NAME Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules SYNOPSIS Standard process for building & installing modules: perl Build.PL ./Build ./Build test ./Build install Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't like the "./" notation, you can do this: perl Build.PL perl Build perl Build test perl Build install DESCRIPTION This is a beta version of a new module I've been working on, "Module::Build". It is meant to be a replacement for "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". To install "Module::Build", and any other module that uses "Module::Build" for its installation process, do the following: perl Build.PL # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script ./Build # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script ./Build test # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH ./Build install This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three 'actions'. In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default action), 'test', and 'install'. Actions defined so far include: build help clean install diff manifest dist manifypods distcheck realclean distclean skipcheck distdir test distsign testdb disttest versioninstall fakeinstall You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions. When creating a "Build.PL" script for a module, something like the following code will typically be used: use Module::Build; my $build = new Module::Build ( module_name => 'Foo::Bar', license => 'perl', requires => { perl => '5.6.1', Some::Module => '1.23', Other::Module => '>= 1.2, != 1.5, < 2.0', }, ); $build->create_build_script; A simple module could get away with something as short as this for its "Build.PL" script: use Module::Build; Module::Build->new( module_name => 'Foo::Bar', license => 'perl', )->create_build_script; The model used by "Module::Build" is a lot like the "MakeMaker" metaphor, with the following correspondences: In ExtUtils::MakeMaker In Module::Build ------------------------ --------------------------- Makefile.PL (initial script) Build.PL (initial script) Makefile (a long Makefile) Build (a short perl script) _build/ (for saving state info) Any customization can be done simply by subclassing "Module::Build" and adding a method called (for example) "ACTION_test", overriding the default 'test' action. You could also add a method called "ACTION_whatever", and then you could perform the action "Build whatever". For information on providing backward compatibility with "ExtUtils::MakeMaker", see the Module::Build::Compat manpage. METHODS I list here some of the most important methods in "Module::Build". Normally you won't need to deal with these methods unless you want to subclass "Module::Build". But since one of the reasons I created this module in the first place was so that subclassing is possible (and easy), I will certainly write more docs as the interface stabilizes. new() Creates a new Module::Build object. Arguments to the new() method are listed below. Most arguments are optional, but you must provide either the "module_name" argument, or "dist_name" and one of "dist_version" or "dist_version_from". In other words, you must provide enough information to determine both a distribution name and version. module_name The "module_name" is a shortcut for setting default values of "dist_name" and "dist_version_from", reflecting the fact that the majority of CPAN distributions are centered around one "main" module. For instance, if you set "module_name" to "Foo::Bar", then "dist_name" will default to "Foo-Bar" and "dist_version_from" will default to "lib/Foo/Bar.pm". "dist_version_from" will in turn be used to set "dist_version". Setting "module_name" won't override a "dist_*" parameter you specify explicitly. dist_name Specifies the name for this distribution. Most authors won't need to set this directly, they can use "module_name" to set "dist_name" to a reasonable default. However, some agglomerative distributions like "libwww-perl" or "bioperl" have names that don't correspond directly to a module name, so "dist_name" can be set independently. dist_version Specifies a version number for the distribution. See "module_name" or "dist_version_from" for ways to have this set automatically from a "$VERSION" variable in a module. One way or another, a version number needs to be set. dist_version_from Specifies a file to look for the distribution version in. Most authors won't need to set this directly, they can use "module_name" to set it to a reasonable default. The version is extracted from the specified file according to the same rules as "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" and "CPAN.pm". It involves finding the first line that matches the regular expression /([\$*])(([\w\:\']*)\bVERSION)\b.*\=/ , eval()-ing that line, then checking the value of the "$VERSION" variable. Quite ugly, really, but all the modules on CPAN depend on this process, so there's no real opportunity to change to something better. license Specifies the licensing terms of your distribution. Valid options include: perl The distribution may be copied and redistributed under the same terms as perl itself (this is by far the most common licensing option for modules on CPAN). This is a dual license, in which the user may choose between either the GPL or the Artistic license. gpl The distribution is distributed under the terms of the Gnu Public License. artistic The distribution is licensed under the Artistic License, as specified by the Artistic file in the standard perl distribution. restrictive The distribution may not be redistributed without special arrangement with the author. Note