Changes for version 0.28 - 2006-04-27

  • When y_n() or prompt() are called without a default value and the build seems to be unattended (e.g. in automatic CPAN testing), we now die() with an error message rather than silently returning undef for prompt(), or looping indefinitely for y_n().
  • When searching for '.modulebuildrc', return the first HOME-like directory that actually contains the file instead of the first existing directory. Document the search locations and the order searched. [Spotted by David Golden]
  • Split the API documentation out of Module::Build::Authoring into its own document: Module::Build::API.
  • We should not emit a warning if a Module::Build subclass is required in a Makefile.PL that is not bundled in the current distribution; it may be installed on the user's system. [Spotted by Tyler MacDonald]
  • copy_if_modified() now preserves the executable bit of the source file. [Spotted by Julian Mehnle]
  • Fixed compatibility of our screen-scraping the Test::Harness output so we can recognize the most recent Test::Harness version. [Steve Hay]
  • Backing out a requirement added in 0.27_06 on the method y_n() to always include a default. This behavior would cause existing build scripts to start failing. We now fail with a missing default only when $ENV{PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT} is set because there is no reasonable default.
  • Make install_types() method smarter with respect to custom install types.
  • Add documentation for the install_base_relpaths() and prefix_relpaths() methods. Improved their usage for a public API, and added tests.

Changes for version 0.27_10 - 2006-03-28

  • Added the create_packlist property, default true, which controls whether packlist files will be written during installation. This was already part of Module::Build 0.2609, but for some reason we've forgotten it in the 0.27_xx series. [Spotted by Steve Kirkup]
  • Document the versions of Module::Build where each feature, action, constructor argument, and method was first publicly documented.
  • More fixes for find_perl_interpreter() to work with BSD flavored UNIX: Ensure we always return absolute paths; throw an exception upon failure to find correct interperter; document everything.
  • We now include our own YAML.pm work-alike that we can use when the real YAML isn't installed. We might soon even start using it when YAML is installed, because the YAML API and dependency chain have been changing in unfavorable ways lately. [Stephen Adkins]
  • Fixed some shell-argument-quoting issues on VMS. In the process, we have added some support for avoiding tripping over shell-argument-quoting issues on other platforms too. [Initial patch by Craig A. Berry]

Changes for version 0.27_09 - 2006-03-11

  • Fixed find_perl_interpreter() so we can find the perl executable when running from uninstalled perl even when $^X contains a relative path. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • Fixed warning message where we were printing the wrong field names.
    • Chris Dolan
  • Added a 'testpodcoverage' action that runs a POD coverage check for all modules in the distribution. [Yanick Champoux]
  • Added a Cookbook example of subclassing to modify an action. [Dylan Martin and David Golden]
  • When building HTML documentation, we were opening the POD file and not checking whether the open succeeded, which of course caused problems down the line if it failed. Now we do "or die(...)" like everywhere else. [Spotted by Joerg Braun]

Changes for version 0.27_08 - 2006-03-03

  • Due to shell quoting issues and differences in syntax between various flavors of Windows, the code for the 'pl2bat' utility distributed with Perl has been incorporated into M::B::P::Windows. [Thanks to Dr Bean and Ron Savage for help testing and isolating the problem.]
  • Modify add_build_element() so that it only adds elements if they don't already exist. [David Wheeler]
  • Fixed a bug in the 'pass-through' Makefile.PL in which we would die if CPAN::Shell->install returned false, but apparently this return value is unreliable. Now we only die if the module is actually unavailable after installation.
  • Fixed testing problems on VMS related to non-case-preserving filesystems. We now bundle Tie::CPHash in the distribution (just for testing purposes, it doesn't get installed) to help with this. [Craig Berry and Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • We incorrectly documented the 'dynamic_config' flag in the META.yml file as having a default value of false, but according to the META.yml spec (which, for heaven's sake, we wrote) its default value is true. Fixed. [Spotted by Adam Kennedy]
  • The have_c_compiler() method was dying if the ExtUtils::CBuilder module wasn't around, which is obviously an unhelpful thing to do. Now it just returns false. [Spotted by John Peacock]
  • Fix detection of $VERSION expressions that are not assignments. [Spotted by Chris Dolan]
  • Obfuscate one of our constructs that uses a $VERSION variable, because it was getting picked up by ExtUtils::MakeMaker's version-finder. [Spotted by Randal Schwartz]
  • The config_data script for querying and/or setting a module's config data was forgetting to call write() after setting config values (though setting feature values was working fine). Fixed. [Brian Duggan]
  • On Windows, remove the pl2bat generated 'Build.bat' script without the annoying "The batch file cannot be found." error. [Solution provided by RazTK and foxidrive on newsgroup alt.msdos.batch]
  • Our version comparisons should now work correctly with modules that use version.pm to delcare their versions (e.g. "our $VERSION = version->new('1.0.0')"). [John Peacock and Ron Savage]
  • We now create a Build.bat script on versions of Windows where it makes sense. [Yves]
  • Fixed the verbiage around choosing the correct make-alike on different platforms to suggest using 'perl -V:make'. [Suggested by anonymous user]

Changes for version 0.27_07 - 2006-02-01

  • The notes() method now returns the new value when called with two arguments, just like when it's called with one argument. [Tyler MacDonald]
  • The notes() method now distinguishes among the values undef, 0, and the empty string, where previously it didn't. [Tyler MacDonald]
  • We now unshift(@INC) rather than push(@INC) for the directory where a build subclass lives, so that we're sure to pick up the right version and not some already-installed version. [perlmonkey]
  • The SIGNATURE file for version 0.27_06 (and I'm sure for lots of versions before that too!) was messed up, since we were modifying some files after signing. This has been band-aided for the time being by signing twice. [Reported by Chris Dolan]

Changes for version 0.27_06 - 2006-01-23

  • Fixed an undefined-variable warning when building the META.yml file and the author hasn't used the 'module_name' mechanism. [Chris Dolan]
  • We should now work with recent (> 0.49) versions of YAML.pm when creating the META.yml file. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • The y_n() method now requires the default parameter, and the prompt() and y_n() methods have been improved with respect to how they behave/detect when there is no user to ask. We're now more consistent with MakeMaker, including respecting the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment variable. [Tyler MacDonald and Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • When building a README file using Pod::Text, work around a bug in Pod::Text 3.01, which expects Pod::Simple::parse_file to take input and output filehandles when it actually only takes an input filehandle. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

Changes for version 0.27_05 - 2006-01-12

  • In t/common.pl, we were attempting to let the user's installed Test::More take precedence over ours, but getting thwarted by all the test scripts' loading Test::More beforehand. Fixed. [Spotted by Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • In various test scripts, we were outputting some strings that weren't strictly conformant with Test::Harness's expected input, though it didn't actually cause problems. Now we're more conformant, though not yet strict. [Spotted by Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

Changes for version 0.27_04 - 2005-12-23

  • Removed experimental feature that extended the prerequisite system to apply ('requires', 'recommends', and 'conflicts') prereqs to all actions. Most of the internal extensiblity has been retained so that prereq types can easily be added, more selectively.
  • Added a 'prereq_report' action that shows the user a well-formatted list of all prerequisites, the versions required, and the versions actually installed. [David Wheeler]
  • Clarified the directory name that's created during the 'distdir' action. [Suggested by Tyler MacDonald]
  • Fixed a bug when creating the META.yml file without the help of YAML.pm - some common strings weren't quoted & escaped properly. Now only some uncommon ones are. [Spotted by Joshua ben Jore]
  • Fixed a bug in which an "UNINST=1" argument specified to a passthrough Makefile's "make install" wasn't actually seen by Module::Build.
  • Rather than dying when the Build script is run from the wrong directory, it now simply chdir()s into the right directory and keeps going. [Suggested by Dominique Quatravaux]
  • Added an "Examples on CPAN" section to the cookbook, with an initial entry pointing to John Peacock's SVN-Notify-Mirror distribution.
  • Add an invoked_action() method to return the name of the original action invoked by the user.
  • Add 'meta-spec' field to the generated META.yml file, including the version of the specification followed by the current Module::Build and the url where the specification can be found.
  • Introduced two actions, 'html' & 'manpages', that generate documentation for POD when the respective feature is enabled. The actions will generate the documents even if there is no set place to install to. However, if the actions are invoked as a dependency of another action (e.g. build), the documentation will only be built when there is a default or user-specified place to install to.
  • Added support for environment variable, 'MODULEBUILDRC', which can be used to specify the full path to an option file to use instead of the default location of ~/.modulebuildrc. A special undocumented setting of 'NONE' tells Module::Build not to load any user settings, so tests can be run without tainting from user options.
  • Documented and improved preliminary support for more Getopt::Long style options are supported, including boolean options (--verbose, --no-verbose), and use of hyphens in option names in addition to underscores.
  • The option to disable/enable reading of the ~/.modulebuildrc file is changed from 'skip_rcfile' to 'use_rcfile'
  • Allow the 'distmeta' action to continue when 'MANIFEST' is missing, omitting the generation of the 'provieds' field. [Steven Schubiger]
  • Fixed some failing regex from generated MANIFEST.SKIP file.
  • Fixed an edge case in $VERSION parsing where we thought a package() declaration was happening but it wasn't. [David Golden]
  • Added docs for the install_destination() and install_types() methods.

Changes for version 0.27_03

  • We now use ExtUtils::CBuilder to do all compiling of C code (for example, when compiling XS modules). (This change actually occurred in 0.27_01, but it was mistakenly omitted from the Changes file.)
  • Fixed an issue on Win32 (and other case-tolerant non-case-preserving systems, possibly like VMS?) in which the current working directory would sometimes be reported with different case, fooling us into thinking that we were in the wrong directory. [David Golden]
  • The extra_compiler_flags setting was not actually being passed along to ExtUtils::CBuilder so it could pass it along to the compiler. Now it is.
  • The synonyms 'scripts' and 'prereq' for 'script_files' and 'requires' were broken in a previous version (0.27_01, probably), but now they're fixed. [David Golden]
  • Previously, we assumed that any custom subclass of Module::Build was located in _build/lib/. This is only true if the author used the subclass() method, though. We now use %INC to find where the custom subclass really is, so that we can "use lib" it. We also issue a warning if it seems to be outside the build directory.
    • Spotted by Peter Tandler
  • Added a URL for each license type that we know about, which will appear as resources=>license: in the generated META.yml file.
  • If the user passes a no_index parameter to our constructor, we now pass that through when building the META.yml file. [Richard Soderberg, RT #9603]
  • A few more status messages can now be suppressed by using 'quiet' mode. [Dave Rolsky]
  • Added some more entries to the default MANIFEST.SKIP file. [Chris Dolan]
  • Our POD parser will now accept "AUTHORS" as well as "AUTHOR" when looking for the author list in a module. [David Wheeler]
  • When looking for the POD to auto-generate a README file, or for the AUTHOR or ABSTRACT for the distribution, we now also look for a *.pod with the same name as the *.pm file specified by 'version_from'. [David Golden]
  • The recommended dependency on ExtUtils::ParseXS has been moved into the "C_support" auto_feature.
  • When building XS files, we now pass the -DVERSION and -DXS_VERSION flags to the compiler. [Spotted by Jerry Hedden]
  • If a distribution has XS files and Module::Build has not been configured with the "C_support" feature, we now issue a warning. [Suggested by Jerry Hedden]
  • Added a dir_contains() method.
  • Some versions of MakeMaker, CPANPLUS, and/or PAUSE thought that a certain line of our code was declaring a $VERSION when we didn't intend to. The line has been obscurified so they won't think that anymore. [Jos Boumans, RT #14226]
  • Added the Apache, MIT, and Mozilla licenses to the list of licenses that this module knows about. [Bob Ippolito]
  • Fixed a pretty significant typo in the documentation for auto_features. [Spotted by Jonas B. Nielsen]
  • In order to aid people who want to do customization of the META.yml file, we've added a "metafile" property that can then be easily overridden in subclasses, changed do_create_meta_yml() to do_create_metafile(), and split out the code that actually generates the YAML into a new method, write_metafile(). [David Wheeler]
  • Fixed a couple of non-helpful behaviors with extra_compiler_flags and extra_linker_flags. These will automatically be run through split_like_shell() when given to new() as strings.
  • When the user doesn't have ExtUtils::ParseXS installed and we use the old 'xsubpp', the displayed command line for creating the .c file from the .xs file was missing its newline. Now it's got it.

