phpman > perldoc > Module::Build(3pm)

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. 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.

    See "COMPARISON" for more comparisons between "Module::Build" and other installer tools.

    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.

        With an optional "html_links" argument set to a false value, you can skip the search for
        other documentation to link to, because that can waste a lot of time if there aren't any
        links to generate anyway:

          ./Build html --html_links 0

    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
        <http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module.build/2007/03/msg584.html> ]

        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, $ENV{HOME}/.modulebuildrc. If it's
    not found there, it will look in the .modulebuildrc file in the directories referred to by the
    environment variables "HOMEDRIVE" + "HOMEDIR", "USERPROFILE", "APPDATA", "WINDIR", "SYS$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.

COMPARISON
    A comparison between "Module::Build" and other CPAN distribution installers.

    *   ExtUtils::MakeMaker requires "make" and use of a Makefile. "Module::Build" does not, nor do
        other pure-perl installers following the Build.PL spec such as Module::Build::Tiny. In
        practice, this is usually not an issue for the end user, as "make" is already required to
        install most CPAN modules, even on Windows.

    *   ExtUtils::MakeMaker has been a core module in every version of Perl 5, and must maintain
        compatibility to install the majority of CPAN modules. "Module::Build" was added to core in
        Perl 5.10 and removed from core in Perl 5.20, and (like ExtUtils::MakeMaker) is only updated
        to fix critical issues and maintain compatibility. "Module::Build" and other non-core
        installers like Module::Build::Tiny are installed from CPAN by declaring themselves as a
        "configure" phase prerequisite, and in this way any installer can be used in place of
        ExtUtils::MakeMaker.

    *   Customizing the build process with ExtUtils::MakeMaker involves overriding certain methods
        that form the Makefile by defining the subs in the "MY::" namespace, requiring in-depth
        knowledge of Makefile, but allowing targeted customization of the entire build. Customizing
        "Module::Build" involves subclassing "Module::Build" itself, adding or overriding pure-perl
        methods that represent build actions, which are invoked as arguments passed to the generated
        "./Build" script. This is a simpler concept but requires redefining the standard build
        actions to invoke your customizations. Module::Build::Tiny does not allow for customization.

    *   "Module::Build" provides more features and a better experience for distribution authors than
        ExtUtils::MakeMaker. However, tools designed specifically for authoring, such as Dist::Zilla
        and its spinoffs Dist::Milla and Minilla, provide these features and more, and generate a
        configure script (Makefile.PL/Build.PL) that will use any of the various installers
        separately on the end user side. App::ModuleBuildTiny is an alternative standalone authoring
        tool for distributions using Module::Build::Tiny, which requires only a simple two-line
        Build.PL.

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/>