 | Chapter 7 The Standard Perl Library |  |
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker; WriteMakefile(ATTRIBUTE=>VALUE, ... ); # which internally is really more like... %att = (ATTRIBUTE=>VALUE, ...); MM->new(\%att)->flush;
When you build an extension to Perl, you need to have an appropriate Makefile[9] in the extension's source directory. And while you could conceivably write one by hand, this would be rather tedious. So you'd like a program to write it for you.
[9] If you don't know what a Makefile is, or what the make(1) program does with one, you really shouldn't be reading this section. We will be assuming that you know what happens when you type a command like
make foo.
Originally, this was done using a shell script (actually, one for each extension) called Makefile.SH, much like the one that writes the Makefile for Perl itself. But somewhere along the line, it occurred to the perl5-porters that, by the time you want to compile your extensions, there's already a bare-bones version of the Perl executable called miniperl, if not a fully installed perl. And for some strange reason, Perl programmers prefer programming in Perl to programming in shell. So they wrote MakeMaker, just so that you can write Makefile.PL instead of Makefile.SH.
MakeMaker isn't a program; it's a module (or it wouldn't be in this chapter). The module provides the routines you need; you just need to use the module, and then call the routines. As with any programming job, there are many degrees of freedom; but your typical Makefile.PL is pretty simple. For example, here's ext/POSIX/Makefile.PL from the Perl distribution's POSIX extension (which is by no means a trivial extension):
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
WriteMakefile(
NAME => 'POSIX',
LIBS => ["-lm -lposix -lcposix"],
MAN3PODS => ' ', # Pods will be built by installman.
XSPROTOARG => '-noprototypes', # XXX remove later?
VERSION_FROM => 'POSIX.pm',
);Several things are apparent from this example, but the most important is
that the WriteMakefile() function uses named parameters. This
means that you can pass many potential parameters, but you're only required to
pass the ones you want to be different from the default values. (And when we
say "many", we mean "many" - there are about 75 of them. See the
Attributes section later.)
As the synopsis above indicates, the WriteMakefile() function
actually constructs an object. This object has attributes that are set
from various sources, including the parameters you pass to the function.
It's this object that actually writes your Makefile,
meshing together the demands of your extension with the demands of the
architecture on which the extension is being installed. Like many
craftily crafted objects, this MakeMaker object delegates as much of its
work as possible to various other subroutines and methods. Many of
these may be overridden in your Makefile.PL if you need to do some
fine tuning. (Generally you don't.)
But let's not lose track of the goal, which is to write a Makefile that will know how to do anything to your extension that needs doing. Now as you can imagine, the Makefile that MakeMaker writes is quite, er, full-featured. It's easy to get lost in all the details. If you look at the POSIX Makefile generated by the bit of code above, you will find a file containing about 122 macros and 77 targets. You will want to go off into a corner and curl up into a little ball, saying, "Never mind, I didn't really want to know."
Well, the fact of the matter is, you really don't want to know, nor do you have to. Most of these items take care of themselves - that's what MakeMaker is there for, after all. We'll lay out the various attributes and targets for you, but you can just pick and choose, like in a cafeteria. We'll talk about the make targets first, because they're the actions you eventually want to perform, and then work backward to the macros and attributes that feed the targets.
But before we do that, you need to know just a few more architectural features of MakeMaker to make sense of some of the things we'll say. The targets at the end of your Makefile depend on the macro definitions that are interpolated into them. Those macro definitions in turn come from any of several places. Depending on how you count, there are about five sources of information for these attributes. Ordered by increasing precedence and (more or less) decreasing permanence, they are:
Platform-specific values in Perl's Config module, provided by the Configure program that was run when Perl was installed on this machine.
The WriteMakefile() function call arguments in Makefile.Pl,
supplied by the extension writer. (You saw some of those above.)
Platform-specific hints in the extension's hints/ directory, also provided by extension writer. We'll talk about those later.
Overriding values from the command line for Makefile.PL script,
supplied by the person who runs the script. These look like KEY=VALUE.
Overriding values from the command line for make itself,
supplied by the person who runs the make. These also look like KEY=VALUE.
The first four of these turn into attributes of the object we mentioned, and are eventually written out as macro definitions in your Makefile. In most cases, the names of the values are consistent from beginning to end. (Except that the Config database keeps the names in lowercase, as they come from Perl's config.sh file. The names are translated to uppercase when they become attributes of the object.) In any case, we'll tend to use the term attributes to mean both attributes and the Makefile macros derived from them.
The Makefile.PL and the hints may also provide overriding methods for the object, if merely changing an attribute isn't good enough.
The hints files are expected to be named like their counterparts in PERL_SRC/hints, but with a .pl filename extension (for example, next_3_2.pl), because the file consists of Perl code to be evaluated. Apart from that, the rules governing which hintsfile is chosen are the same as in Configure. The hintsfile is evaled within a routine that is a method of our MakeMaker object, so if you want to override or create an attribute, you would say something like:
$self->{LIBS} = ['-ldbm -lucb -lc'];By and large, if your Makefile isn't doing what you want, you just trace back the name of the misbehaving attribute to its source, and either change it there or override it downstream.
Extensions may be built using the contents of either the Perl source directory tree or the installed Perl library. The recommended way is to build extensions after you have run make install on Perl itself. You can then build your extension in any directory on your hard disk that is not below the Perl source tree. The support for extensions below the ext/ directory of the Perl distribution is only good for the standard extensions that come with Perl.
If an extension is being built below the ext/ directory of
the Perl source, then MakeMaker will set PERL_SRC
automatically (usually to ../..). If
PERL_SRC is defined and the extension is recognized as a
standard extension, then other variables default to the following:
PERL_INC = PERL_SRC PERL_LIB = PERL_SRC/lib PERL_ARCHLIB = PERL_SRC/lib INST_LIB = PERL_LIB INST_ARCHLIB = PERL_ARCHLIB
If an extension is being built away from the Perl source, then MakeMaker
will leave PERL_SRC undefined and default to using the installed copy
of the Perl library. The other variables default to the following:
PERL_INC = $archlibexp/CORE PERL_LIB = $privlibexp PERL_ARCHLIB = $archlibexp INST_LIB = ./blib/lib INST_ARCHLIB = ./blib/arch
If Perl has not yet been installed, then PERL_SRC can be defined as
an override on the command line.
Far and away the most commonly used make targets are those used by the installer to install the extension. So we aim to make the normal installation very easy:
perl Makefile.PL # generate the Makefile make # compile the extension make test # test the extension make install # install the extension
This assumes that the installer has dynamic linking available. If not, a couple of additional commands are also necessary:
make perl # link a new perl statically with this extension make inst_perl # install that new perl appropriately
Other interesting targets in the generated Makefile are:
make config # check whether the Makefile is up-to-date make clean # delete local temp files (Makefilegets renamed) make realclean # delete derived files (including./blib) make ci # check in all files in the MANIFEST file make dist # see the "Distribution Support" section below
Now we'll talk about some of these commands, and how each of them is related to MakeMaker. So we'll not only be talking about things that happen when you invoke the make target, but also about what MakeMaker has to do to generate that make target. So brace yourself for some temporal whiplash.
This command is the one most closely related to MakeMaker because it's the
one in which you actually run MakeMaker. No temporal whiplash here.
As we mentioned earlier, some of the
default attribute values may be
overridden by adding arguments of the form KEY=VALUE. For
example:
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/myperl5
To get a more detailed view of what MakeMaker is doing, say:
perl Makefile.PL verbose
A make command without arguments performs any compilation needed
and puts any generated files into staging directories that are named by the
attributes INST_LIB, INST_ARCHLIB, INST_EXE,
INST_MAN1DIR, and INST_MAN3DIR.
These directories default to
something below ./blib if you are not building below the
Perl source directory. If you are building below the Perl source,
INST_LIB and INST_ARCHLIB default to ../../lib,
and INST_EXE is not defined.
The goal of this command is to run any regression tests supplied with the
extension, so MakeMaker checks for the existence of a file named
test.pl in the current directory and, if it exists, adds
commands to the test target of the
Makefile that will execute the script with the proper set
of Perl -I options (since the
files haven't been installed into their final location yet).
MakeMaker also checks for any files matching
glob("t/*.t"). It will add commands to the
test target that execute all matching files via the
Test::Harness module with the -I switches
set correctly. If you pass TEST_VERBOSE=1, the
test target will run the tests verbosely.
