Module::Build - phpMan

Module::Build(3)      User Contributed Perl Documentation     Module::Build(3)

NAME
       Module::Build - Build and install Perl modules
SYNOPSIS
       Standard process for building & installing modules:
         perl Build.PL
         ./Build
         ./Build test
         ./Build install
       Or, if you're on a platform (like DOS or Windows) that doesn't require
       the "./" notation, you can do this:
         perl Build.PL
         Build
         Build test
         Build install
DESCRIPTION
       "Module::Build" is a system for building, testing, and installing Perl
       modules.  It is meant to be an alternative to "ExtUtils::MakeMaker".
       Developers may alter the behavior of the module through subclassing in
       a much more straightforward way than with "MakeMaker".  It also does
       not require a "make" on your system - most of the "Module::Build" code
       is pure-perl and written in a very cross-platform way.  In fact, you
       don't even need a shell, so even platforms like MacOS (traditional) can
       use it fairly easily.  Its only prerequisites are modules that are
       included with perl 5.6.0, and it works fine on perl 5.005 if you can
       install a few additional modules.
       See "MOTIVATIONS" for more comparisons between "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"
       and "Module::Build".
       To install "Module::Build", and any other module that uses
       "Module::Build" for its installation process, do the following:
         perl Build.PL       # 'Build.PL' script creates the 'Build' script
         ./Build             # Need ./ to ensure we're using this "Build" script
         ./Build test        # and not another one that happens to be in the PATH
         ./Build install
       This illustrates initial configuration and the running of three
       'actions'.  In this case the actions run are 'build' (the default
       action), 'test', and 'install'.  Other actions defined so far include:
         build                          manifest
         clean                          manifest_skip
         code                           manpages
         config_data                    pardist
         diff                           ppd
         dist                           ppmdist
         distcheck                      prereq_data
         distclean                      prereq_report
         distdir                        pure_install
         distinstall                    realclean
         distmeta                       retest
         distsign                       skipcheck
         disttest                       test
         docs                           testall
         fakeinstall                    testcover
         help                           testdb
         html                           testpod
         install                        testpodcoverage
         installdeps                    versioninstall
       You can run the 'help' action for a complete list of actions.
GUIDE TO DOCUMENTATION
       The documentation for "Module::Build" is broken up into sections:
       General Usage (Module::Build)
           This is the document you are currently reading. It describes basic
           usage and background information.  Its main purpose is to assist
           the user who wants to learn how to invoke and control
           "Module::Build" scripts at the command line.
       Authoring Reference (Module::Build::Authoring)
           This document describes the structure and organization of
           "Module::Build", and the relevant concepts needed by authors who
           are writing Build.PL scripts for a distribution or controlling
           "Module::Build" processes programmatically.
       API Reference (Module::Build::API)
           This is a reference to the "Module::Build" API.
       Cookbook (Module::Build::Cookbook)
           This document demonstrates how to accomplish many common tasks.  It
           covers general command line usage and authoring of Build.PL
           scripts.  Includes working examples.
ACTIONS
       There are some general principles at work here.  First, each task when
       building a module is called an "action".  These actions are listed
       above; they correspond to the building, testing, installing, packaging,
       etc., tasks.
       Second, arguments are processed in a very systematic way.  Arguments
       are always key=value pairs.  They may be specified at "perl Build.PL"
       time (i.e. "perl Build.PL destdir=/my/secret/place"), in which case
       their values last for the lifetime of the "Build" script.  They may
       also be specified when executing a particular action (i.e.  "Build test
       verbose=1"), in which case their values last only for the lifetime of
       that command.  Per-action command line parameters take precedence over
       parameters specified at "perl Build.PL" time.
       The build process also relies heavily on the "Config.pm" module.  If
       the user wishes to override any of the values in "Config.pm", she may
       specify them like so:
         perl Build.PL --config cc=gcc --config ld=gcc
       The following build actions are provided by default.
       build
           [version 0.01]
           If you run the "Build" script without any arguments, it runs the
           "build" action, which in turn runs the "code" and "docs" actions.
           This is analogous to the "MakeMaker" make all target.
       clean
           [version 0.01]
           This action will clean up any files that the build process may have
           created, including the "blib/" directory (but not including the
           "_build/" directory and the "Build" script itself).
       code
           [version 0.20]
           This action builds your code base.
