ExtUtils/MakeMaker

NAME

SYNOPSIS

WriteMakefile( ATTRIBUTE => VALUE [, ...] );

which is really

MM->new(\%att)->flush;  

DESCRIPTION

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 medium answer is:

    use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
    WriteMakefile( NAME => "Foo::Bar" );

Default Makefile Behaviour

  perl Makefile.PL # optionally "perl Makefile.PL verbose"
  make
  make test        # optionally set TEST_VERBOSE=1
  make install     # See below

  perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/myperl5

  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 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 install

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_BIN                  INSTALLBIN
    INST_SCRIPT              INSTALLSCRIPT
    INST_MAN1DIR             INSTALLMAN1DIR
    INST_MAN3DIR             INSTALLMAN3DIR

You can check the values of these variables on your system with

    perl -MConfig -le 'print join $/, map 
        sprintf("%20s: %s", $_, $Config{$_}),
        grep /^install/, keys %Config'

    perl -le 'print join $/, @INC'

PREFIX attribute

    perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=~

Note, that the tilde expansion is done by MakeMaker, not by perl by default, nor by make.

If the user has superuser privileges, and is not working on AFS (Andrew File System) 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

AFS users

    perl Makefile.PL INSTALLSITELIB=/afs/here/today \
        INSTALLSCRIPT=/afs/there/now INSTALLMAN3DIR=/afs/for/manpages
    make

Static Linking of a new Perl Binary

    make perl

The binary can be installed into the directory where perl normally resides on your machine with

    make inst_perl

    perl Makefile.PL MAP_TARGET=myperl
    make myperl
    make inst_perl

    perl Makefile.PL
    make myperl MAP_TARGET=myperl
    make inst_perl MAP_TARGET=myperl

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

    make LINKTYPE=static                # works on most systems

Determination of Perl Library and Installation Locations

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

  PERL_INC     = $archlibexp/CORE
  PERL_LIB     = $privlibexp
  PERL_ARCHLIB = $archlibexp
  INST_LIB     = ./blib/lib
  INST_ARCHLIB = ./blib/arch

Which architecture dependent directory?

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

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.

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 reference. The hash may contain further attributes, e.g. {LIBS => ...}, that have to be determined by some evaluation 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 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 (export lists) and VMS (linker options) 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'] }

DL_VARS

Array of symbol names for variables to be made available as universal symbols. Used only under AIX (export lists) and VMS (linker options) 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. Consult INCLUDE_EXT for more details. (e.g. [ qw( Socket POSIX ) ] )

This attribute may be most useful when specified as a string on the commandline: 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.

NO_VC

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.

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.

H

Ref to array of *.h file names. Similar to C.

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 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 commandline: 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 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.

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.

INSTALLSITELIB

Used by `make install', which copies files from INST_LIB to this directory if INSTALLDIRS is set to site (default).

INSTALLSITEARCH

Used by `make install', which copies files from INST_ARCHLIB 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_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/bin'', 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)

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 explicitly defined in the Makefile.PL.

NEEDS_LINKING

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.

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 subdirectories.

OBJECT

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''

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 perlmain.c. Defaults to $(CC).

PERL_ARCHLIB

Same as above for architecture dependent files

PERL_LIB

Directory containing the Perl library to use.

PERL_SRC

Directory containing the Perl source code (use of this should be avoided, it may be undefined)

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.

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. If a lib directory exists and is not listed in DIR (above) then any *.pm and *.pl files it contains will also be included by default. 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 libscan() method can be used to alter the behaviour. Defining PM in the Makefile.PL will override PMLIBDIRS.

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 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).

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) sections of the Makefile. Caution! Do not use the SKIP attribute for the neglectible 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 VERSION attribute of the MakeMaker object. The following lines will be parsed o.k.:

    $VERSION = '1.00';
    ( $VERSION ) = '$Revision: 1.201 $ ' =~ /\$Revision:\s+([^\s]+)/;
    $FOO::VERSION = '1.10';

but these will fail:

    my $VERSION = '1.01';
    local $VERSION = '1.02';
    local $FOO::VERSION = '1.30';

The file named in VERSION_FROM is added as a dependency to Makefile to guarantee, that the Makefile contains the correct VERSION macro after a change of the file.

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 documentation 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

clean

  {FILES => "*.xyz foo"}

depend

  {ANY_TARGET => ANY_DEPENDECY, ...}

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 symbolic links and links the rest. Default is `best'.

dynamic_lib

  {ARMAYBE => 'ar', OTHERLDFLAGS => '...', INST_DYNAMIC_DEP => '...'}

installpm

Deprecated as of MakeMaker 5.23. See the pm_to_blib entry in the ExtUtils::MM_Unix manpage.

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'}

tool_autosplit

  {MAXLEN =E<gt> 8}

Overriding MakeMaker Methods

        sub MY::c_o { "new literal text" }

        sub MY::c_o {
            my($inherited) = shift->SUPER::c_o(@_);
            $inherited =~ s/old text/new text/;
            $inherited;
        }

If you still need a different solution, try to develop another subroutine, that fits your needs and submit the diffs to perl5-porters@nicoh.com or comp.lang.perl.misc 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

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

make distcheck

reports which files are below the build directory but not in the MANIFEST file and vice versa. (See ExtUtils::Manifest::fullcheck() for details)

make skipcheck

reports which files are skipped due to the entries in the MANIFEST.SKIP file (See ExtUtils::Manifest::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 $(DISTNAME)-$(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 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.

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 specifying a hash reference to the dist attribute of the WriteMakefile call. The following parameters are recognized:

    CI           ('ci -u')
    COMPRESS     ('compress')
    POSTOP       ('@ :')
    PREOP        ('@ :')
    TO_UNIX      (depends on the system)
    RCS_LABEL    ('rcs -q -Nv$(VERSION_SYM):')
    SHAR         ('shar')
    SUFFIX       ('Z')
    TAR          ('tar')
    TARFLAGS     ('cvf')
    ZIP          ('zip')
    ZIPFLAGS     ('-r')

    WriteMakefile( 'dist' => { COMPRESS=>"gzip", SUFFIX=>"gz" })

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

How To Write A Makefile.PL

Default Makefile Behaviour

make test

make install

PREFIX attribute

AFS users

Static Linking of a new Perl Binary

Determination of Perl Library and Installation Locations

Which architecture dependent directory?

Using Attributes and Parameters

Additional lowercase attributes

Overriding MakeMaker Methods

Hintsfile support

Distribution Support

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS