This action will use C<ExtUtils::Install> to install the files from
387 C<blib/> into the system. See L<"INSTALL PATHS">
388 for details about how Module::Build determines where to install
389 things, and how to influence this process.
391 If you want the installation process to look around in C<@INC> for
392 other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
393 you can use the C<uninst> parameter, which tells C<ExtUtils::Install> to
396 ./Build install uninst=1
398 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
399 module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
406 This action will use the C<cpan_client> parameter as a command to install
407 missing prerequisites. You will be prompted whether to install
408 optional dependencies.
410 The C<cpan_client> option defaults to 'cpan' but can be set as an option or in
411 F<.modulebuildrc>. It must be a shell command that takes a list of modules to
412 install as arguments (e.g. 'cpanp -i' for CPANPLUS). If the program part is a
413 relative path (e.g. 'cpan' or 'cpanp'), it will be located relative to the perl
414 program that executed Build.PL.
416 /opt/perl/5.8.9/bin/perl Build.PL
417 ./Build installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
424 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
425 installing modules. It will bring the F<MANIFEST> up to date with the
426 files currently present in the distribution. You may use a
427 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file to exclude certain files or directories from
428 inclusion in the F<MANIFEST>. F<MANIFEST.SKIP> should contain a bunch
429 of regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution
430 directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be included
433 The following is a reasonable F<MANIFEST.SKIP> starting point, you can
434 add your own stuff to it:
444 See the L<distcheck> and L<skipcheck> actions if you want to find out
445 what the C<manifest> action would do, without actually doing anything.
451 This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
452 installing modules. It will generate a boilerplate MANIFEST.SKIP file
453 if one does not already exist.
459 This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
460 B<blib/> that contain POD. The man pages will only be installed if the
461 install paths can be determined from values in C<Config.pm>. You can
462 also supply or override install paths by specifying there values on
463 the command line with the C<bindoc> and C<libdoc> installation
470 Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with L<PAR> or L<PAR::Dist>.
472 It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is
473 installed on your system.
479 Build a PPD file for your distribution.
481 This action takes an optional argument C<codebase> which is used in
482 the generated PPD file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
483 distribution. By default, this value is the distribution name without
484 any path information.
488 ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
494 Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file. This
495 action also invokes the C<ppd> action, so it can accept the same
496 C<codebase> argument described under that action.
498 This uses the same mechanism as the C<dist> action to tar & zip its
499 output, so you can supply C<tar> and/or C<gzip> parameters to affect
506 This action prints out a Perl data structure of all prerequisites and the versions
507 required. The output can be loaded again using C<eval()>. This can be useful for
508 external tools that wish to query a Build script for prerequisites.
514 This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and
515 the versions actually installed. This can be useful for reviewing the
516 configuration of your system prior to a build, or when compiling data to send
523 This action is identical to the C<install> action. In the future,
524 though, when C<install> starts writing to the file
525 F<$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod>, C<pure_install> won't, and that
526 will be the only difference between them.
532 This action is just like the C<clean> action, but also removes the
533 C<_build> directory and the C<Build> script. If you run the
534 C<realclean> action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
535 have to re-create the C<Build> script again.
541 This is just like the C<test> action, but doesn't actually build the
542 distribution first, and doesn't add F<blib/> to the load path, and
543 therefore will test against a I<previously> installed version of the
544 distribution. This can be used to verify that a certain installed
545 distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
546 distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
552 Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
553 F<MANIFEST.SKIP> file (See L<manifest> for details)
559 This will use C<Test::Harness> or C<TAP::Harness> to run any regression
560 tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in the standard
561 places: a file called C<test.pl> in the top-level directory, or several
562 files ending with C<.t> in a C<t/> directory.
564 If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution
565 rather than just summary information, pass the argument C<verbose=1>.
567 If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
570 If you want to have Module::Build find test files with different file
571 name extensions, pass the C<test_file_exts> argument with an array
572 of extensions, such as C<[qw( .t .s .z )]>.
574 If you want test to be run by C<TAP::Harness>, rather than C<Test::Harness>,
575 pass the argument C<tap_harness_args> as an array reference of arguments to
576 pass to the TAP::Harness constructor.
578 In addition, if a file called C<visual.pl> exists in the top-level
579 directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output
580 will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or
581 other tests that don't use the C<Test::Harness> format for output.
583 To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a C<test_files>
584 argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts to
585 run. This is especially useful in development, when you only want to
586 run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain bug yet:
588 ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
590 You may also pass several C<test_files> arguments separately:
592 ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
594 or use a C<glob()>-style pattern:
596 ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
602 [Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are currently
604 L<"http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html"> ]
606 Runs the C<test> action plus each of the C<test$type> actions defined by
607 the keys of the C<test_types> parameter.
609 Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself and
610 enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
612 my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
614 sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
615 sub ACTION_testauthor { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
621 author => ['.at', '.pt' ],
629 Runs the C<test> action using C<Devel::Cover>, generating a
630 code-coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
631 exercised during the tests.