           By default it just creates a "blib/" directory and copies any ".pm"
           and ".pod" files from your "lib/" directory into the "blib/"
           directory.  It also compiles any ".xs" files from "lib/" and places
           them in "blib/".  Of course, you need a working C compiler
           (probably the same one that built perl itself) for the compilation
           to work properly.
           The "code" action also runs any ".PL" files in your lib/ directory.
           Typically these create other files, named the same but without the
           ".PL" ending.  For example, a file lib/Foo/Bar.pm.PL could create
           the file lib/Foo/Bar.pm.  The ".PL" files are processed first, so
           any ".pm" files (or other kinds that we deal with) will get copied
           correctly.
       config_data
           [version 0.26]
           ...
       diff
           [version 0.14]
           This action will compare the files about to be installed with their
           installed counterparts.  For .pm and .pod files, a diff will be
           shown (this currently requires a 'diff' program to be in your
           PATH).  For other files like compiled binary files, we simply
           report whether they differ.
           A "flags" parameter may be passed to the action, which will be
           passed to the 'diff' program.  Consult your 'diff' documentation
           for the parameters it will accept - a good one is "-u":
             ./Build diff flags=-u
       dist
           [version 0.02]
           This action is helpful for module authors who want to package up
           their module for source distribution through a medium like CPAN.
           It will create a tarball of the files listed in MANIFEST and
           compress the tarball using GZIP compression.
           By default, this action will use the "Archive::Tar" module.
           However, you can force it to use binary "tar" and "gzip"
           executables by supplying an explicit "tar" (and optional "gzip")
           parameter:
             ./Build dist --tar C:\path\to\tar.exe --gzip C:\path\to\zip.exe
       distcheck
           [version 0.05]
           Reports which files are in the build directory but not in the
           MANIFEST file, and vice versa.  (See manifest for details.)
       distclean
           [version 0.05]
           Performs the 'realclean' action and then the 'distcheck' action.
       distdir
           [version 0.05]
           Creates a "distribution directory" named "$dist_name-$dist_version"
           (if that directory already exists, it will be removed first), then
           copies all the files listed in the MANIFEST file to that directory.
           This directory is what the distribution tarball is created from.
       distinstall
           [version 0.37]
           Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory
           and runs a "perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'install'
           actions in that directory.  Use PERL_MB_OPT or .modulebuildrc to
           set options that should be applied during subprocesses
       distmeta
           [version 0.21]
           Creates the META.yml file that describes the distribution.
           META.yml is a file containing various bits of metadata about the
           distribution.  The metadata includes the distribution name,
           version, abstract, prerequisites, license, and various other data
           about the distribution.  This file is created as META.yml in a
           simplified YAML format.
           META.yml file must also be listed in MANIFEST - if it's not, a
           warning will be issued.
           The current version of the META.yml specification can be found on
           CPAN as CPAN::Meta::Spec.
       distsign
           [version 0.16]
           Uses "Module::Signature" to create a SIGNATURE file for your
           distribution, and adds the SIGNATURE file to the distribution's
           MANIFEST.
       disttest
           [version 0.05]
           Performs the 'distdir' action, then switches into that directory
           and runs a "perl Build.PL", followed by the 'build' and 'test'
           actions in that directory.  Use PERL_MB_OPT or .modulebuildrc to
           set options that should be applied during subprocesses
       docs
           [version 0.20]
           This will generate documentation (e.g. Unix man pages and HTML
           documents) for any installable items under blib/ that contain POD.
           If there are no "bindoc" or "libdoc" installation targets defined
           (as will be the case on systems that don't support Unix manpages)
           no action is taken for manpages.  If there are no "binhtml" or
           "libhtml" installation targets defined no action is taken for HTML
           documents.
       fakeinstall
           [version 0.02]
           This is just like the "install" action, but it won't actually do
           anything, it will just report what it would have done if you had
           actually run the "install" action.
       help
           [version 0.03]
           This action will simply print out a message that is meant to help
           you use the build process.  It will show you a list of available
           build actions too.
           With an optional argument specifying an action name (e.g. "Build
           help test"), the 'help' action will show you any POD documentation
           it can find for that action.
       html
           [version 0.26]
           This will generate HTML documentation for any binary or library
           files under blib/ that contain POD.  The HTML documentation will
           only be installed if the install paths can be determined from
           values in "Config.pm".  You can also supply or override install
           paths on the command line by specifying "install_path" values for
           the "binhtml" and/or "libhtml" installation targets.
       install
           [version 0.01]
           This action will use "ExtUtils::Install" to install the files from
           "blib/" into the system.  See "INSTALL PATHS" for details about how
           Module::Build determines where to install things, and how to
           influence this process.
           If you want the installation process to look around in @INC for
           other versions of the stuff you're installing and try to delete it,
           you can use the "uninst" parameter, which tells "ExtUtils::Install"
           to do so:
             ./Build install uninst=1
           This can be a good idea, as it helps prevent multiple versions of a
           module from being present on your system, which can be a confusing
           situation indeed.
       installdeps
           [version 0.36]
           This action will use the "cpan_client" parameter as a command to
           install missing prerequisites.  You will be prompted whether to
           install optional dependencies.
           The "cpan_client" option defaults to 'cpan' but can be set as an
           option or in .modulebuildrc.  It must be a shell command that takes
           a list of modules to install as arguments (e.g. 'cpanp -i' for
           CPANPLUS).  If the program part is a relative path (e.g. 'cpan' or
           'cpanp'), it will be located relative to the perl program that
           executed Build.PL.
             /opt/perl/5.8.9/bin/perl Build.PL
             ./Build installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
             # installs to 5.8.9
       manifest
           [version 0.05]
           This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
           installing modules.  It will bring the MANIFEST up to date with the
           files currently present in the distribution.  You may use a
           MANIFEST.SKIP file to exclude certain files or directories from
           inclusion in the MANIFEST.  MANIFEST.SKIP should contain a bunch of
           regular expressions, one per line.  If a file in the distribution
           directory matches any of the regular expressions, it won't be
           included in the MANIFEST.
           The following is a reasonable MANIFEST.SKIP starting point, you can
           add your own stuff to it:
             ^_build
             ^Build$
             ^blib
             ~$
             \.bak$
             ^MANIFEST\.SKIP$
             CVS
           See the distcheck and skipcheck actions if you want to find out
           what the "manifest" action would do, without actually doing
           anything.
       manifest_skip
           [version 0.3608]
           This is an action intended for use by module authors, not people
           installing modules.  It will generate a boilerplate MANIFEST.SKIP
           file if one does not already exist.
       manpages
           [version 0.28]
           This will generate man pages for any binary or library files under
           blib/ that contain POD.  The man pages will only be installed if
           the install paths can be determined from values in "Config.pm".
           You can also supply or override install paths by specifying there
           values on the command line with the "bindoc" and "libdoc"
           installation targets.
       pardist
           [version 0.2806]
           Generates a PAR binary distribution for use with PAR or PAR::Dist.
           It requires that the PAR::Dist module (version 0.17 and up) is
           installed on your system.
       ppd [version 0.20]
           Build a PPD file for your distribution.
           This action takes an optional argument "codebase" which is used in
           the generated PPD file to specify the (usually relative) URL of the
           distribution.  By default, this value is the distribution name
           without any path information.
           Example:
             ./Build ppd --codebase "MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Module-Build-0.21.tar.gz"
       ppmdist
           [version 0.23]
           Generates a PPM binary distribution and a PPD description file.
           This action also invokes the "ppd" action, so it can accept the
           same "codebase" argument described under that action.
           This uses the same mechanism as the "dist" action to tar & zip its
           output, so you can supply "tar" and/or "gzip" parameters to affect
           the result.
       prereq_data
           [version 0.32]
           This action prints out a Perl data structure of all prerequisites
           and the versions required.  The output can be loaded again using
           "eval()".  This can be useful for external tools that wish to query
           a Build script for prerequisites.
       prereq_report
           [version 0.28]
           This action prints out a list of all prerequisites, the versions
           required, and the versions actually installed.  This can be useful
           for reviewing the configuration of your system prior to a build, or
           when compiling data to send for a bug report.