Changes for version 0.27_02

  • Provided initial support for the --prefix installation parameter, which acts like MakeMaker's PREFIX. It is still highly recommended NOT to use it when you could reasonably use --install_base or --install_path or --install_dest, but that's just because the way --prefix is designed is weird and unpredictable. Ultimately the choice rests with the installing user. [Patches by Michael Schwern and Rob Kinyon]
  • Fixed a bug in subclass() which prevented people from using it to subclass subclasses of Module::Build. [Chris Dolan]
  • Added a 'pure_install' action, which for the time being is identical to the 'install' action. [Jos Boumans]
  • Fixed a POD error in an L<http://...> tag. [Offer Kaye]
  • Note several options for automatically creating a new module dev tree. [Suggested by Eric Wilhelm]
  • Removed some hard-coded references to File::Spec::Unix in the creation of HTML docs, which should help that code work in more places, and help people not to panic when they look at it. [Spotted by Yves]
  • We now use Pod::Readme by default (instead of Pod::Text) to generate the README file when the 'create_readme' option is used. If Pod::Readme is not installed, we will still fall back to using Pod::Text. [Robert Rothenberg]
  • The values of the "prefix", "install_base", "install_path", and "install_dest" parameters can now begin with "~" or "~user", and we'll de-tilde-ify them by using glob().
  • The (optional) auto-creation of the README and Makefile.PL files have been moved from the 'distdir' action to the 'distmeta' action. [David Golden]
  • When looking for a .modulebuildrc file, we now use a fancier method of trying to find the home directory, because $ENV{HOME} isn't a very cross-platform variable. [Robert Rothenberg]
  • We now memoize the output of the internal _default_INC() method, since it uses backticks and might be kind of slow.
  • When processing XS files, we now look for a typemap in lib/ as well as using the system's default typemap. [John Peacock]
  • The DESTDIR, PREFIX, and INSTALL_BASE arguments to "make install" are now supported for pass-through Makefiles (they've been supported for quite a while as arguments to "perl Makefile.PL"). [Requested by Guillaume Rousse]
  • Test::Harness has changed its output format in recent versions, which threw off one of our tests. We now allow for this different format. [Reported by Scott Godin]
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Module::Build from upgrading itself using its own API (which is how CPANPLUS uses it). There are still some issues with this solution, however. See ticket #13169 in rt.cpan.org. [Reported by Jos Boumans]
  • Fixed a fatal error that occurred when a distribution's author could not be determined from its POD nor from the call to Module::Build->new() in its Build.PL. See ticket #12318 in rt.cpan.org. [Reported by Jos Boumans]
  • Apparently on Windows and cygwin it's not possible to use the "-pi" switch to perl without a backup extension, so now we use ".bak" and remove the backup file when we're done. Thus the "dist" action for Module::Build itself can now be run on those platforms. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]
  • Improved the handling of auto_features in the config_data access script. [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

