ExtUtils::MakeMaker - create an extension Makefile "use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;" "WriteMakefile( ATTRIBUTE => VALUE [, ...] );" which is really "MM->new(\%att)->flush;" This utility is designed to write a Makefile for an extension module from a Makefile.PL. It is based on the Makefile.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(1) before you start thinking about writing a module. 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 arguments 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 the Test::Harness manpage module with the "-I" switches set correctly.

make testdb
A useful variation of the above is the target "testdb". It runs the test under the Perl debugger (see the perldebug manpage). 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 "$Config{install*}" values. Note, that in both cases the tilde expansion is done by MakeMaker, not by perl by default, nor by make. Conflicts between parameters LIB, PREFIX and the various INSTALL* arguments are resolved so that: setting LIB overrides any setting of INSTALLPRIVLIB, INSTALLARCHLIB, INSTALLSITELIB, INSTALLSITEARCH (and they are not affected by PREFIX); without LIB, setting PREFIX replaces the initial "$Config{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)/perllocal.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 recompile an extension, unless you are sure the AFS installation 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 creating appropriate targets in the Makefile whenever an extension is built. You can invoke the corresponding section 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 invocation 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)/perllocal.pod". This can be bypassed by calling make pure_inst_perl. Warning: the inst_perl: target will most probably overwrite 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 invocation 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(1) 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 automatically (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 section.

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 INSTALLARCHLIB 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 counterparts in %Config , otherwise it defaults to INSTALLPRIVLIB. The same relationship holds for INSTALLSITELIB and INSTALLSITEARCH. MakeMaker gives you much more freedom than needed to configure internal variables and get different results. It is worth to mention, that make(1) 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 recommends 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: One line description of the module. Will be included in PPD file. Name of the file that contains the package description. MakeMaker looks for a line in the POD matching /^($package\s-\s)(.*)/. This is typically the first line in the "=head1 NAME" section. $2 becomes the abstract. String containing name (and email address) of package author(s). Is used in PPD (Perl Package Description) files for PPM (Perl Package Manager). 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 example: 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. 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. [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 recursive build, but if and only if the submodule's Makefile.PL itself makes no mention of the 'CAPI' attribute. String that will be included in the compiler call command line between the arguments INC and OPTIMIZE. 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 CODE reference. The subroutine should return a hash reference. The hash may contain further attributes, e.g. {LIBS => ...}, that have to be determined by some evaluation method. Something like ""-DHAVE_UNISTD_H"" Ref to array of subdirectories containing Makefile.PLs e.g. [ 'sdbm' ] in ext/SDBM_File Your name for distributing the package (by tar file). This defaults to NAME above. Hashref 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. 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 the ExtUtils::Mksymlists manpage documentation for more information about the DL_FUNCS, DL_VARS and FUNCLIST attributes. 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 ) ]) Array of extension names to exclude when doing a static build. This is ignored if INCLUDE_EXT is present. Consult 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' Ref to array of executable files. The files will be copied to the INST_SCRIPT directory. Make realclean will delete them from there again. 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. Perl binary able to run this extension. 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 unaltered to the linker options file. Ref to array of *.h file names. Similar to C. 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. 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. This attribute is used to specify names to be imported into the extension. It is only used on OS/2 and Win32. Include file dirs eg: ""-I/usr/5include -I/path/to/inc"" 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 extensions 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' Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl. Directory to install binary files (e.g. tkperl) into. Determines 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. Default is site. This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlprivlibdir}. This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlscriptdir}. This directory gets the HTML pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installhtmlsitelibdir}. This directory gets the man pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installman1dir}. This directory gets the man pages at 'make install' time. Defaults to $Config{installman3dir}. Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to perl. Used by 'make install' which copies files from INST_SCRIPT to this directory. Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_ARCHLIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default). Used by 'make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default). Same as INST_LIB for architecture dependent files. Directory to put real binary files during 'make'. These will be copied to INSTALLBIN during 'make install' Old name for INST_SCRIPT. Deprecated. Please use INST_SCRIPT if you need to use it. Directory to hold the man pages in HTML format at 'make' time Directory to hold the man pages in HTML format at 'make' time Directory where we put library files of this extension while building it. Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time Directory to hold the man pages at 'make' time Directory, where executable files should be installed during 'make'. Defaults to "./blib/script", just to have a dummy location during testing. make install will copy the files in INST_SCRIPT to INSTALLSCRIPT. defaults to "$(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 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. The filename of the perllibrary that will be used together with this extension. Defaults to libperl.a. 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. 'static' or 'dynamic' (default unless usedl=undef in config.sh). Should only be used to force static linking (also see linkext below). 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. The name of the Makefile to be produced. 