       pure_install
           [version 0.28]
           This action is identical to the "install" action.  In the future,
           though, when "install" starts writing to the file
           $(INSTALLARCHLIB)/perllocal.pod, "pure_install" won't, and that
           will be the only difference between them.
       realclean
           [version 0.01]
           This action is just like the "clean" action, but also removes the
           "_build" directory and the "Build" script.  If you run the
           "realclean" action, you are essentially starting over, so you will
           have to re-create the "Build" script again.
       retest
           [version 0.2806]
           This is just like the "test" action, but doesn't actually build the
           distribution first, and doesn't add blib/ to the load path, and
           therefore will test against a previously installed version of the
           distribution.  This can be used to verify that a certain installed
           distribution still works, or to see whether newer versions of a
           distribution still pass the old regression tests, and so on.
       skipcheck
           [version 0.05]
           Reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the
           MANIFEST.SKIP file (See manifest for details)
       test
           [version 0.01]
           This will use "Test::Harness" or "TAP::Harness" to run any
           regression tests and report their results. Tests can be defined in
           the standard places: a file called "test.pl" in the top-level
           directory, or several files ending with ".t" in a "t/" directory.
           If you want tests to be 'verbose', i.e. show details of test
           execution rather than just summary information, pass the argument
           "verbose=1".
           If you want to run tests under the perl debugger, pass the argument
           "debugger=1".
           If you want to have Module::Build find test files with different
           file name extensions, pass the "test_file_exts" argument with an
           array of extensions, such as "[qw( .t .s .z )]".
           If you want test to be run by "TAP::Harness", rather than
           "Test::Harness", pass the argument "tap_harness_args" as an array
           reference of arguments to pass to the TAP::Harness constructor.
           In addition, if a file called "visual.pl" exists in the top-level
           directory, this file will be executed as a Perl script and its
           output will be shown to the user.  This is a good place to put
           speed tests or other tests that don't use the "Test::Harness"
           format for output.
           To override the choice of tests to run, you may pass a "test_files"
           argument whose value is a whitespace-separated list of test scripts
           to run.  This is especially useful in development, when you only
           want to run a single test to see whether you've squashed a certain
           bug yet:
             ./Build test --test_files t/something_failing.t
           You may also pass several "test_files" arguments separately:
             ./Build test --test_files t/one.t --test_files t/two.t
           or use a "glob()"-style pattern:
             ./Build test --test_files 't/01-*.t'
       testall
           [version 0.2807]
           [Note: the 'testall' action and the code snippets below are
           currently in alpha stage, see
           "/www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html""
           in "http: ]
           Runs the "test" action plus each of the "test$type" actions defined
           by the keys of the "test_types" parameter.
           Currently, you need to define the ACTION_test$type method yourself
           and enumerate them in the test_types parameter.
             my $mb = Module::Build->subclass(
               code => q(
                 sub ACTION_testspecial { shift->generic_test(type => 'special'); }
                 sub ACTION_testauthor  { shift->generic_test(type => 'author'); }
               )
             )->new(
               ...
               test_types  => {
                 special => '.st',
                 author  => ['.at', '.pt' ],
               },
               ...
       testcover
           [version 0.26]
           Runs the "test" action using "Devel::Cover", generating a code-
           coverage report showing which parts of the code were actually
           exercised during the tests.
           To pass options to "Devel::Cover", set the $DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS
           environment variable:
             DEVEL_COVER_OPTIONS=-ignore,Build ./Build testcover
       testdb
           [version 0.05]
           This is a synonym for the 'test' action with the "debugger=1"
           argument.
       testpod
           [version 0.25]
           This checks all the files described in the "docs" action and
           produces "Test::Harness"-style output.  If you are a module author,
           this is useful to run before creating a new release.
       testpodcoverage
           [version 0.28]
           This checks the pod coverage of the distribution and produces
           "Test::Harness"-style output. If you are a module author, this is
           useful to run before creating a new release.
       versioninstall
           [version 0.16]
           ** Note: since "only.pm" is so new, and since we just recently
           added support for it here too, this feature is to be considered
           experimental. **
           If you have the "only.pm" module installed on your system, you can
           use this action to install a module into the version-specific
           library trees.  This means that you can have several versions of
           the same module installed and "use" a specific one like this:
             use only MyModule => 0.55;
           To override the default installation libraries in "only::config",
           specify the "versionlib" parameter when you run the "Build.PL"
           script:
             perl Build.PL --versionlib /my/version/place/
           To override which version the module is installed as, specify the
           "version" parameter when you run the "Build.PL" script:
             perl Build.PL --version 0.50
           See the "only.pm" documentation for more information on version-
           specific installs.