Once the installer has tested the extension, the various generated files
need to get put into their final resting places. The install
target copies the files found below each of the INST_*
directories to their INSTALL* counterparts.
INST_LIB |  | INSTALLPRIVLIB[10]or
INSTALLSITELIB[11] |
INST_ARCHLIB | | INSTALLARCHLIB[10]or INSTALLSITEARCH[11] |
INST_EXE | | INSTALLBIN |
INST_MAN1DIR | | INSTALLMAN1DIR |
INST_MAN3DIR | | INSTALLMAN3DIR |
[10] if
INSTALLDIRSset to "perl"[11] if
INSTALLDIRSset to "site"
The INSTALL* attributes in turn default to their %Config
counterparts, $Config{installprivlib},
$Config{installarchlib}, and so on.
If you don't set INSTALLARCHLIB or INSTALLSITEARCH,
MakeMaker will
assume you want them to be subdirectories of INSTALLPRIVLIB
and INSTALLSITELIB,
respectively. The exact relationship is determined by Configure. But
you can usually just go with the defaults for all these attributes.
The PREFIX attribute can be used to redirect all the INSTALL*
attributes in one go. Here's the quickest way to install a module in a
nonstandard place:
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~ \
The value you specify for PREFIX replaces one or more
leading pathname components in all INSTALL* attributes. The
prefix to be replaced is determined by the value of
$Config{prefix}, which typically has a value like /usr.
(Note that the tilde expansion above is done by MakeMaker, not by
perl or make.)
If the user has superuser privileges and is not working under the
Andrew File System (AFS) or relatives, then the defaults for
INSTALLPRIVLIB, INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLBIN, and so
on should be appropriate.
By default, make install writes some documentation of what has been
done into the file given by $(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod.
This feature can be bypassed by calling make pure_install.
If you are using AFS, you must specify the installation directories, since these most probably have changed since Perl itself was installed. Do this by issuing these commands:
perl Makefile.PL INSTALLSITELIB=/afs/here/today
INSTALLBIN=/afs/there/now INSTALLMAN3DIR=/afs/for/manpages
makeBe careful to repeat this procedure every time you recompile an extension, unless you are sure the AFS installation directories are still valid.
The steps above are sufficient on a system supporting dynamic loading. On systems that do not support dynamic loading, however, the extension has to be linked together statically with everything else you might want in your perl executable. MakeMaker supports the linking process by creating appropriate targets in the Makefile. If you say:
make perl
it will produce a new perl binary in the current directory with
all extensions linked in that can be found in INST_ARCHLIB,
SITELIBEXP, and PERL_ARCHLIB. To do that, MakeMaker
writes a new Makefile; on UNIX it is called Makefile.aperl,
but the name may be system-dependent. When you want to force the
creation of a new perl, we recommend that you delete this
Makefile.aperl so the directories are searched for linkable
libraries again.
The binary can be installed in the directory where Perl normally resides on your machine with:
make inst_perl
To produce a Perl binary with a different filename than perl, either say:
perl Makefile.PL MAP_TARGET=myperl make myperl make inst_perl
or say:
perl Makefile.PL make myperl MAP_TARGET=myperl make inst_perl MAP_TARGET=myperl
In either case, you will be asked to confirm the invocation of the
inst_perl target, since this invocation is likely to overwrite
your existing Perl binary in INSTALLBIN.
By default make inst_perl documents what has been
done in the file given by $(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod. This
behavior can be bypassed by calling make pure_inst_perl.
Sometimes you might want to build a statically linked Perl even though your system supports dynamic loading. In this case you may explicitly set the linktype:
perl Makefile.PL LINKTYPE=static
The following attributes can be specified as arguments to
WriteMakefile() or as NAME=VALUE pairs on the command
line. We give examples below in the form they would appear in your
Makefile.PL, that is, as though passed as a named parameter to
WriteMakefile() (including the comma that comes after it).
C A reference to an array of *.c filenames. It's initialized by doing a
directory scan and by derivation from the values of the XS
attribute hash. This is not currently used by MakeMaker but may be
handy in Makefile.PLs.
CONFIGAn array reference containing a list of attributes to fetch from
%Config. For example:
CONFIG => [qw(archname manext)],
defines
ARCHNAME and MANEXT from config.sh. MakeMaker will
automatically add the following values to CONFIG:
ar dlext ldflags ranlib cc dlsrc libc sitelibexp cccdlflags ld lib_ext sitearchexp ccdlflags lddlflags obj_ext so
CONFIGUREA reference to a subroutine returning a hash reference. The
hash may contain further attributes, for example, {LIBS => ...},
that have to be determined by some evaluation method. Be careful,
because any attributes defined this way will override hints and
WriteMakefile() parameters (but not command-line arguments).
DEFINEAn attribute containing additional defines, such as -DHAVE_UNISTD_H.
DIRA reference to an array of subdirectories containing Makefile.PLs. For example, SDBM_FILE has:
DIR => ['sdbm'],
MakeMaker will automatically do recursive MakeMaking if subdirectories
contain Makefile.PL files. A separate MakeMaker class is
generated for each subdirectory, so each MakeMaker object can override
methods using the fake MY:: class (see below) without
interfering with other MakeMaker objects. You don't even need a
Makefile.PL in the top level directory if you pass one in via
-M and -e:
perl -MExtUtils::MakeMaker -e 'WriteMakefile()'
DISTNAMEYour name for distributing the package (by tar file). This defaults to
NAME below.
DL_FUNCSA reference to a hash of symbol names for routines to be made available
as universal symbols. Each key/value pair consists of the package name
and an array of routine names in that package. This attribute is used
only under AIX (export lists) and VMS (linker options) at present. The
routine names supplied will be expanded in the same way as XSUB
names are expanded by the XS attribute.
The default key/value pair looks like this:
"$PKG" => ["boot_$PKG"]
For a pair of packages named RPC and NetconfigPtr, you might, for example, set it to this:
DL_FUNCS => {
RPC => [qw(boot_rpcb rpcb_gettime getnetconfigent)],
NetconfigPtr => ['DESTROY'],
},DL_VARSAn array of symbol names for variables to be made available as
universal symbols. It's used only under AIX (export lists) and VMS
(linker options) at present. Defaults to []. A typical
value might look like this:
DL_VARS => [ qw( Foo_version Foo_numstreams Foo_tree ) ],
EXE_FILESA reference to an array of executable files. The files will be copied to the
INST_EXE directory. A make realclean command will delete
them from there again.
FIRST_MAKEFILEThe name of the Makefile to be produced. Defaults to the contents
of MAKEFILE, but can be overridden. This is used for the second
Makefile that will be produced for the MAP_TARGET.
FULLPERLA Perl binary able to run this extension.
H A reference to an array of *.h filenames. Similar to C.
INCDirectories containing include files, in -I form. For example:
INC => "-I/usr/5include -I/path/to/inc",
INSTALLARCHLIBUsed by make install, which copies files from
INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if
INSTALLDIRS is set to "perl".
INSTALLBINUsed by make install, which copies files from
INST_EXE to this directory.
INSTALLDIRSDetermines which of the two sets of installation directories to
choose: installprivlib and installarchlib versus
installsitelib and installsitearch. The first pair is chosen
with INSTALLDIRS=perl, the second with INSTALLDIRS=site.
The default is "site".
INSTALLMAN1DIRThis directory gets the command manpages at make
install time. It defaults to
$Config{installman1dir}.
INSTALLMAN3DIRThis directory gets the library manpages at make
install time. It defaults to
$Config{installman3dir}.
INSTALLPRIVLIBUsed by make install, which copies files from
INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS
is set to "perl".
INSTALLSITELIBUsed by make install, which copies files from
INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS
is set to "site" (default).
INSTALLSITEARCHUsed by make install, which copies files from
INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if
INSTALLDIRS is set to "site"
(default).
INST_ARCHLIBSame as INST_LIB, but for architecture-dependent files.
INST_EXEDirectory where executable scripts should be staged during running of
make. Defaults to ./blib/bin, just to
have a dummy location during testing. make install will
copy the files in INST_EXE to INSTALLBIN.
INST_LIBDirectory where we put library files of this extension while building it.
INST_MAN1DIRDirectory to hold the command manpages at make time.
