ExtUtils::MakeMakPerlpProgrammers ReferExtUtils::MakeMaker(r) NAME ExtUtils::MakeMaker - create an extension Makefile SYNOPSIS "use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;" "WriteMakefile( ATTRIBUTE => VALUE [, ...] );" which is really "MM->new(\%att)->flush;" DESCRIPTION This utility is designed to write a Makefile for an exten- sion module from a Makefile.PL. It is based on the Make- file.SH model provided by Andy Dougherty and the perl5-porters. It splits the task of generating the Makefile into several subroutines that can be individually overridden. Each subroutine returns the text it wishes to have written to the Makefile. MakeMaker is object oriented. Each directory below the current directory that contains a Makefile.PL. Is treated as a separate object. This makes it possible to write an unlimited number of Makefiles with a single invocation of WriteMakefile(). How To Write A Makefile.PL The short answer is: Don't. Always begin with h2xs. Always begin with h2xs! ALWAYS BEGIN WITH H2XS! even if you're not building around a header file, and even if you don't have an XS component. Run h2xs(s) before you start thinking about writing a mod- ule. For so called pm-only modules that consist of "*.pm" files only, h2xs has the "-X" switch. This will generate dummy files of all kinds that are useful for the module developer. The medium answer is: use ExtUtils::MakeMaker; WriteMakefile( NAME => "Foo::Bar" ); The long answer is the rest of the manpage :-) Default Makefile Behaviour The generated Makefile enables the user of the extension to invoke perl Makefile.PL # optionally "perl Makefile.PL verbose" make make test # optionally set TEST_VERBOSE=1 make install # See below The Makefile to be produced may be altered by adding argu- ments of the form "KEY=VALUE". E.g. perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/myperl5 Other interesting targets in the generated Makefile are make config # to check if the Makefile is up-to-date make clean # delete local temp files (Makefile gets renamed) make realclean # delete derived files (including ./blib) make ci # check in all the files in the MANIFEST file make dist # see below the Distribution Support section make test MakeMaker checks for the existence of a file named test.pl in the current directory and if it exists it adds commands to the test target of the generated Makefile that will execute the script with the proper set of perl "-I" options. MakeMaker also checks for any files matching glob("t/*.t"). It will add commands to the test target of the generated Makefile that execute all matching files via the Test::Harness module with the "-I" switches set cor- rectly. make testdb A useful variation of the above is the target "testdb". It runs the test under the Perl debugger (see perldebug). If the file test.pl exists in the current directory, it is used for the test. If you want to debug some other testfile, set "TEST_FILE" variable thusly: make testdb TEST_FILE=t/mytest.t By default the debugger is called using "-d" option to perl. If you want to specify some other option, set "TESTDB_SW" variable: make testdb TESTDB_SW=-Dx make install make alone puts all relevant files into directories that are named by the macros INST_LIB, INST_ARCHLIB, INST_SCRIPT, INST_HTMLLIBDIR, INST_HTMLSCRIPTDIR, INST_MAN1DIR, and INST_MAN3DIR. All these 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_SCRIPT is not defined. The install target of the generated Makefile copies the files found below each of the INST_* directories to their INSTALL* counterparts. Which counterparts are chosen depends on the setting of INSTALLDIRS according to the following table: INSTALLDIRS set to perl site INST_ARCHLIB INSTALLARCHLIB INSTALLSITEARCH INST_LIB INSTALLPRIVLIB INSTALLSITELIB INST_HTMLLIBDIR INSTALLHTMLPRIVLIBDIR INSTALLHTMLSITELIBDIR INST_HTMLSCRIPTDIR INSTALLHTMLSCRIPTDIR INST_BIN INSTALLBIN INST_SCRIPT INSTALLSCRIPT INST_MAN1DIR INSTALLMAN1DIR INST_MAN3DIR INSTALLMAN3DIR The INSTALL... macros in turn default to their %Config ($Config{installprivlib}, $Config{installarchlib}, etc.) counterparts. You can check the values of these variables on your system with perl '-V:install.