• Sysnopsis
• Description
• Explanation
• JS Module Author Howto
• Author
• Copyright

Sysnopsis

    > # Typical unix command line stuff:
    > sudo cpan JS::jQuery
    ... cpan installs JS-jQuery ...
    > js-cpan
    jquery-1.2.3
    jquery-1.2.3.min
    jquery-1.2.3.pack
    jQuery
    > js-cpan jQuery*
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jQuery.js
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jquery-1.2.3.js
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jquery-1.2.3.min.js
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jquery-1.2.3.min.js.gz
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jquery-1.2.3.pack.js
    > js-cpan jQuery.js
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/JS/jQuery.js
    > cd my/webapp/that/requires/jquery/javascript/
    > ln -s `js-cpan jQuery.js` jQuery.js

Description

Some JavaScript modules can be installed from CPAN. This module comes with a utility called js-cpan that helps you find JavaScript modules that have been installed on your system so that you can use them in various projects.

Explanation

The JSAN project (http://openjsan.org) has successfully provided much of the groundwork to make JavaScript module distributions look and act like Perl module distributions.

For example, the basic file layout is similar, the Test::Harness and Test::Simple framework has been ported to JSAN, and most modules use Makefiles to set things up.

The Open JSAN project offers the tip off the iceberg in terms of being a CPAN for JavaScript. However it has a long way to go and not a lot of community to

      get it there. CPAN is a good place to put JavaScript modules.

Many projects require JavaScript components these days, and it would be nice to simply list them in the META.yml of your Perl project distributions.

There is a dead simple way to package non-Perl components into Perl/CPAN distributions. The components get installed in your Perl system but do not affect Perl in any other way.

JS.pm is a module to explain and help maintain the JavaScript modules installed from CPAN.

Some module distributions will have both Perl and JavaScript components. Others will have only JavaScript components. All JavaScript modules and JavaScript-only distributions should have a top-level-namespace of 'JS'.

JS Module Author Howto

It turns out that Perl's ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install any files that you put in the lib/ directory, into your perl's sitelib. So setting up a JavaScript distribution is very similar to setting on a Perl one.

Say you have a JavaScript module called Foo.Bar. First create a distribution directory called: JS-Foo-Bar. Put your JavaScript code in lib/JS/Foo/Bar.js. Put your documentation in lib/JS/Foo/Bar.pod. Create a bare bones lib/JS/Foo/Bar.pm Perl module so that CPAN related tools can find your stuff.

Your Makefile.PL should look something like this:

    use inc::Module::Install;
    name     'JS-Foo-Bar';
    abstract 'Sample JavaScript Module Distribution';
    version  '0.01';
    license  'lgpl';
    all_from 'lib/JS/Foo/Bar.pod';
    WriteAll;

Create a Changes and README file and dummy test.t. CPAN module distributions should have these files.

Put your JavaScript tests in a directory called tests. I'll write up more explicit instructions in a future release, but for now look at JS-YAML on CPAN or any openjsan.org module as an example.

Now just run these commands:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make manifest
    make dist
    cpan-upload -user foo -passwd bar -mailto foo@bar.com JS-Foo-Bar-0.01.tar.gz

That's it. You've joined the revolution. :)

NOTE: There is a working example JavaScript module shipped with JS.pm in the examples/JS-Foo-Bar directory.

Author

Ingy döt Net <ingy@cpan.org>

Copyright

Copyright 2008-2014. Ingy döt Net.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html