INST_MAN3DIRDirectory to hold the library manpages at make time
LDFROMDefaults to $(OBJECT) and is used in the ld(1) command to specify
what files to link/load from. (Also see dynamic_lib later for how to
specify ld flags.)
LIBPERL_AThe filename of the Perl library that will be used together with this extension. Defaults to libperl.a.
LIBSAn anonymous array of alternative library specifications to be searched for (in order) until at least one library is found.
For example:
LIBS => ["-lgdbm", "-ldbm -lfoo", "-L/path -ldbm.nfs"],
Note that any element of the array contains a complete set of arguments for the ld command. So do not specify:
LIBS => ["-ltcl", "-ltk", "-lX11"],
See NDBM_File/Makefile.PL for an example where an array is needed. If you specify a scalar as in:
LIBS => "-ltcl -ltk -lX11",
MakeMaker will turn it into an array with one element.
LINKTYPE"static" or
"dynamic" (the latter is the default unless
usedl=undef in config.sh). Should only
be used to force static linking. (Also see linkext, later in
this chapter).
MAKEAPERLBoolean that tells MakeMaker to include the rules for making a Perl binary. This is handled automatically as a switch by MakeMaker. The user normally does not need it.
MAKEFILEThe name of the Makefile to be produced.
MAN1PODSA reference to a hash of POD-containing files. MakeMaker will default
this to all EXE_FILES files that include POD directives. The
files listed here will be converted to manpages and installed as
requested at Configure time.
MAN3PODSA reference to a hash of .pm and .pod files. MakeMaker will default this to all .pod and any .pm files that include POD directives. The files listed here will be converted to manpages and installed as requested at Configure time.
MAP_TARGETIf it is intended that a new Perl binary be produced, this variable holds the name for that binary. Defaults to perl.
MYEXTLIBIf the extension links to a library that it builds, set this to the name of the library (see SDBM_File).
NAMEPerl module name for this extension (for example, DBD::Oracle).
This will default to the directory name, but should really be explicitly
defined in the Makefile.PL.
NEEDS_LINKINGMakeMaker will figure out whether an extension contains linkable code anywhere down the directory tree, and will set this variable accordingly. But you can speed it up a very little bit if you define this Boolean variable yourself.
NOECHOGoverns make's @ (echoing) feature. By setting NOECHO
to an empty string, you can generate a
Makefile that echos all commands. Mainly used in debugging MakeMaker
itself.
NORECURSA Boolean that inhibits the automatic descent into subdirectories (see
DIR above). For example:
NORECURS => 1,
OBJECTA string containing a list of object files, defaulting to
$(BASEEXT)$(OBJ_EXT). But it can be a long string containing
all object files. For example:
OBJECT => "tkpBind.o tkpButton.o tkpCanvas.o",
PERLPerl binary for tasks that can be done by miniperl.
PERLMAINCCThe command line that is able to compile perlmain.c. Defaults
to $(CC).
PERL_ARCHLIBSame as PERL_LIB for architecture-dependent files.
PERL_LIBThe directory containing the Perl library to use.
PERL_SRCThe directory containing the Perl source code. Use of this should be avoided, since it may be undefined.
PL_FILESA reference to hash of files to be processed as Perl programs. By default MakeMaker will turn the names of any *.PL files it finds (except Makefile.PL) into keys, and use the basenames of these files as values. For example:
PL_FILES => {'whatever.PL' => 'whatever'},This turns into a Makefile entry resembling:
all :: whatever
whatever :: whatever.PL
$(PERL) -I$(INST_ARCHLIB) -I$(INST_LIB) \
-I$(PERL_ARCHLIB) -I$(PERL_LIB) whatever.PLYou'll note that there's no I/O redirection into whatever there. The *.PL files are expected to produce output to the target files themselves.
PM A reference to a hash of .pm files and .pl files to be installed. For example:
PM => {'name_of_file.pm' => '$(INST_LIBDIR)/install_as.pm'},By default this includes *.pm and
*.pl. If a lib/ subdirectory exists
and is not listed in DIR (above) then any
*.pm and *.pl files it contains will
also be included by default. Defining PM in the
Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS.