Changes for version 0.27_01

  • Backward-incompatible (but better) changes:
  • When using the 'install_base' option to choose a directory for installing everything, perl modules now go into lib/perl5/ instead of just lib/. It seems this is more consistent with people's expectations, and the way I had it before was a bit peculiar to the way I like things in my own home directory. [Michael Schwern]
  • When the user is using the 'install_base' option, scripts will now be installed by default in $install_base/bin/ rather than $install_base/script/ . [Jan Hudec and Michael Schwern]
  • Major changes:
  • The auto_features mechanism will now re-evaluate dependencies every time feature() is called for an auto-feature, rather than freezing the success/failure value during 'perl Build.PL' and using that value for all eternity (or module update, whichever comes first). This applies to both $build->feature() and FooModule::ConfigData->feature() calls. [Requested by many]
  • Added the meta_add and meta_merge mechanisms, which let the module author add/merge arbitrary entries into the META.yml file.
  • Now reads per-action default options from '$ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc' if it exists. Command line options override anything set in the rc file.
  • We now use ExtUtils::CBuilder to do all compiling of C code (for example, when compiling XS modules).
  • The creation of Unix man pages is no longer a strict necessity - it has now been turned into an 'auto-feature' contingent on the presence of Pod::Man and a location specified for man pages to go.
  • A user-specified 'install_path' setting will now take precedence over an 'install_base' setting. This allows the user to use 'install_base' to set the base for all elements in one go, and then use 'install_path' to override specific paths or add paths for additional kinds of targets.
  • Split the main documentation from 'Module/Build.pm' into two sections. The user level documentation and overview remains in 'Module/Build.pm', while a new document, 'Module/Build/Authoring.pod', has been created for module authors.
  • Minor changes:
  • new_from_context() was losing its arguments in some cases (and not because of inadequate training in forensic debate) - we now pass its arguments directly to the Build.PL script rather than merging them in afterwards.
  • Let resume() return an object blessed into the appropriate class if the user has provided a subclass, as specified by the 'build_class' property. This allows current() and new_from_context() to behave more like factory methods returning objects of the correct class based on context. [Ray Zimmerman]
  • Refactored methods relating to parsing perl module files for package, version, and pod data into a new class: Module::Build::ModuleInfo. It should not be considered part of Module::Build's API, because we may split it out entirely as a separate CPAN module that we depend on.
  • Added new method Module::Build::prepare_metadata() for authors to override in order to add custom fields to META.yml.
  • We now use Test::More for our regression tests. If the user doesn't have it installed, we include a copy in t/lib/ that we can use during testing.
  • When copying files in the 'distdir' action, set permissions to match the original files. [Julian Mehnle]
  • When adding files like META.yml to the MANIFEST, we now tell the user we're doing so by printing one of the "Added to MANIFEST: ..." lines. [Ron Savage]
  • Added a runtime_params() method, which lets a module author see which parameters were overridden by the user on the command line (or in whatever paradigm the user originally invoked Module::Build from). [David Wheeler]
  • Added the current_action() method, which, surprisingly, returns the name of the currently running action. [David Wheeler]
  • Added docs for run_perl_script().
  • Added some stuff to the docs about why PREFIX is unsupported, and what to use instead. [Steve Purkis]
  • The simple get/set accessor methods for all the 'parameters' like verbose(), license(), etc. now have auto-generated documentation in Module/Build.pm.
  • Created a Cookbook entry for 'Adding new elements to the install process'
  • We now add META.yml to the MANIFEST when META.yml is created, not when MANIFEST is created. [Spotted by Ron Savage]
  • Added some additional patterns to the suggested MANIFEST.SKIP contents, and changed the docs so that we encourage the user to use the MANIFEST.SKIP. [Ron Savage]
  • Eliminated a redundant recipe from the Cookbook, now that there are some more extensive recipes on how to add stuff to the build/install sequences.
  • Eliminated an undefined-variable warning when testing under perl 5.005
  • When building HTML documentation, 'html_backlink' and 'html_css' properties are now first-class properties, so they can be set from the command line. [Suggested by Sagar R. Shah]
  • Have script_files default to everything in bin. I believe this is the least surprising behavior. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]
  • If script_files is given a directory, consider each file in that directory tree as a script to be installed. This avoids having to remember to add to the script_files list every time you add a program. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]
  • We now only load Pod::Man when we actually need to build man pages.
  • We now make Test::Harness use our carefully-selected path to a perl executable regardless of Test::Harness's version. Previously we let it figure stuff out for itself if it was a reasonably modern version, but it's safer to make sure we're using the same perl everywhere.

Documentation

API Reference for Module Authors
Authoring Module::Build modules
Query or change configuration of Perl modules

Modules

Build and install Perl modules
Default methods for Module::Build
Compatibility with ExtUtils::MakeMaker
Examples of Module::Build Usage
Gather package and POD information from a perl module files
Perl Package Manager file creation
Builder class for Amiga platforms
Stub class for unknown platforms
Builder class for EBCDIC platforms
Builder class for MPEiX platforms
Builder class for MacOS platforms
Builder class for RiscOS platforms
Builder class for Unix platforms
Builder class for VMS platforms
Builder class for VOS platforms
Builder class for Windows platforms
Builder class for AIX platform
Builder class for Cygwin platform
Builder class for Mac OS X platform
Builder class for OS/2 platform
Provides just enough YAML support so that Module::Build works even if YAML.pm is not installed

Provides

in lib/Module/Build/Notes.pm
in lib/Module/Build/PodParser.pm
in lib/Module/Build/Base.pm