Re: variable "inheritance"; viral $VERSION

CPAN does track the VERSION of each .pm file, and it will not install a .pm file if it thinks the one already installed is newer, regardless what the version number is of the package. (In fact, as far as I can tell, there's no relationship between the version of the package (the number in the tar file), and the versions of the .pm files).

As far as CPAN is concerned, all the .pm files without a VERSION assignment in the file itself do not have a VERSION. It'll list them as undef. Whether it will then actually replace an already installed file with a newer one, I do not know. For me, CPAN usually doesn't do what I mean, so I wouldn't dare take the risk.

Abigail

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Re: Re: variable "inheritance"; viral $VERSION by amackey (Beadle) on Mar 09, 2003 at 18:03 UTC
Does CPAN track VERSION by compiling the file and checking for $package::VERSION, or does it do the same parsing as ExtUtils::MakeMaker's VERSION_FROM utility? What I'm trying to avoid is all the CPAN problems to which you allude: all the files in my package remain in lock step through every release (and reflect the version of the overall distribution).	[reply]
Re: variable "inheritance"; viral $VERSION by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Mar 09, 2003 at 22:47 UTC
Not only would CPAN need to compile the file, but also run it, as $VERSION is typically set at compile time. CPAN is not going to run the entire file. What I'm trying to avoid is all the CPAN problems to which you allude: all the files in my package remain in lock step through every release (and reflect the version of the overall distribution). Whether your files remain in lock step is not archieved by inheriting `$VERSION`. What you do lose is the ability to easily check whether your files are in lock step. If each file has its own `$VERSION`, it's easy to see if there's a mismatch. If they inherit from a single source, there's no way to find out. IMO, if you inherit `$VERSION`, you'd lose one of major reasons to use a version number. Abigail	[reply] [d/l] [select]