*' And to check the sequence in which the library directories are searched by perl, run perl -le 'print join $/, @INC' PREFIX and LIB attribute PREFIX and LIB can be used to set several INSTALL* attributes in one go. The quickest way to install a module in a non-standard place might be perl Makefile.PL LIB=~/lib This will install the module's architecture-independent files into ~/lib, the architecture-dependent files into ~/lib/$archname. Another way to specify many INSTALL directories with a single parameter is PREFIX. perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~ This will replace the string specified by $Config{prefix} in all $Config{install*} values. Note, that in both cases the tilde expansion is done by MakeMaker, not by perl by default, nor by make. Conflicts between parameters LIB, PREFIX and the various INSTALL* arguments are resolved so that: o setting LIB overrides any setting of INSTALLPRIVLIB, INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLSITELIB, INSTALLSITEARCH (and they are not affected by PREFIX); o without LIB, setting PREFIX replaces the initial $Con- fig{prefix} part of those INSTALL* arguments, even if the latter are explicitly set (but are set to still start with $Config{prefix}). If the user has superuser privileges, and is not working on AFS or relatives, then the defaults for INSTALLPRIVLIB, INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLSCRIPT, etc. will be appropriate, and this incantation will be the best: perl Makefile.PL; make; make test make install make install per default writes some documentation of what has been done into the file "$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllo- cal.pod". This feature can be bypassed by calling make pure_install. AFS users will have to specify the installation directories as these most probably have changed since perl itself has been installed. They will have to do this by calling perl Makefile.PL INSTALLSITELIB=/afs/here/today \ INSTALLSCRIPT=/afs/there/now INSTALLMAN3DIR=/afs/for/manpages make Be careful to repeat this procedure every time you recom- pile an extension, unless you are sure the AFS installa- tion directories are still valid. Static Linking of a new Perl Binary An extension that is built with the above steps is ready to use on systems supporting dynamic loading. On systems that do not support dynamic loading, any newly created extension has to be linked together with the available resources. MakeMaker supports the linking process by cre- ating appropriate targets in the Makefile whenever an extension is built. You can invoke the corresponding sec- tion of the makefile with make perl That produces 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, this is called Makefile.aperl (may be system dependent). If you want to force the creation of a new perl, it is recommended, that you delete this Makefile.aperl, so the directories are searched-through for linkable libraries again. The binary can be installed into the directory where perl normally resides on your machine with make inst_perl To produce a perl binary with a different name 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 any case you will be prompted with the correct invoca- tion of the "inst_perl" target that installs the new binary into INSTALLBIN. make inst_perl per default writes some documentation of what has been done into the file "$(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perl- local.pod". This can be bypassed by calling make pure_inst_perl. Warning: the inst_perl: target will most probably over- write your existing perl binary. Use with care! Sometimes you might want to build a statically linked perl although your system supports dynamic loading. In this case you may explicitly set the linktype with the invoca- tion of the Makefile.PL or make: perl Makefile.PL LINKTYPE=static # recommended or make LINKTYPE=static # works on most systems Determination of Perl Library and Installation Locations MakeMaker needs to know, or to guess, where certain things are located. Especially INST_LIB and INST_ARCHLIB (where to put the files during the make(e) run), PERL_LIB and PERL_ARCHLIB (where to read existing modules from), and PERL_INC (header files and "libperl*.*"). Extensions may be built either using the contents of the perl source directory tree or from the installed perl library. The recommended way is to build extensions after you have run 'make install' on perl itself. You can do that 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 auto- matically (e.g., "../.."). 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 = $archlibexp INST_LIB = ./blib/lib INST_ARCHLIB = ./blib/arch If perl has not yet been installed then PERL_SRC can be defined on the command line as shown in the previous sec- tion. Which architecture dependent directory? If you don't want to keep the defaults for the INSTALL* macros, MakeMaker helps you to minimize the typing needed: the usual relationship between INSTALLPRIVLIB and INSTAL- LARCHLIB is determined by Configure at perl compilation time. MakeMaker supports the user who sets INSTALLPRIVLIB. If INSTALLPRIVLIB is set, but INSTALLARCHLIB not, then MakeMaker defaults the latter to be the same subdirectory of INSTALLPRIVLIB as Configure decided for the counter- parts in %Config , otherwise it defaults to INSTALL- PRIVLIB. The same relationship holds for INSTALLSITELIB and INSTALLSITEARCH. MakeMaker gives you much more freedom than needed to con- figure internal variables and get different results. It is worth to mention, that make(e) also lets you configure most of the variables that are used in the Makefile. But in the majority of situations this will not be necessary, and should only be done if the author of a package recom- mends it (or you know what you're doing). Using Attributes and Parameters The following attributes can be specified as arguments to WriteMakefile() or as NAME=VALUE pairs on the command line: ABSTRACT One line description of the module. Will be included in PPD file. ABSTRACT_FROM Name of the file that contains the package description. MakeMaker looks for a line in the POD matching /^($pack- age\s-\s)(.