633 To pass options to C<Devel::Cover>, set the C<$DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS>
634 environment variable:
636 DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
642 This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the C<debugger=1>
649 This checks all the files described in the C<docs> action and
650 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
651 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
653 =item testpodcoverage
657 This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and
658 produces C<Test::Harness>-style output. If you are a module author,
659 this is useful to run before creating a new release.
665 ** Note: since C<only.pm> is so new, and since we just recently added
666 support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
669 If you have the C<only.pm> module installed on your system, you can
670 use this action to install a module into the version-specific library
671 trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same
672 module installed and C<use> a specific one like this:
674 use only MyModule => 0.55;
676 To override the default installation libraries in C<only::config>,
677 specify the C<versionlib> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
679 perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
681 To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
682 C<version> parameter when you run the C<Build.PL> script:
684 perl Build.PL --version 0.50
686 See the C<only.pm> documentation for more information on
687 version-specific installs.
694 =head2 Command Line Options
696 The following options can be used during any invocation of C<Build.PL>
697 or the Build script, during any action. For information on other
698 options specific to an action, see the documentation for the
701 NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
702 familiar long option style. Most options can be preceded with the
703 C<--> long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes
704 (e.g. C<--use-rcfile>). Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
705 optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
706 C<no> or C<no-> (e.g. C<--noverbose> or C<--no-verbose>).
712 Suppress informative messages on output.
716 Display extra information about the Build on output. C<verbose> will
721 Sets the C<cpan_client> command for use with the C<installdeps> action.
722 See C<installdeps> for more details.
726 Load the F<~/.modulebuildrc> option file. This option can be set to
727 false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
729 =item allow_mb_mismatch
731 Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of Module::Build
732 we're now running under is the same version that was initially invoked
733 when building the distribution (i.e. when the C<Build.PL> script was
734 first run). As of 0.3601, a mismatch results in a warning instead of
735 a fatal error, so this option effectively just suppresses the warning.
739 Prints Module::Build debugging information to STDOUT, such as a trace of
740 executed build actions.
744 =head2 Default Options File (F<.modulebuildrc>)
748 When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
749 F<$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc>. If it's not found there, it will look
750 in the the F<.modulebuildrc> file in the directories referred to by
751 the environment variables C<HOMEDRIVE> + C<HOMEDIR>, C<USERPROFILE>,
752 C<APPDATA>, C<WINDIR>, C<SYS$LOGIN>. If the file exists, the options
753 specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
754 command line. The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
757 The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
758 amount of whitespace and then the options. Options are given the same
759 as they would be on the command line. They can be separated by any
760 amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace at
761 the beginning of each continued line. Anything following a hash mark (C<#>)
762 is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing. If more than
763 one line begins with the same action name, those lines are merged into
766 Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
767 key C<*> (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied
768 to all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
769 when you invoke C<perl Build.PL>.
771 * verbose=1 # global options
773 install --install_base /home/ken
774 --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
775 installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
777 If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
778 can set the environment variable C<MODULEBUILDRC> to the complete
779 absolute path of the file containing your options.
781 =head2 Environment variables
789 Specifies an alternate location for a default options file as described above.
795 Command line options that are applied to Build.PL or any Build action. The
796 string is split as the shell would (e.g. whitespace) and the result is
797 prepended to any actual command-line arguments.
805 When you invoke Module::Build's C<build> action, it needs to figure
806 out where to install things. The nutshell version of how this works
807 is that default installation locations are determined from
808 F<Config.pm>, and they may be overridden by using the C<install_path>
809 parameter. An C<install_base> parameter lets you specify an
810 alternative installation root like F</home/foo>, and a C<destdir> lets
811 you specify a temporary installation directory like F</tmp/install> in
812 case you want to create bundled-up installable packages.
814 Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for
815 the following types of installable items:
821 Usually pure-Perl module files ending in F<.pm>.
825 "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by compiling
826 XS, L<Inline>, or similar code.
830 Programs written in pure Perl. In order to improve reuse, try to make
831 these as small as possible - put the code into modules whenever
836 "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code or
837 something. Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but it
842 Documentation for the stuff in C<script> and C<bin>. Usually
843 generated from the POD in those files. Under Unix, these are manual
844 pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
848 Documentation for the stuff in C<lib> and C<arch>. This is usually
849 generated from the POD in F<.pm> files. Under Unix, these are manual
850 pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
854 This is the same as C<bindoc> above, but applies to HTML documents.
858 This is the same as C<libdoc> above, but applies to HTML documents.
862 Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
863 installation paths are determined:
869 The default destinations for these installable things come from
870 entries in your system's C<Config.pm>. You can select from three
871 different sets of default locations by setting the C<installdirs>
872 parameter as follows:
874 'installdirs' set to:
877 uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
879 lib => installprivlib installsitelib installvendorlib
880 arch => installarchlib installsitearch installvendorarch
881 script => installscript installsitescript installvendorscript
882 bin => installbin installsitebin installvendorbin
883 bindoc => installman1dir installsiteman1dir installvendorman1dir
884 libdoc => installman3dir installsiteman3dir installvendorman3dir
885 binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
886 libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
888 * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for HTML documents is
889 determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
891 The default value of C<installdirs> is "site". If you're creating
892 vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do something
895 perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
899 ./Build install --installdirs vendor
901 If you're installing an updated version of a module that was included
902 with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
903 C<installdirs> to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
906 (Note that the 'script' line is different from C<MakeMaker> -
907 unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
908 "installvendorscript" entry in C<Config.pm>, so we use the
909 "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
910 general location right. In the future, if C<Config.pm> adds some more
911 appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
915 Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
917 On the command line, that would look like this:
919 perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
923 ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
927 You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying the
928 C<install_base> parameter to point to a directory on your system. For
929 instance, if you set C<install_base> to "/home/ken" on a Linux
930 system, you'll install as follows:
932 lib => /home/ken/lib/perl5
933 arch => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
934 script => /home/ken/bin
936 bindoc => /home/ken/man/man1
937 libdoc => /home/ken/man/man3
938 binhtml => /home/ken/html
939 libhtml => /home/ken/html
941 Note that this is I<different> from how C<MakeMaker>'s C<PREFIX>
942 parameter works. C<install_base> just gives you a default layout under the
943 directory you specify, which may have little to do with the
944 C<installdirs=site> layout.
946 The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system -
947 we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
951 If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
952 (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a package
953 manager like C<rpm> or C<dpkg> could create a package from), you can
954 use the C<destdir> parameter:
956 perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
960 ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
962 This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
963 "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
964 C<File::Spec> to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
965 platform you're installing on.
969 Provided for compatibility with C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>'s PREFIX argument.
970 C<prefix> should be used when you want Module::Build to install your
971 modules, documentation, and scripts in the same place as
972 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>'s PREFIX mechanism.
974 The following are equivalent.
976 perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
977 perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
979 Because of the complex nature of the prefixification logic, the
980 behavior of PREFIX in C<MakeMaker> has changed subtly over time.
981 Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic found
982 in C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> 6.30.
984 The maintainers of C<MakeMaker> do understand the troubles with the
985 PREFIX mechanism, and added INSTALL_BASE support in version 6.31 of
986 C<MakeMaker>, which was released in 2006.
988 If you don't need to retain compatibility with old versions (pre-6.31) of C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker> or
989 are starting a fresh Perl installation we recommend you use
990 C<install_base> instead (and C<INSTALL_BASE> in C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>).
991 See L<Module::Build::Cookbook/Installing in the same location as
992 ExtUtils::MakeMaker> for further information.
1000 There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix
1001 what I didn't like about C<MakeMaker>:
1007 I don't like the core idea of C<MakeMaker>, namely that C<make> should be
1008 involved in the build process. Here are my reasons:
1014 When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume about
1015 their environment? Can you assume they have C<make>? No, but you can
1016 assume they have some version of Perl.
1020 When a person is writing a Perl module for intended distribution, can
1021 you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so they can
1022 customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know Perl,
1023 and could customize that way.
1027 For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
1028 build/install process to do what they want.
1032 There are several architectural decisions in C<MakeMaker> that make it
1033 very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when using
1034 C<MakeMaker> you do C<use ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, but the object created in
1035 C<WriteMakefile()> is actually blessed into a package name that's
1036 created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
1037 C<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>. There is a workaround C<MY> package that lets
1038 you override certain C<MakeMaker> methods, but only certain explicitly
1039 preselected (by C<MakeMaker>) methods can be overridden. Also, the method
1040 of customization is very crude: you have to modify a string containing
1041 the Makefile text for the particular target. Since these strings
1042 aren't documented, and I<can't> be documented (they take on different
1043 values depending on the platform, version of perl, version of
1044 C<MakeMaker>, etc.), you have no guarantee that your modifications will
1045 work on someone else's machine or after an upgrade of C<MakeMaker> or
1050 It is risky to make major changes to C<MakeMaker>, since it does so many
1051 things, is so important, and generally works. C<Module::Build> is an
1052 entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I want, without
1053 worrying about backward compatibility with C<MakeMaker>.
1057 Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
1058 Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of building
1059 and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of
1060 C<.pm> files that just need to be copied from one place to
1061 another? My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish
1062 this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner. Or die trying.
1069 The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
1070 derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
1071 requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
1072 NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5
1073 signature or the like, if available. See C<cons> for an example.
1075 - append to perllocal.pod
1076 - add a 'plugin' functionality
1081 Ken Williams <kwilliams@cpan.org>
1083 Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
1084 Module-Build mailing list at <module-build@perl.org>.
1086 Bug reports are also welcome at
1087 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>.
1089 The latest development version is available from the Git
1090 repository at <https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/Module-Build>
1095 Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
1097 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
1098 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
1103 perl(1), L<Module::Build::Cookbook>, L<Module::Build::Authoring>,
1104 L<Module::Build::API>, L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>
1106 F<META.yml> Specification:
1109 L<http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>
1111 L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>