PMLIBDIRSA reference to an array of subdirectories that contain library files. Defaults to:
PMLIBDIRS => [ 'lib', '$(BASEEXT)' ],
The directories will be scanned and any files
they contain will be installed in the corresponding location in the
library. A libscan() method may be used to alter the behavior.
Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS.
PREFIXMay be used to set the three INSTALL* attributes in one go (except for
probably INSTALLMAN1DIR if it is not below PREFIX according to
%Config). They will have PREFIX as a common directory node
and will branch from that node into lib/, lib/ARCHNAME
or whatever Configure decided at the build time of your Perl (unless
you override one of them, of course).
PREREQA placeholder, not yet implemented. Will eventually be a hash reference: the keys of the hash are names of modules that need to be available to run this extension (for example, Fcntl for SDBM_File); the values of the hash are the desired versions of the modules.
SKIPAn array reference specifying the names of sections of the Makefile not to write. For example:
SKIP => [qw(name1 name2)],
TYPEMAPSA reference to an array of typemap filenames. (Typemaps are used by the
XS preprocessing system.) Use this when the typemaps are
in some directory other than the current directory or when they are
not named typemap. The last typemap in the list takes
precedence. A typemap in the current directory has highest
precedence, even if it isn't listed in TYPEMAPS. The default system
typemap has lowest precedence.
VERSIONYour version number for distributing the package. This number defaults to 0.1.
VERSION_FROMInstead of specifying the VERSION in the Makefile.PL, you can let
MakeMaker parse a file to determine the version number. The parsing
routine requires that the file named by VERSION_FROM contain one
single line to compute the version number. The first line in the file
that contains the regular expression:
/(\$[\w:]*\bVERSION)\b.*=/
will be evaluated with eval and the value of the named variable
after the eval will be assigned to the VERSION attribute of the
MakeMaker object. The following lines will be parsed satisfactorily:
$VERSION = '1.00'; ( $VERSION ) = '$Revision: 1.64 $ ' =~ /\$Revision:\s+([^\s]+)/; $FOO::VERSION = '1.10';
but these will fail:
my $VERSION = '1.01'; local $VERSION = '1.02'; local $FOO::VERSION = '1.30';
The file named in VERSION_FROM is added as a dependency to the
Makefile in order to guarantee that the Makefile contains
the correct VERSION attribute after a change of the file.
XS A hash reference of .xs files. MakeMaker will default this. For example:
XS => {'name_of_file.xs' => 'name_of_file.c'},The *.c files will automatically be included in the list of files deleted by a make clean.
XSOPTA string of options to pass to xsubpp (the XS preprocessor). This
might include -C++ or -extern. Do not include typemaps
here; the TYPEMAP parameter exists for that purpose.
XSPROTOARGMay be set to an empty string, which is identical to -prototypes, or
-noprototypes.
MakeMaker defaults to the empty string.
XS_VERSIONYour version number for the .xs file of this package. This defaults
to the value of the VERSION attribute.
There are additional lowercase attributes that you can use to pass parameters to the methods that spit out particular portions of the Makefile. These attributes are not normally required.
cleanExtra files to clean.
clean => {FILES => "*.xyz foo"},dependExtra dependencies.
depend => {ANY_TARGET => ANY_DEPENDENCY, ...},distOptions for distribution (see "Distribution Support" below).
dist => {
TARFLAGS => 'cvfF',
COMPRESS => 'gzip',
SUFFIX => 'gz',
SHAR => 'shar -m',
DIST_CP => 'ln',
},If you specify COMPRESS, then SUFFIX
should also be altered, since it is needed in order to specify for
make the target file of the compression. Setting
DIST_CP to "ln" can
be useful if you need to
preserve the timestamps on your files. DIST_CP can take the
values "cp" (copy the file),
"ln" (link the file), or
"best" (copy symbolic links and link the rest).
Default is "best".
dynamic_libOptions for dynamic library support.
dynamic_lib => {
ARMAYBE => 'ar',
OTHERLDFLAGS => '...',
INST_DYNAMIC_DEP => '...',
},installpmSome installation options having to do with AutoSplit.
{SPLITLIB => '$(INST_LIB)' (default) or '$(INST_ARCHLIB)'}linkextLinking style.
linkext => {LINKTYPE => 'static', 'dynamic', or ""},Extensions that have nothing but *.pm files used to have to say:
linkext => {LINKTYPE => ""},with Pre-5.0 MakeMakers. With Version 5.00 of MakeMaker such a line can be deleted safely. MakeMaker recognizes when there's nothing to be linked.
macroExtra macros to define.
macro => {ANY_MACRO => ANY_VALUE, ...},realcleanExtra files to really clean.
{FILES => '$(INST_ARCHAUTODIR)/*.xyz'}Here are some useful macros that you probably shouldn't redefine because they're derivative.
FULLEXTPathname for extension directory (for example, DBD/Oracle).
BASEEXTBasename part of FULLEXT. May be just equal to FULLEXT.
ROOTEXTDirectory part of FULLEXT with leading slash (for example, /DBD)
INST_LIBDIR$(INST_LIB)$(ROOTEXT)
INST_AUTODIR$(INST_LIB)/auto/$(FULLEXT)
INST_ARCHAUTODIR$(INST_ARCHLIB)/auto/$(FULLEXT)
If you cannot achieve the desired Makefile behavior by specifying attributes, you may define private subroutines in the Makefile.PL. Each subroutine returns the text it wishes to have written to the Makefile. To override a section of the Makefile you can use one of two styles. You can just return a new value:
sub MY::c_o { "new literal text" }or you can edit the default by saying something like:
sub MY::c_o {
my $self = shift;
local *c_o;
$_=$self->MM::c_o;
s/old text/new text/;
$_;
}Both methods above are available for backward compatibility with older Makefile.PLs.
If you still need a different solution, try to develop another subroutine that better fits your needs and then submit the diffs to either perl5-porters@nicoh.com or comp.lang.perl.modules as appropriate.
For authors of extensions, MakeMaker provides several Makefile targets. Most of the support comes from the ExtUtils::Manifest module, where additional documentation can be found. Note that a MANIFEST file is basically just a list of filenames to be shipped with the kit to build the extension.
Reports which files are below the build directory but not in the
MANIFEST file and vice versa. (See
ExtUtils::Manifest::fullcheck() for details.)
Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
MANIFEST.SKIP file. (See ExtUtils::Manifest::skipcheck() for
details).
Does a realclean first and then the distcheck. Note that this is not needed to build a new distribution as long as you are sure that the MANIFEST file is OK.
Rewrites the MANIFEST file, adding all remaining files found. (See
ExtUtils::Manifest::mkmanifest() for details.)
Copies all files that are in the MANIFEST file to a newly created
directory with the name $(DISTNAME)-$(VERSION). If that directory
exists, it will be removed first.
Makes distdir first, and runs perl Makefile.PL, make, and make test in that directory.
First does a command $(PREOP), which defaults to a null
command. Does a make distdir next and runs
tar(1) on that directory into a tarfile. Then
deletes the distdir. Finishes with a command
$(POSTOP), which defaults to a null command.
Defaults to $(DIST_DEFAULT), which in turn defaults to
tardist.
Runs a tardist first and uuencodes the tarfile.
First does a command $(PREOP), which defaults to a null
command. Does a distdir next and runs
shar on that directory into a sharfile. Then deletes the
distdir. Finishes with a command $(POSTOP), which defaults
to a null command. Note: for shdist to work properly, a
shar program that can handle directories is mandatory.
Does a $(CI) and a $(RCS_LABEL) on all files in the
MANIFEST file.
Customization of the distribution targets can be done by specifying a hash
reference to the dist attribute of the
WriteMakefile() call. The following parameters are
recognized:
| Parameter | Default |
|---|---|
CI | ('ci -u') |
COMPRESS | ('compress') |
POSTOP | ('@ :') |
PREOP | ('@ :') |
RCS_LABEL | ('rcs -q -Nv$(VERSION_SYM):') |
SHAR | ('shar') |
SUFFIX | ('Z') |
TAR | ('tar') |
TARFLAGS | ('cvf') |
An example:
WriteMakefile( 'dist' => { COMPRESS=>"gzip", SUFFIX=>"gz" }) |  | |
| 7.2.17 ExtUtils::Liblist - Determine Libraries to Use and How to Use Them |  | 7.2.19 ExtUtils::Manifest - Utilities to Write and Check a MANIFEST File |