*)/. This is typically the first line in the "=head1 NAME" section. $2 becomes the abstract. AUTHOR String containing name (and email address) of package author(r). Is used in PPD (Perl Package Description) files for PPM (Perl Package Manager). BINARY_LOCATION Used when creating PPD files for binary packages. It can be set to a full or relative path or URL to the binary archive for a particular architecture. For exam- ple: perl Makefile.PL BINARY_LOCATION=x86/Agent.tar.gz builds a PPD package that references a binary of the "Agent" package, located in the "x86" directory relative to the PPD itself. C Ref to array of *.c file names. Initialised from a directory scan and the values portion of the XS attribute hash. This is not currently used by MakeMaker but may be handy in Makefile.PLs. CAPI [This attribute is obsolete in Perl 5.6. PERL_OBJECT builds are C-compatible by default.] Switch to force usage of the Perl C API even when compiling for PERL_OBJECT. Note that this attribute is passed through to any recur- sive build, but if and only if the submodule's Make- file.PL itself makes no mention of the 'CAPI' attribute. CCFLAGS String that will be included in the compiler call com- mand line between the arguments INC and OPTIMIZE. CONFIG Arrayref. E.g. [qw(archname manext)] defines ARCHNAME & MANEXT from config.sh. MakeMaker will add to CONFIG the following values anyway: ar cc cccdlflags ccdlflags dlext dlsrc ld lddlflags ldflags libc lib_ext obj_ext ranlib sitelibexp sitearchexp so CONFIGURE CODE reference. The subroutine should return a hash ref- erence. The hash may contain further attributes, e.g. {LIBS => ...}, that have to be determined by some evalu- ation method. DEFINE Something like "-DHAVE_UNISTD_H" DIR Ref to array of subdirectories containing Makefile.PLs e.g. [ 'sdbm' ] in ext/SDBM_File DISTNAME Your name for distributing the package (by tar file). This defaults to NAME above. DL_FUNCS Hashref of symbol names for routines to be made avail- able as universal symbols. Each key/value pair consists of the package name and an array of routine names in that package. Used only under AIX, OS/2, VMS and Win32 at present. The routine names supplied will be expanded in the same way as XSUB names are expanded by the XS() macro. Defaults to {"$(NAME)" => ["boot_$(NAME)" ] } e.g. {"RPC" => [qw( boot_rpcb rpcb_gettime getnetconfigent )], "NetconfigPtr" => [ 'DESTROY'] } Please see the ExtUtils::Mksymlists documentation for more information about the DL_FUNCS, DL_VARS and FUN- CLIST attributes. DL_VARS Array of symbol names for variables to be made available as universal symbols. Used only under AIX, OS/2, VMS and Win32 at present. Defaults to []. (e.g. [ qw(Foo_version Foo_numstreams Foo_tree ) ]) EXCLUDE_EXT Array of extension names to exclude when doing a static build. This is ignored if INCLUDE_EXT is present. Con- sult INCLUDE_EXT for more details. (e.g. [ qw( Socket POSIX ) ] ) This attribute may be most useful when specified as a string on the command line: perl Makefile.PL EXCLUDE_EXT='Socket Safe' EXE_FILES Ref to array of executable files. The files will be copied to the INST_SCRIPT directory. Make realclean will delete them from there again. FIRST_MAKEFILE The 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. FULLPERL Perl binary able to run this extension. FUNCLIST This provides an alternate means to specify function names to be exported from the extension. Its value is a reference to an array of function names to be exported by the extension. These names are passed through unal- tered to the linker options file. H Ref to array of *.h file names. Similar to C. HTMLLIBPODS Hashref 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 HTML format and installed as was requested at Configure time. HTMLSCRIPTPODS Hashref 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 HTML format and installed as was requested at Configure time. IMPORTS This attribute is used to specify names to be imported into the extension. It is only used on OS/2 and Win32. INC Include file dirs eg: "-I/usr/5include -I/path/to/inc" INCLUDE_EXT Array of extension names to be included when doing a static build. MakeMaker will normally build with all of the installed extensions when