OPTIONS
   Command Line Options
       The following options can be used during any invocation of "Build.PL"
       or the Build script, during any action.  For information on other
       options specific to an action, see the documentation for the respective
       action.
       NOTE: There is some preliminary support for options to use the more
       familiar long option style.  Most options can be preceded with the "--"
       long option prefix, and the underscores changed to dashes (e.g.
       "--use-rcfile").  Additionally, the argument to boolean options is
       optional, and boolean options can be negated by prefixing them with
       "no" or "no-" (e.g. "--noverbose" or "--no-verbose").
       quiet
           Suppress informative messages on output.
       verbose
           Display extra information about the Build on output.  "verbose"
           will turn off "quiet"
       cpan_client
           Sets the "cpan_client" command for use with the "installdeps"
           action.  See "installdeps" for more details.
       use_rcfile
           Load the ~/.modulebuildrc option file.  This option can be set to
           false to prevent the custom resource file from being loaded.
       allow_mb_mismatch
           Suppresses the check upon startup that the version of Module::Build
           we're now running under is the same version that was initially
           invoked when building the distribution (i.e. when the "Build.PL"
           script was first run).  As of 0.3601, a mismatch results in a
           warning instead of a fatal error, so this option effectively just
           suppresses the warning.
       debug
           Prints Module::Build debugging information to STDOUT, such as a
           trace of executed build actions.
   Default Options File (.modulebuildrc)
       [version 0.28]
       When Module::Build starts up, it will look first for a file,
       $ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc.  If it's not found there, it will look in
       the the .modulebuildrc file in the directories referred to by the
       environment variables "HOMEDRIVE" + "HOMEDIR", "USERPROFILE",
       "APPDATA", "WINDIR", "SYS$LOGIN".  If the file exists, the options
       specified there will be used as defaults, as if they were typed on the
       command line.  The defaults can be overridden by specifying new values
       on the command line.
       The action name must come at the beginning of the line, followed by any
       amount of whitespace and then the options.  Options are given the same
       as they would be on the command line.  They can be separated by any
       amount of whitespace, including newlines, as long there is whitespace
       at the beginning of each continued line.  Anything following a hash
       mark ("#") is considered a comment, and is stripped before parsing.  If
       more than one line begins with the same action name, those lines are
       merged into one set of options.
       Besides the regular actions, there are two special pseudo-actions: the
       key "*" (asterisk) denotes any global options that should be applied to
       all actions, and the key 'Build_PL' specifies options to be applied
       when you invoke "perl Build.PL".
         *           verbose=1   # global options
         diff        flags=-u
         install     --install_base /home/ken
                     --install_path html=/home/ken/docs/html
         installdeps --cpan_client 'cpanp -i'
       If you wish to locate your resource file in a different location, you
       can set the environment variable "MODULEBUILDRC" to the complete
       absolute path of the file containing your options.
   Environment variables
       MODULEBUILDRC
           [version 0.28]
           Specifies an alternate location for a default options file as
           described above.
       PERL_MB_OPT
           [version 0.36]
           Command line options that are applied to Build.PL or any Build
           action.  The string is split as the shell would (e.g. whitespace)
           and the result is prepended to any actual command-line arguments.
INSTALL PATHS
       [version 0.19]
       When you invoke Module::Build's "build" action, it needs to figure out
       where to install things.  The nutshell version of how this works is
       that default installation locations are determined from Config.pm, and
       they may be overridden by using the "install_path" parameter.  An
       "install_base" parameter lets you specify an alternative installation
       root like /home/foo, and a "destdir" lets you specify a temporary
       installation directory like /tmp/install in case you want to create
       bundled-up installable packages.