that you must still include the terms of your license in your documentation - this field only lets automated tools figure out your licensing restrictions. Humans still need something to read. It is a fatal error to use a license other than the ones mentioned above. This is not because I wish to impose licensing terms on you - please let me know if you would like another license option to be added to the list. You may also use a license type of "unknown" if you don't wish to specify your terms (but this is usually not a good idea for you to do!). I just started out with a small set of licenses to keep things simple, figuring I'd let people with actual working knowledge in this area tell me what to do. So if that's you, drop me a line. requires An optional "requires" argument specifies any module prerequisites that the current module depends on. The prerequisites are given in a hash reference, where the keys are the module names and the values are version specifiers: requires => {Foo::Module => '2.4', Bar::Module => 0, Ken::Module => '>= 1.2, != 1.5, < 2.0', perl => '5.6.0'}, These four version specifiers have different effects. The value "'2.4'" means that at least version 2.4 of "Foo::Module" must be installed. The value "0" means that any version of "Bar::Module" is acceptable, even if "Bar::Module" doesn't define a version. The more verbose value "'>= 1.2, != 1.5, < 2.0'" means that "Ken::Module"'s version must be at least 1.2, less than 2.0, and not equal to 1.5. The list of criteria is separated by commas, and all criteria must be satisfied. A special "perl" entry lets you specify the versions of the Perl interpreter that are supported by your module. The same version dependency-checking semantics are available, except that we also understand perl's new double-dotted version numbers. One note: currently "Module::Build" doesn't actually *require* the user to have dependencies installed, it just strongly urges. In the future we may require it. There's now a "recommends" section for things that aren't absolutely required. Automated tools like CPAN.pm should refuse to install a module if one of its dependencies isn't satisfied, unless a "force" command is given by the user. If the tools are helpful, they should also offer to install the dependencies. A sysnonym for "requires" is "prereq", to help succour people transitioning from "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". The "requires" term is preferred, but the "prereq" term will remain valid in future distributions. recommends This is just like the "requires" argument, except that modules listed in this section aren't essential, just a good idea. We'll just print a friendly warning if one of these modules aren't found, but we'll continue running. If a module is recommended but not required, all tests should still pass if the module isn't installed. This may mean that some tests will be skipped if recommended dependencies aren't present. Automated tools like CPAN.pm should inform the user when recommended modules aren't installed, and it should offer to install them if it wants to be helpful. build_requires Modules listed in this section are necessary to build and install the given module, but are not necessary for regular usage of it. This is actually an important distinction - it allows for tighter control over the body of installed modules, and facilitates correct dependency checking on binary/packaged distributions of the module. conflicts Modules listed in this section conflict in some serious way with the given module. "Module::Build" will refuse to install the given module if c_source An optional "c_source" argument specifies a directory which contains C source files that the rest of the build may depend on. Any ".c" files in the directory will be compiled to object files. The directory will be added to the search path during the compilation and linking phases of any C or XS files. scripts An array reference containing a list of files that should be installed as perl scripts when the module is installed. autosplit An optional "autosplit" argument specifies a file which should be run through the "Autosplit::autosplit()" function. In general I don't consider this a great idea, and I may even go so far as to remove this feature later. Let me know if I shouldn't. dynamic_config A boolean flag indicating whether the Build.PL file must be executed, or whether this module can be built, tested and installed solely from consulting its metadata file. The default value is 0, reflecting the fact that "most" of the modules on CPAN just need to be copied from one place to another. The main reason to set this to a true value is that your module performs some dynamic configuration as part of its build/install process. Currently "Module::Build" doesn't actually do anything with this flag - it's probably going to be up to tools like "CPAN.pm" to do something useful with it. It can potentially bring lots of security, packaging, and convenience improvements. sign If a true value is specified for this parameter, "Module::Signature" will be used (via the 'distsign' action) to create a SIGNATURE file for your distribution during the 'distdir' action. The default is false. In the future, the default may change to true if you have "Module::Signature" installed on your system. create_build_script() Creates an executable script called "Build" in the current directory that will be used to execute further user actions. This script is roughly analogous (in function, not in form) to the Makefile created by "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". This method also creates some temporary data in a directory called "_build/". Both of these will be removed when the "realclean" action is performed. add_to_cleanup() A "Module::Build" method may call "$self->add_to_cleanup(@files)" to tell "Module::Build" that certain files should be removed when the user performs the "Build clean" action. I decided to make this a dynamic method, rather than a static list of files, because these static lists can get difficult to manage. I preferred to keep the responsibility for registering temporary files close to the code that creates them. resume() You'll probably never call this method directly, it's only called from the auto-generated "Build" script. The "new()" method is only called once, when the user runs "perl Build.PL". Thereafter, when the user runs "Build test" or another action, the "Module::Build" object is created using the "resume()" method. dispatch() This method is also called from the auto-generated "Build" script. It parses the command-line arguments into an action and an argument list, then calls the appropriate routine to handle the action. Currently (though this may change), an action "foo" will invoke the "ACTION_foo" method. All arguments (including everything mentioned in the ACTIONS manpage below) are contained in the "$self->{args}" hash reference. os_type() If you're subclassing Module::Build and some code needs to alter its behavior based on the current platform, you may only need to know whether you're running on Windows, Unix, MacOS, VMS, etc. and not the fine-grained value of Perl's "$^O" variable. The "os_type()" method will return a string like "Windows", "Unix", "MacOS", "VMS", or whatever is appropriate. If you're running on an unknown platform, it will return "undef" - there shouldn't be many unknown platforms though. prereq_failures() Returns a data structure containing information about any failed prerequisites (of any of the types described above), or "undef" if all prerequisites are met. The data structure returned is a hash reference. The top level keys are the type of prerequisite failed, one of "requires", "build_requires", "conflicts", or "recommends". The associated values are hash references whose keys are the names of required (or conflicting) modules. The associated values of those are hash references indicating some information about the failure. For example: { have => '0.42', need => '0.59', message => 'Version 0.42 is installed, but we need version 0.59', } or { have => '', need => '0.59', message => 'Prerequisite Foo isn't installed', } This hash has the same structure as the hash returned by the "check_installed_status()" method, except that in the case of "conflicts" dependencies we change the "need" key to "conflicts" and construct a proper message. Examples: # Check a required dependency on Foo::Bar if ( $m->prereq_failures->{requires}{Foo::Bar} ) { ... # Check whether there were any failures if ( $m->prereq_failures ) { ... # Show messages for all failures my $failures = $m->prereq_failures; while (my ($type, $list) = each %$failures) { while (my ($name, $hash) = each %$list) { print "Failure for $name: $hash->{message}\n"; } } check_installed_status($module, $version) This method returns a hash reference indicating whether a version dependency on a certain module is satisfied. The "$module" argument is given as a string like ""Data::Dumper"" or ""perl"", and the "$version" argument can take any of the forms described in the requires manpage above. This allows very fine-grained version checking. The returned hash reference has the following structure: { ok => $whether_the_dependency_is_satisfied, have => $version_already_installed, need => $version_requested, # Same as incoming $version argument message => $informative_error_message, } If no version of "$module" is currently installed, the "have" value will be the string """". Otherwise the "have" value will simply be the version of the installed module. Note that this means that if "$module" is installed but doesn't define a version number, the "have" value will be "undef" - this is why we don't use "undef" for the case when "$module" isn't installed at all. check_installed_version($module, $version) Like "check_installed_status()", but simply returns true or false depending on whether module "$module" statisfies the dependency "$version". If the check succeeds, the return value is the actual version of "$module" installed on the system. This allows you to do the following: my $installed = $m->check_installed_version('DBI', '1.15'); if ($installed) { print "Congratulations, version $installed of DBI is installed.\n"; } else { die "Sorry, you must install DBI.\n"; } If the check fails, we return false and set "$@" to an informative error message. If "$version" is any nontrue value (notably zero) and any version of "$module" is installed, we return true. In this case, if "$module" doesn't define a version, or if its version is zero, we return the special value "0 but true", which is numerically zero, but logically true. In general you might prefer to use "check_installed_status" if you need detailed information, or this method if you just need a yes/no answer. prompt() Asks the user a question and returns their response as a string. The first argument specifies the message to display to the user (for example, ""Where do you keep your money?""). The second argument, which is optional, specifies a default answer (for example, ""wallet""). The user will be asked the question once. If the current session doesn't seem to be interactive (i.e. if "STDIN" and "STDOUT" look like they're attached to files or something, not terminals), we'll just use the default without letting the user provide an answer. y_n() Asks the user a yes/no question using "prompt()" and returns true or false accordingly. The user will be asked the question repeatedly until they give an answer that looks like "yes" or "no". The first argument specifies the message to display to the user (for example, ""Shall I invest your money for you?""), and the second argument specifies the default answer (for example, ""y""). Note that the default is specified as a string like ""y"" or ""n"", and the return value is a Perl boolean value like 1 or 0. I thought about this for a while and this seemed like the most useful way to do it. scripts() Returns an array reference specifying the perl script files to be installed. This corresponds to the "scripts" parameter to the "new()" method. With an optional argument, this parameter may be set dynamically. base_dir() Returns a string containing the root-level directory of this build, i.e. where the "Build.PL" script and the "lib" directory can be found. This is usually the same as the current working directory, because the "Build" script will "chdir()" into this directory as soon as it begins execution. ACTIONS There are some general principles at work here. First, each task when building a module is called an "action". These actions are listed above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing, packaging, etc. tasks. Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way. Arguments are always key=value pairs. They may be specified at "perl Build.PL" time (i.e. "perl Build.PL sitelib=/my/secret/place"), in which case their values last for the lifetime of the "Build" script. They may also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e. "Build test verbose=1"), in which case their values last only for the lifetime of that command. Per-action command-line parameters take precedence over parameters specified at "perl Build.PL" time. The build process also relies heavily on the "Config.pm" module, and all the key=value pairs in "Config.pm" are available in "$self->{config}". If the user wishes to override any of the values in "Config.pm", she may specify them like so: perl Build.PL config='siteperl=/foo perlpath=/wacky/stuff' Not the greatest interface, I'm looking for alternatives. Speak now! Maybe: perl Build.PL config-siteperl=/foo config-perlpath=/wacky/stuff or something. The following build actions are provided by default. help This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help you use the build process. It will show you a list of available build actions too. build If you run the "Build" script without any arguments, it runs the "build" action. This is analogous to the MakeMaker 'make all' target. By default it just creates a "blib/" directory and copies any ".pm" and ".pod" files from your "lib/" directory into the "blib/" directory. It also compiles any ".xs" files from "lib/" and places them in "blib/". Of course, you need a working C compiler (probably the same one that built perl itself) for this to work properly. The "build" action also runs any ".PL" files in your lib/ directory. Typically these create other files, named the same but without the ".PL" ending. For example, a file lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL could create the file lib/Foo/Bar.pm. The ".PL" files are processed first, so any ".pm" files (or other kinds that we deal with) will get copied correctly. If your ".PL" scripts don't create any files, or if they create files with unexpected names, or even if they create multiple files, you should tell us that so that we can clean up properly after these created files. Use the "PL_files" parameter to "new()": PL_files => { 'lib/Foo/Bar_pm.PL' => 'lib/Foo/Bar.pm', 'lib/something.PL' => ['/lib/something', '/lib/else'], 'lib/funny.PL' => [] } Note that in contrast to MakeMaker, the "build" action only (currently) handles ".pm", ".pod", ".PL", and ".xs" files. They must all be in the "lib/" directory, in the directory structure that they should have when installed. We also handle ".c" files that can be in the place of your choosing - see the "c_source" argument to "new()". The ".xs" support is currently in alpha. Please let me know whether it works for you. test This will use "Test::Harness" to run any regression tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in the standard places: a file called "test.pl" in the top-level directory, or several files ending with ".t" in a "t/" directory. If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test execution rather than just summary information, pass the argument "verbose=1". If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument "debugger=1". In addition, if a file called "visual.pl" exists in the top-level directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its output will be shown to the user. This is a good place to put speed tests or other tests that don't use the "Test::Harness" format for output. To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a "test_files" argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts to run. This is especially useful in development, when you only want to run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain bug yet: ./Build test verbose=1 test_files=t/something_failing.t testdb This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the "debugger=1" argument. clean This action will clean up any files that the build process may have created, including the "blib/" directory (but not including the "_build/" directory and the "Build" script itself). realclean This action is just like the "clean" action, but also removes the "_build" directory and the "Build" script. If you run the "realclean" action, you are essentially starting over, so you will have to re-create the "Build" script again. diff This action will compare the files about to be installed with their installed counterparts. For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be shown (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your PATH). For other files like compiled binary files, we simply report whether they differ. A "flags" parameter may be passed to the action, which will be passed to the 'diff' program. Consult your 'diff' documentation for the parameters it will accept - a good one is "-u": ./Build diff flags=-u install This action will use "ExtUtils::Install" to install the files from "blib/" into the correct system-wide module directory. The directory is determined from the "sitelib" entry in the "Config.pm" module. To install into a different directory, pass a different value for the "sitelib" parameter, like so: Build install sitelib=/my/secret/place/ Alternatively, you could specify the "sitelib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL" script: perl Build.PL sitelib=/my/secret/place/ Under normal circumstances, you'll need superuser privileges to install into your system's default "sitelib" directory. If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a package manager like "rpm" or "dpkg" could create a package from), you can use the "destdir" parameter: perl Build.PL destdir=/tmp/foo or Build install destdir=/tmp/foo This will effectively install to "$destdir/$sitelib", "$destdir/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use "File::Spec" to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever platform you're installing on. If you want the installation process to look around in "@INC" for other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it, you can use the "uninst" parameter: Build install uninst=1 This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing situation indeed. fakeinstall This is just like the "install" action, but it won't actually do anything, it will just report what it *would* have done if you had actually run the "install" action. versioninstall ** Note: since "only.pm" is so new, and since we just recently added support for it here too, this feature is to be considered experimental. ** If you have the "only.pm" module installed on your system, you can use this action to install a module into the version-specific library trees. This means that you can have several versions of the same module installed and "use" a specific one like this: use only MyModule => 0.55; To override the default installation libraries in "only::config", specify the "versionlib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL" script: perl Build.PL versionlib=/my/version/place/ To override which version the module is installed as, specify the "versionlib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL" script: perl Build.PL version=0.50 See the "only.pm" documentation for more information on version-specific installs. manifest This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people installing modules. It will bring the MANIFEST up to date with the files currently present in the distribution. You may use a MANIFEST.SKIP file to exclude certain files or directories from inclusion in the MANIFEST. MANIFEST.SKIP should contain a bunch of regular expressions, one per line. If a file in the distribution directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be included in the MANIFEST. The following is a reasonable MANIFEST.SKIP starting point, you can add your own stuff to it: ^_build ^Build$ ^blib ~$ \.bak$ ^MANIFEST\.SKIP$ CVS See the the distcheck manpage and the skipcheck manpage actions if you want to find out what the "manifest" action would do, without actually doing anything. dist This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up their module for distribution through a medium like CPAN. It will create a tarball of the files listed in MANIFEST and compress the tarball using GZIP compression. distsign Uses "Module::Signature" to create a SIGNATURE file for your distribution. distcheck Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the MANIFEST file, and vice versa. (See the manifest manpage for details) skipcheck Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the MANIFEST.SKIP file (See the manifest manpage for details) distclean Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action. distdir Creates a directory called "$(DISTNAME)-$(VERSION)" (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first). Then copies all the files listed in the MANIFEST file to that directory. This directory is what people will see when they download your distribution and unpack it. While performing the 'distdir' action, a file containing various bits of "metadata" will be created. The metadata includes the module's name, version, dependencies, license, and the "dynamic_config" flag. This file is created as META.yaml in YAML format, so you must have the "YAML" module installed in order to create it. You should also ensure that the META.yaml file is listed in your MANIFEST - if it's not, a warning will be issued. disttest Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory and runs a "perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'test' actions in that directory. AUTOMATION One advantage of Module::Build is that since it's implemented as Perl methods, you can invoke these methods directly if you want to install a module non-interactively. For instance, the following Perl script will invoke the entire build/install procedure: my $m = new Module::Build (module_name => 'MyModule'); $m->dispatch('build'); $m->dispatch('test'); $m->dispatch('install'); If any of these steps encounters an error, it will throw a fatal exception. You can also pass arguments as part of the build process: my $m = new Module::Build (module_name => 'MyModule'); $m->dispatch('build'); $m->dispatch('test', verbose => 1); $m->dispatch('install', sitelib => '/my/secret/place/'); Building and installing modules in this way skips creating the "Build" script. STRUCTURE Module::Build creates a class hierarchy conducive to customization. Here is the parent-child class hierarchy in classy ASCII art: /--------------------\ | Your::Parent | (If you subclass Module::Build) \--------------------/ | | /--------------------\ (Doesn't define any functionality | Module::Build | of its own - just figures out what \--------------------/ other modules to load.) | | /-----------------------------------\ (Some values of $^O may | Module::Build::Platform::$^O | define specialized functionality. \-----------------------------------/ Otherwise it's ...::Default, a | pass-through class.) | /--------------------------\ | Module::Build::Base | (Most of the functionality of \--------------------------/ Module::Build is defined here.) SUBCLASSING Right now, there are two ways to subclass Module::Build. The first way is to create a regular module (in a ".pm" file) that inherits from Module::Build, and use that module's class instead of using Module::Build directly: ------ in Build.PL: ---------- #!/usr/bin/perl use lib qw(/nonstandard/library/path); use My::Builder; # Or whatever you want to call it my $m = My::Builder->new(module_name => 'Next::Big::Thing'); $m->create_build_script; This is relatively straightforward, and is the best way to do things if your My::Builder class contains lots of code. The "create_build_script()" method will ensure that the current value of "@INC" (including the "/nonstandard/library/path") is propogated to the Build script, so that My::Builder can be found when running build actions. For very small additions, Module::Build provides a "subclass()" method that lets you subclass Module::Build more conveniently, without creating a separate file for your module: ------ in Build.PL: ---------- #!/usr/bin/perl my $class = Module::Build->subclass ( class => 'My::Builder', code => q{ sub ACTION_foo { print "I'm fooing to death!\n"; } }, ); my $m = $class->new(module_name => 'Module::Build'); $m->create_build_script; Behind the scenes, this actually does create a ".pm" file, since the code you provide must persist after Build.PL is run if it is to be very useful. MOTIVATIONS There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix what I didn't like about MakeMaker: * I don't like the core idea of MakeMaker, namely that "make" should be involved in the build process. Here are my reasons: + When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume about their environment? Can you assume they have "make"? No, but you can assume they have some version of Perl. + When a person is writing a Perl module for intended distribution, can you assume that they know how to build a Makefile, so they can customize their build process? No, but you can assume they know Perl, and could customize that way. For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the build/install process to do what they want. * There are several architectural decisions in MakeMaker that make it very difficult to customize its behavior. For instance, when using MakeMaker you do "use MakeMaker", but the object created in "WriteMakefile()" is actually blessed into a package name that's created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass "ExtUtils::MakeMaker". There is a workaround "MY" package that lets you override certain MakeMaker methods, but only certain explicitly predefined (by MakeMaker) methods can be overridden. Also, the method of customization is very crude: you have to modify a string containing the Makefile text for the particular target. * It is risky to make major changes to MakeMaker, since it does so many things, is so important, and generally works. "Module::Build" is an entirely seperate package so that I can work on it all I want, without worrying about backward compatibility. * Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration. Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of building and installing software? Even if that software is a bunch of stupid little ".pm" files that just need to be copied from one place to another? Are you getting riled up yet?? Please contact me if you have any questions or ideas. TO DO The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on NFS, and it's just generally flimsy. It would be better to use an MD5 signature or the like, if available. See "cons" for an example. The current dependency-checking is prone to errors. You can make 'widowed' files by doing "Build", "perl Build.PL", and then "Build realclean". Should be easy to fix, but it's got me wondering whether the dynamic declaration of dependencies is a good idea. - make man pages and install them. - append to perllocal.pod - write .packlist in appropriate location (needed for un-install) AUTHOR Ken Williams, ken@mathforum.org Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the Module-Build mailing list at module-build-general@lists.sourceforge.net . An anonymous CVS repository containing the latest development version is available; see http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=45731 for the details of how to access it. SEE ALSO perl(1), ExtUtils::MakeMaker(3), YAML(3) http://www.dsmit.com/cons/