doing a static build, and that is usually the desired behavior. If INCLUDE_EXT is present then MakeMaker will build only with those exten- sions which are explicitly mentioned. (e.g. [ qw( Socket POSIX ) ]) It is not necessary to mention DynaLoader or the current extension when filling in INCLUDE_EXT. If the INCLUDE_EXT is mentioned but is empty then only DynaLoader and the current extension will be included in the build. This attribute may be most useful when specified as a string on the command line: perl Makefile.PL INCLUDE_EXT='POSIX Socket Devel::Peek' INSTALLARCHLIB Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl. INSTALLBIN Directory to install binary files (e.g. tkperl) into. INSTALLDIRS Determines which of the two sets of installation direc- tories to choose: installprivlib and installarchlib ver- sus installsitelib and installsitearch. The first pair is chosen with INSTALLDIRS=perl, the second with INSTALLDIRS=site. Default is site. INSTALLHTMLPRIVLIBDIR This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlprivlibdir}. INSTALLHTMLSCRIPTDIR This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlscriptdir}. INSTALLHTMLSITELIBDIR This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlsitelibdir}. INSTALLMAN1DIR This directory gets the man pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installman1dir}. INSTALLMAN3DIR This directory gets the man pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installman3dir}. INSTALLPRIVLIB Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl. INSTALLSCRIPT Used by 'make install' which copies files from INST_SCRIPT to this directory. INSTALLSITEARCH Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default). INSTALLSITELIB Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default). INST_ARCHLIB Same as INST_LIB for architecture dependent files. INST_BIN Directory to put real binary files during 'make'. These will be copied to INSTALLBIN during 'make install' INST_EXE Old name for INST_SCRIPT. Deprecated. Please use INST_SCRIPT if you need to use it. INST_HTMLLIBDIR Directory to hold the man pages in HTML format at 'make' time INST_HTMLSCRIPTDIR Directory to hold the man pages in HTML format at 'make' time INST_LIB Directory where we put library files of this extension while building it. INST_MAN1DIR Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time INST_MAN3DIR Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time INST_SCRIPT Directory, where executable files should be installed during 'make'. Defaults to "./blib/script", just to have a dummy location during testing. make install will copy the files in INST_SCRIPT to INSTALLSCRIPT. LDFROM defaults to "$(OBJECT)" and is used in the ld command to specify what files to link/load from (also see dynamic_lib below for how to specify ld flags) LIB LIB should only be set at "perl Makefile.PL" time but is allowed as a MakeMaker argument. It has the effect of setting both INSTALLPRIVLIB and INSTALLSITELIB to that value regardless any explicit setting of those arguments (or of PREFIX). INSTALLARCHLIB and INSTALLSITEARCH are set to the corresponding architecture subdirectory. LIBPERL_A The filename of the perllibrary that will be used together with this extension. Defaults to libperl.a. LIBS An anonymous array of alternative library specifications to be searched for (in order) until at least one library is found. E.g. 'LIBS' => ["-lgdbm", "-ldbm -lfoo", "-L/path -ldbm.nfs"] Mind, 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 ODBM_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' (default unless usedl=undef in config.sh). Should only be used to force static linking (also see linkext below). MAKEAPERL Boolean which tells MakeMaker, that it should include the rules to make a perl. This is handled automatically as a switch by MakeMaker. The user normally does not need it. MAKEFILE The name of the Makefile to be produced. MAN1PODS Hashref 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 man pages and installed as was requested at Configure time. MAN3PODS Hashref 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 man pages and installed as was requested at Configure time. MAP_TARGET If it is intended, that a new perl binary be produced, this variable may hold a name for that binary. Defaults to perl MYEXTLIB If the extension links to a library that it builds set this to the name of the library (see SDBM_File) NAME Perl module name for this extension (DBD::Oracle). This will default to the directory name but should be explic- itly defined in the Makefile.PL. NEEDS_LINKING MakeMaker will figure out if an extension contains link- able 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. NOECHO Defaults to "@". By setting it to an empty string you can generate a Makefile that echos all commands. Mainly used in debugging MakeMaker itself. NORECURS