       Natively, Module::Build provides default installation locations for the
       following types of installable items:
       lib Usually pure-Perl module files ending in .pm.
       arch
           "Architecture-dependent" module files, usually produced by
           compiling XS, Inline, or similar code.
       script
           Programs written in pure Perl.  In order to improve reuse, try to
           make these as small as possible - put the code into modules
           whenever possible.
       bin "Architecture-dependent" executable programs, i.e. compiled C code
           or something.  Pretty rare to see this in a perl distribution, but
           it happens.
       bindoc
           Documentation for the stuff in "script" and "bin".  Usually
           generated from the POD in those files.  Under Unix, these are
           manual pages belonging to the 'man1' category.
       libdoc
           Documentation for the stuff in "lib" and "arch".  This is usually
           generated from the POD in .pm files.  Under Unix, these are manual
           pages belonging to the 'man3' category.
       binhtml
           This is the same as "bindoc" above, but applies to HTML documents.
       libhtml
           This is the same as "libdoc" above, but applies to HTML documents.
       Four other parameters let you control various aspects of how
       installation paths are determined:
       installdirs
           The default destinations for these installable things come from
           entries in your system's "Config.pm".  You can select from three
           different sets of default locations by setting the "installdirs"
           parameter as follows:
                                     'installdirs' set to:
                              core          site                vendor
                         uses the following defaults from Config.pm:
             lib     => installprivlib  installsitelib      installvendorlib
             arch    => installarchlib  installsitearch     installvendorarch
             script  => installscript   installsitescript   installvendorscript
             bin     => installbin      installsitebin      installvendorbin
             bindoc  => installman1dir  installsiteman1dir  installvendorman1dir
             libdoc  => installman3dir  installsiteman3dir  installvendorman3dir
             binhtml => installhtml1dir installsitehtml1dir installvendorhtml1dir [*]
             libhtml => installhtml3dir installsitehtml3dir installvendorhtml3dir [*]
             * Under some OS (eg. MSWin32) the destination for HTML documents is
               determined by the C<Config.pm> entry C<installhtmldir>.
           The default value of "installdirs" is "site".  If you're creating
           vendor distributions of module packages, you may want to do
           something like this:
             perl Build.PL --installdirs vendor
           or
             ./Build install --installdirs vendor
           If you're installing an updated version of a module that was
           included with perl itself (i.e. a "core module"), then you may set
           "installdirs" to "core" to overwrite the module in its present
           location.
           (Note that the 'script' line is different from "MakeMaker" -
           unfortunately there's no such thing as "installsitescript" or
           "installvendorscript" entry in "Config.pm", so we use the
           "installsitebin" and "installvendorbin" entries to at least get the
           general location right.  In the future, if "Config.pm" adds some
           more appropriate entries, we'll start using those.)
       install_path
           Once the defaults have been set, you can override them.
           On the command line, that would look like this:
             perl Build.PL --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
           or this:
             ./Build install --install_path lib=/foo/lib --install_path arch=/foo/lib/arch
       install_base
           You can also set the whole bunch of installation paths by supplying
           the "install_base" parameter to point to a directory on your
           system.  For instance, if you set "install_base" to "/home/ken" on
           a Linux system, you'll install as follows:
             lib     => /home/ken/lib/perl5
             arch    => /home/ken/lib/perl5/i386-linux
             script  => /home/ken/bin
             bin     => /home/ken/bin
             bindoc  => /home/ken/man/man1
             libdoc  => /home/ken/man/man3
             binhtml => /home/ken/html
             libhtml => /home/ken/html
           Note that this is different from how "MakeMaker"'s "PREFIX"
           parameter works.  "install_base" just gives you a default layout
           under the directory you specify, which may have little to do with
           the "installdirs=site" layout.
           The exact layout under the directory you specify may vary by system
           - we try to do the "sensible" thing on each platform.
       destdir
           If you want to install everything into a temporary directory first
           (for instance, if you want to create a directory tree that a
           package manager like "rpm" or "dpkg" could create a package from),
           you can use the "destdir" parameter:
             perl Build.PL --destdir /tmp/foo
           or
             ./Build install --destdir /tmp/foo
           This will effectively install to "/tmp/foo/$sitelib",
           "/tmp/foo/$sitearch", and the like, except that it will use
           "File::Spec" to make the pathnames work correctly on whatever
           platform you're installing on.
       prefix
           Provided for compatibility with "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"'s PREFIX
           argument.  "prefix" should be used when you want Module::Build to
           install your modules, documentation, and scripts in the same place
           as "ExtUtils::MakeMaker"'s PREFIX mechanism.
           The following are equivalent.
               perl Build.PL --prefix /tmp/foo
               perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
           Because of the complex nature of the prefixification logic, the
           behavior of PREFIX in "MakeMaker" has changed subtly over time.
           Module::Build's --prefix logic is equivalent to the PREFIX logic
           found in "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" 6.30.
           The maintainers of "MakeMaker" do understand the troubles with the
           PREFIX mechanism, and added INSTALL_BASE support in version 6.31 of
           "MakeMaker", which was released in 2006.
           If you don't need to retain compatibility with old versions
           (pre-6.31) of "ExtUtils::MakeMaker" or are starting a fresh Perl
           installation we recommend you use "install_base" instead (and
           "INSTALL_BASE" in "ExtUtils::MakeMaker").  See "Installing in the
           same location as ExtUtils::MakeMaker" in Module::Build::Cookbook
           for further information.
MOTIVATIONS
       There are several reasons I wanted to start over, and not just fix what
       I didn't like about "MakeMaker":
       o   I don't like the core idea of "MakeMaker", namely that "make"
           should be involved in the build process.  Here are my reasons:
           +   When a person is installing a Perl module, what can you assume
               about their environment?  Can you assume they have "make"?  No,
               but you can assume they have some version of Perl.
           +   When a person is writing a Perl module for intended
               distribution, can you assume that they know how to build a
               Makefile, so they can customize their build process?  No, but
               you can assume they know Perl, and could customize that way.
           For years, these things have been a barrier to people getting the
           build/install process to do what they want.
       o   There are several architectural decisions in "MakeMaker" that make
           it very difficult to customize its behavior.  For instance, when
           using "MakeMaker" you do "use ExtUtils::MakeMaker", but the object
           created in "WriteMakefile()" is actually blessed into a package
           name that's created on the fly, so you can't simply subclass
           "ExtUtils::MakeMaker".  There is a workaround "MY" package that
           lets you override certain "MakeMaker" methods, but only certain
           explicitly preselected (by "MakeMaker") methods can be overridden.
           Also, the method of customization is very crude: you have to modify
           a string containing the Makefile text for the particular target.
           Since these strings aren't documented, and can't be documented
           (they take on different values depending on the platform, version
           of perl, version of "MakeMaker", etc.), you have no guarantee that
           your modifications will work on someone else's machine or after an
           upgrade of "MakeMaker" or perl.
       o   It is risky to make major changes to "MakeMaker", since it does so
           many things, is so important, and generally works.  "Module::Build"
           is an entirely separate package so that I can work on it all I
           want, without worrying about backward compatibility with
           "MakeMaker".
       o   Finally, Perl is said to be a language for system administration.
           Could it really be the case that Perl isn't up to the task of
           building and installing software?  Even if that software is a bunch
           of ".pm" files that just need to be copied from one place to
           another?  My sense was that we could design a system to accomplish
           this in a flexible, extensible, and friendly manner.  Or die
           trying.
TO DO
       The current method of relying on time stamps to determine whether a
       derived file is out of date isn't likely to scale well, since it
       requires tracing all dependencies backward, it runs into problems on
       NFS, and it's just generally flimsy.  It would be better to use an MD5
       signature or the like, if available.  See "cons" for an example.
        - append to perllocal.pod
        - add a 'plugin' functionality
AUTHOR
       Ken Williams <kwilliams AT cpan.org>
       Development questions, bug reports, and patches should be sent to the
       Module-Build mailing list at <module-build AT perl.org>.
       Bug reports are also welcome at
       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Module-Build>;.
       The latest development version is available from the Git repository at
       <https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/Module-Build>;
COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Ken Williams.  All rights reserved.
       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO
       perl(1), Module::Build::Cookbook, Module::Build::Authoring,
       Module::Build::API, ExtUtils::MakeMaker
       META.yml Specification: CPAN::Meta::Spec
       <http://www.dsmit.com/cons/>;
       <http://search.cpan.org/dist/PerlBuildSystem/>;

perl v5.16.3                      2014-06-10                  Module::Build(3)