LibZip - Create very low weight self executables. (This is the generator of TinyPerl).
This module will create low weight self executables, that have this features:
All this featues will generate a Initialize Package of only 28 Kb, and a executable of less than 80Kb (Win32), plus PerlLib. This means that a hello world script as a self executable will have only 350KB (Win32).
The main idea of this module is to create the smaller Perl distribution as possible, having all the Perl enverioment compressed, including the distribution of scripts in a small package. One good example is TinyPerl (http://tinyperl.sf.net), that have Perl CORE and a basic library in less than 550Kb, what make possible to install Perl fast in any computer connected to the internet.
Initialize Package (LibZip + user script) is a LibZip code responsible to load all the LibZip enverioment, enabling the use of a lib.zip file as the Perl library directory. This code will be the 1st thing evaluated when Perl is executed, and only after load all the enverioment the user script starts. This package is what is appended to the Perl binary to create the self executable.
The usage of this module is through the libzip script:
-allowopts Allow the Perl options. -compile|o Compile the file. -file|f Define the 2nd file for the options pack, perlbin and lib. -gui Create GUI (non console) executable (Win32 only). -icon Set the icon of the executable (Win32 only). -keepsrc Keep sources created for compilation. -lib|l Create a lib in this directory. -lzw Apply LZW compression to the package. -obetter|ob Compile the file with all the options that can compress better. -overwrite Overwrite already existent files. -pack|p Create a package. -perlbin|pb Create a binary from a package. -striplib Strip POD from libs. -upx UPX the PerlLib binary. -upxlib UPX binaries from the lib.zip
COMPILE: libzip -o file.pl ## Creates file.exe (combine -pack, -perlbin and -lib autoamtically). CREATE A PACKAGE FROM SCRIPT: libzip.bat -p file.pack -f file.pl ## Creates file.pack (used to create the executable) with file.pl inside. CREATE LIB.ZIP: libzip -l lib.zip -f libzip.modules ## Create a library (lib.zip) with the modules in the file libzip.modules CREATE BINATY: libzip -perlbin script.pack -f script.exe ## Create the binary from the package. FULL EXAMPLE: libzip -o script.pl -allowopts vVw -lzw -upx -upxlib -striplib -keepsrc -overwrite
The option -allowopts is usefull if you want to keep some behaviors of the Perl interpreter when calling your executable, like -v and -V that can report informations about the Perl version.
Script hello.pl:
#!/usr/bin/perl print "Hello World!\n" ; exit;
Creating the list of modules to be inside lib.zip:
$> perl -MLibZip::Scan hello.pl ## A file libzip.modules will be created in the current directory. ## You can edit it if needed.
Converting the script to executable:
$> libzip -ob hello.pl ## hello.exe (or just hello on Linux) and lib.zip were created.
To create a lib.zip file you need a list of modules that will be inside it. To create this automatically when compiling your script, just add in the same path of it 2 files:
- libzip.modules ## list of modules to be inside lib.zip - libzip.skip ## list of modules to NOT add.
To generate libzip.modules automatically just run your script with:
$> perl -MLibZip::Scan foo.pl
... and the file will be in the same path of foo.pl.
Example of a libzip.modules file:
Carp Exporter HTTP::Date HTTP::Headers HTTP::Message HTTP::Request HTTP::Response HTTP::Status LWP LWP::Debug LWP::MemberMixin LWP::Protocol LWP::UserAgent Time::Local URI URI::Escape overload strict utf8 utf8_heavy.pl unicore/Exact.pl vars warnings warnings::register
You also can define your self a skip file, since the list above was created automatically by LibZip when the option -MLibZip::Scan was used to run the script. Whit that you don't need to reedit by hand the list of modules, you just keep a static skip file in the same path with the patterns of what you don't want in your distributtion.
Example of a libzip.skip file:
Socket IO::Socket qr/^IO::*/ qr/\.pl$/
This list will skip the modules 'Socket' and 'IO::Socket', and any file or module name that match the 2 REGEXP will be skiped too, so, all the modules inside IO:: and any file .pl won't be inside lib.zip.
Can be used to compress the Initialize Package source and the user script, what will save 10Kb+.
LibZip is not a substitute of PAR, that have much more resources. LibZip has a different architecture, and the main idea of it is to create the smaller Perl distribution as possible.
UPX is a tool that can be used to compress executables and run them compressed. To enable it with LibZip install the upx binary in the PATH (will look for the name upx).
** See UPX link below.
LibZip doesn't have obfuscation resource for the user script, and I don't have plans to add it, since is very easy to break any obfuscation system if we know what module is in use and the key used to encrypt the sources.
If you want to obfuscate your code against simple users just enable the -lzw option, since a complex obfuscation system won't give you much more obfuscation than this.
The sources of TinyPerl come with LibZip in the sub-directory ./tinyperl. To build it just type:
perl myMakeFile.PL make
Note that the name is myMakeFile.PL, and it should be called only after have LibZip well installed in your Perl. The command above will create the tinyperl executable, lib.zip and place the PerlLib in the same path. Also it will create a release directory at ./tinyperl/release, where all binaries of TinyPerl will be placed.
PAR.
Compress::Zlib, Archive::Zip, Compress::LZW.
Pod::Stripper.
Graciliano M. P. <gmpassos@cpan.org>
I will appreciate any type of feedback (include your opinions and/or suggestions). ;-P
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
To install LibZip, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm LibZip
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install LibZip
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.