Boolean. Attribute to inhibit descending into subdirec- tories. NO_VC In general, any generated Makefile checks for the cur- rent version of MakeMaker and the version the Makefile was built under. If NO_VC is set, the version check is neglected. Do not write this into your Makefile.PL, use it interactively instead. OBJECT List of object files, defaults to '$(BASE- EXT)$(OBJ_EXT)', but can be a long string containing all object files, e.g. "tkpBind.o tkpButton.o tkpCanvas.o" (Where BASEEXT is the last component of NAME, and OBJ_EXT is $Config{obj_ext}.) OPTIMIZE Defaults to "-O". Set it to "-g" to turn debugging on. The flag is passed to subdirectory makes. PERL Perl binary for tasks that can be done by miniperl PERLMAINCC The call to the program that is able to compile perl- main.c. Defaults to $(CC). PERL_ARCHLIB Same as below, but for architecture dependent files. PERL_LIB Directory containing the Perl library to use. PERL_MALLOC_OK defaults to 0. Should be set to TRUE if the extension can work with the memory allocation routines substituted by the Perl malloc() subsystem. This should be applica- ble to most extensions with exceptions of those o with bugs in memory allocations which are caught by Perl's malloc(); o which interact with the memory allocator in other ways than via malloc(), realloc(), free(), calloc(), sbrk() and brk(); o which rely on special alignment which is not pro- vided by Perl's malloc(). NOTE. Negligence to set this flag in any one of loaded extension nullifies many advantages of Perl's malloc(), such as better usage of system resources, error detec- tion, memory usage reporting, catchable failure of mem- ory allocations, etc. PERL_SRC Directory containing the Perl source code (use of this should be avoided, it may be undefined) PERM_RW Desired permission for read/writable files. Defaults to 644. See also "perm_rw" in MM_Unix. PERM_RWX Desired permission for executable files. Defaults to 755. See also "perm_rwx" in MM_Unix. PL_FILES Ref to hash of files to be processed as perl programs. MakeMaker will default to any found *.PL file (except Makefile.PL) being keys and the basename of the file being the value. E.g. {'foobar.PL' => 'foobar'} The *.PL files are expected to produce output to the target files themselves. If multiple files can be gener- ated from the same *.PL file then the value in the hash can be a reference to an array of target file names. E.g. {'foobar.PL' => ['foobar1','foobar2']} PM Hashref of .pm files and *.pl files to be installed. e.g. {'name_of_file.pm' => '$(INST_LIBDIR)/install_as.pm'} By default this will include *.pm and *.pl and the files found in the PMLIBDIRS directories. Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS. PMLIBDIRS Ref to array of subdirectories containing library files. Defaults to [ 'lib', $(BASEEXT) ]. The directories will be scanned and any files they contain will be installed in the corresponding location in the library. A lib- scan() method can be used to alter the behaviour. Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS. (Where BASEEXT is the last component of NAME.) PM_FILTER A filter program, in the traditional Unix sense (input from stdin, output to stdout) that is passed on each .pm file during the build (in the pm_to_blib() phase). It is empty by default, meaning no filtering is done. Great care is necessary when defining the command if quoting needs to be done. For instance, you would need to say: {'PM_FILTER' => 'grep -v \\"^\\#\\"'} to remove all the leading coments on the fly during the build. The extra \\ are necessary, unfortunately, because this variable is interpolated within the context of a Perl program built on the command line, and double quotes are what is used with the -e switch to build that command line. The # is escaped for the Makefile, since what is going to be generated will then be: PM_FILTER = grep -v \"^\#\" Without the \\ before the #, we'd have the start of a Makefile comment, and the macro would be incorrectly defined. POLLUTE Release 5.005 grandfathered old global symbol names by providing preprocessor macros for extension source com- patibility. As of release 5.6, these preprocessor defi- nitions are not available by default. The POLLUTE flag specifies that the old names should still be defined: perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1 Please inform the module author if this is necessary to successfully install a module under 5.6 or later. PPM_INSTALL_EXEC Name of the executable used to run "PPM_INSTALL_SCRIPT" below. (e.g. perl) PPM_INSTALL_SCRIPT Name of the script that gets executed by the Perl Pack- age Manager after the installation of a package. PREFIX Can 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 PRE- FIX 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 over- ride one of them, of course). PREREQ_PM Hashref: Names of modules that need to be available to run this extension (e.g. Fcntl for SDBM_File) are the keys of the hash and the desired version is the value. If the required version number is 0, we only check if any version is installed already. SKIP Arryref. E.g. [qw(name1 name2)] skip (do not write) sec- tions of the Makefile. Caution! Do not use the SKIP attribute for the negligible speedup. It may seriously damage the resulting Makefile. Only use it if you really need it. TYPEMAPS Ref to array of typemap file names. 