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. 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. If it is intended, that a new perl binary be produced, this variable may hold a name for that binary. Defaults to perl If the extension links to a library that it builds set this to the name of the library (see SDBM_File) Perl module name for this extension (DBD::Oracle). This will default to the directory name but should be explicitly defined in the Makefile.PL. MakeMaker will figure out if 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. Defaults to "@". By setting it to an empty string you can generate a Makefile that echos all commands. Mainly used in debugging MakeMaker itself. Boolean. Attribute to inhibit descending into subdirectories. In general, any generated Makefile checks for the current 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. List of object files, defaults to '$(BASEEXT)$(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}.) Defaults to "-O". Set it to "-g" to turn debugging on. The flag is passed to subdirectory makes. Perl binary for tasks that can be done by miniperl The call to the program that is able to compile perlmain.c. Defaults to $(CC). Same as below, but for architecture dependent files. Directory containing the Perl library to use. defaults to 0. Should be set to TRUE if the extension can work with the memory allocation routines substituted by the Perl malloc() subsystem. This should be applicable to most extensions with exceptions of those with bugs in memory allocations which are caught by Perl's malloc(); which interact with the memory allocator in other ways than via malloc(), realloc(), free(), calloc(), sbrk() and brk(); which rely on special alignment which is not provided by Perl's malloc(). NOTE. Negligence to set this flag in any one of loaded extension nullifies many advantages of Perl's malloc(), such as better usage of system resources, error detection, memory usage reporting, catchable failure of memory allocations, etc. Directory containing the Perl source code (use of this should be avoided, it may be undefined) Desired permission for read/writable files. Defaults to "644". See also the perm_rw entry in the MM_Unix manpage. Desired permission for executable files. Defaults to "755". See also the perm_rwx entry in the MM_Unix manpage. Ref to hash of files to be processed as perl programs. MakeMaker will default to any found *.PL file (except Makefile.PL) being keys and the basename of the file being the value. E.g. {'foobar.PL' => 'foobar'} The *.PL files are expected to produce output to the target files themselves. If multiple files can be generated from the same *.PL file then the value in the hash can be a reference to an array of target file names. E.g. {'foobar.PL' => ['foobar1','foobar2']} Hashref of .pm files and *.pl files to be installed. e.g. {'name_of_file.pm' => '$(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. 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 libscan() 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.) 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. Release 5.005 grandfathered old global symbol names by providing preprocessor macros for extension source compatibility. As of release 5.6, these preprocessor definitions 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. Name of the executable used to run "PPM_INSTALL_SCRIPT" below. (e.g. perl) Name of the script that gets executed by the Perl Package Manager after the installation of a package. 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 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). 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. Arryref. E.g. [qw(name1 name2)] skip (do not write) sections 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. 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. Your version number for distributing the package. This defaults to 0.1. 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 VERSION 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 $FOO::VERSION = '1.30'; (Putting "my" or "local" on the preceding line will work o.k.) The file named in VERSION_FROM is not added as a dependency to Makefile. This is not really correct, but it would be a major pain during development to have to rewrite the Makefile for any smallish change in that file. If you want to make sure that the Makefile contains the correct VERSION macro after any change of the file, you would have to do something like depend => { Makefile => '$(VERSION_FROM)' } See attribute "depend" below. 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. 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. May be set to an empty string, which is identical to "-prototypes", or "-noprototypes". See the xsubpp documentation for details. MakeMaker defaults to the empty string. 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 implement that part of the Makefile. {FILES => "*.xyz foo"} {ANY_TARGET => ANY_DEPENDECY, ...} (ANY_TARGET must not be given a double-colon rule by MakeMaker.) {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 symbolic links and links the rest. Default is 'best'. {ARMAYBE => 'ar', OTHERLDFLAGS => '...', INST_DYNAMIC_DEP => '...'} {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. {ANY_MACRO => ANY_VALUE, ...} {FILES => '$(INST_ARCHAUTODIR)/*.xyz'} {TESTS => 't/*.t'} {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 section 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 ExtUtils::Embed which is a collection of utilities for embedding. 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.moderated as appropriate. For a complete description of all MakeMaker methods see the ExtUtils::MM_Unix manpage. 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 specific 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 Makefile targets. Most of the support comes from the ExtUtils::Manifest module, where additional documentation can be found. 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 the 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 a distdir first, and runs a "perl Makefile.PL", a make, and a make test in that directory. 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. Defaults to $(DIST_DEFAULT) which in turn defaults to tardist. Runs a tardist first and uuencodes the tarfile. 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 intermediate directory again. 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. 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. Does a $(CI) and a $(RCS_LABEL) on all files in the MANIFEST file. Customization of the dist targets can be done by specifying a hash reference to the dist attribute of the WriteMakefile call. The following parameters are recognized: CI ('ci -u') COMPRESS ('gzip --best') POSTOP ('@ :') PREOP ('@ :') TO_UNIX (depends on the system) RCS_LABEL ('rcs -q -Nv$(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::Bundle, but the functionality is supported by different means on the current architecture). 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 processed. ExtUtils::MM_Unix, ExtUtils::Manifest, ExtUtils::testlib, ExtUtils::Install, ExtUtils::Embed 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 <bailey@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.