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. VERSION Your version number for distributing the package. This defaults to 0.1. VERSION_FROM Instead 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 contains 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 VER- SION attribute of the MakeMaker object. The following lines will be parsed o.k.: $VERSION = '1.00'; *VERSION = \'1.01'; ( $VERSION ) = '$Revision: 1.222 $ ' =~ /\$Revision:\s+([^\s]+)/; $FOO::VERSION = '1.10'; *FOO::VERSION = \'1.11'; our $VERSION = 1.2.3; # new for perl5.6.0 but these will fail: my $VERSION = '1.01'; local $VERSION = '1.02'; local $FOO::VERSION = '1.30'; (Putting "my" or "local" on the preceding line will work o.k.) The file named in VERSION_FROM is not added as a depen- dency to Makefile. This is not really correct, but it would be a major pain during development to have to rewrite the Makefile for any smallish change in that file. If you want to make sure that the Makefile con- tains the correct VERSION macro after any change of the file, you would have to do something like depend => { Makefile => '$(VERSION_FROM)' } See attribute "depend" below. XS Hashref of .xs files. MakeMaker will default this. e.g. {'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. XSOPT String of options to pass to xsubpp. This might include "-C++" or "-extern". Do not include typemaps here; the TYPEMAP parameter exists for that purpose. XSPROTOARG May be set to an empty string, which is identical to "-prototypes", or "-noprototypes". See the xsubpp docu- mentation for details. MakeMaker defaults to the empty string. XS_VERSION Your version number for the .xs file of this package. This defaults to the value of the VERSION attribute. Additional lowercase attributes can be used to pass parameters to the methods which imple- ment that part of the Makefile. clean {FILES => "*.xyz foo"} depend {ANY_TARGET => ANY_DEPENDECY, ...} (ANY_TARGET must not be given a double-colon rule by MakeMaker.) dist {TARFLAGS => 'cvfF', COMPRESS => 'gzip', SUFFIX => '.gz', SHAR => 'shar -m', DIST_CP => 'ln', ZIP => '/bin/zip', ZIPFLAGS => '-rl', DIST_DEFAULT => 'private tardist' } If you specify COMPRESS, then SUFFIX should also be altered, as it is needed to tell 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', which copies the file, 'ln', which links the file, and 'best' which copies sym- bolic links and links the rest. Default is 'best'. dynamic_lib {ARMAYBE => 'ar', OTHERLDFLAGS => '...', INST_DYNAMIC_DEP => '...'} linkext {LINKTYPE => 'static', 'dynamic' or ''} NB: Extensions that have nothing but *.pm files had to say {LINKTYPE => ''} with Pre-5.0 MakeMakers. Since version 5.00 of MakeMaker such a line can be deleted safely. MakeMaker recognizes when there's nothing to be linked. macro {ANY_MACRO => ANY_VALUE, ...} realclean {FILES => '$(INST_ARCHAUTODIR)/*.xyz'} test {TESTS => 't/*.t'} tool_autosplit {MAXLEN => 8} Overriding MakeMaker Methods If you cannot achieve the desired Makefile behaviour by specifying attributes you may define private subroutines in the Makefile.PL. Each subroutines returns the text it wishes to have written to the Makefile. To override a sec- tion of the Makefile you can either say: sub MY::c_o { "new literal text" } or you can edit the default by saying something like: sub MY::c_o { package MY; # so that "SUPER" works right my $inherited = shift->SUPER::c_o(@_); $inherited =~ s/old text/new text/; $inherited; } If you are running experiments with embedding perl as a library into other applications, you might find MakeMaker is not sufficient. You'd better have a look at ExtU- tils::Embed which is a collection of utilities for embed- ding. If you still need a different solution, try to develop another subroutine that fits your needs and submit the diffs to perl5-porters@perl.org or comp.lang.perl.moder- ated as appropriate. For a complete description of all MakeMaker methods see ExtUtils::MM_Unix. Here is a simple example of how to add a new target to the generated Makefile: sub MY::postamble { ' $(MYEXTLIB): sdbm/Makefile cd sdbm && $(MAKE) all '; } Hintsfile support MakeMaker.pm uses the architecture specific information from Config.pm. In addition it evaluates architecture spe- cific hints files in a "hints/" directory. The hints files are expected to be named like their counterparts in "PERL_SRC/hints", but with an ".pl" file name extension (eg. "next_3_2.pl"). They are simply "eval"ed by MakeMaker within the WriteMakefile() subroutine, and can be used to execute commands as well as to include special variables. The rules which hintsfile is chosen are the same as in Configure. The hintsfile is eval()ed immediately after the arguments given to WriteMakefile are stuffed into a hash reference $self but before this reference becomes blessed. So if you want to do the equivalent to override or create an attribute you would say something like $self->{LIBS} = ['-ldbm -lucb -lc']; Distribution Support For authors of extensions MakeMaker provides several Make- file targets. Most of the support comes from the ExtU- tils::Manifest module, where additional documentation can be found. make distcheck reports which files are below the build directory but not in the MANIFEST file and vice versa. (See ExtU- tils::Manifest::fullcheck() for details) make skipcheck reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the "MANIFEST.SKIP" file (See ExtUtils::Mani- fest::skipcheck() for details) make distclean does a realclean first and then the distcheck. Note that this is not needed to build a new distribution as long as you are sure that the MANIFEST file is ok. make manifest rewrites the MANIFEST file, adding all remaining files found (See ExtUtils::Manifest::mkmanifest() for details) make distdir Copies all the files that are in the MANIFEST file to a newly created directory with the name "$(DIST- NAME)-$(VERSION)". If that directory exists, it will be removed first. make disttest Makes a distdir first, and runs a "perl Makefile.PL", a make, and a make test in that directory. make tardist First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which defaults to a null command, followed by $(TOUNIX), which defaults to a null command under UNIX, and will convert files in distribution directory to UNIX format otherwise. Next it runs "tar" on that directory into a tarfile and deletes the directory. Finishes with a command $(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command. make dist Defaults to $(DIST_DEFAULT) which in turn defaults to tardist. make uutardist Runs a tardist first and uuencodes the tarfile. make shdist First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which defaults to a null command. Next it runs "shar" on that directory into a sharfile and deletes the inter- mediate directory again. Finishes with a command $(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command. Note: For shdist to work properly a "shar" program that can han- dle directories is mandatory. make zipdist First does a distdir. Then a command $(PREOP) which defaults to a null command. Runs "$(ZIP) $(ZIPFLAGS)" on that directory into a zipfile. Then deletes that directory. Finishes with a command $(POSTOP) which defaults to a null command. make ci Does a $(CI) and a $(RCS_LABEL) on all files in the MANIFEST file. Customization of the dist targets can be done by specify- ing a hash reference to the dist attribute of the WriteMakefile call. The following parameters are recog- nized: CI ('ci -u') COMPRESS ('gzip --best') POSTOP ('@ :') PREOP ('@ :') TO_UNIX (depends on the system) RCS_LABEL ('rcs -q -Nv$(VERSION_SYM):') SHAR ('shar') SUFFIX ('.gz') TAR ('tar') TARFLAGS ('cvf') ZIP ('zip') ZIPFLAGS ('-r') An example: WriteMakefile( 'dist' => { COMPRESS=>"bzip2", SUFFIX=>".bz2" }) Disabling an extension If some events detected in Makefile.PL imply that there is no way to create the Module, but this is a normal state of things, then you can create a Makefile which does nothing, but succeeds on all the "usual" build targets. To do so, use ExtUtils::MakeMaker::WriteEmptyMakefile(); instead of WriteMakefile(). This may be useful if other modules expect this module to be built OK, as opposed to work OK (say, this system- dependent module builds in a subdirectory of some other distribution, or is listed as a dependency in a CPAN::Bun- dle, but the functionality is supported by different means on the current architecture). ENVIRONMENT PERL_MM_OPT Command line options used by "MakeMaker->new()", and thus by "WriteMakefile()". The string is split on whitespace, and the result is processed before any actual command line arguments are pro- cessed. SEE ALSO ExtUtils::MM_Unix, ExtUtils::Manifest, ExtUtils::testlib, ExtUtils::Install, ExtUtils::Embed AUTHORS Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, Andreas Koenig <A.Koenig@franz.ww.TU-Berlin.DE>, Tim Bunce <Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk>. VMS support by Charles Bailey <bai- ley@newman.upenn.edu>. OS/2 support by Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>. Contact the makemaker mailing list "mailto:makemaker@franz.ww.tu-berlin.de", if you have any questions. perl v5.6.1 2001-03-20 ExtUtils::MakeMaker(r)