Creating installable scripts

bronto has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello

I'd like to have something similar to (or even a) Makefile.PL to install a script --not a module--. I remember that I read somewhere that scripts with the .PL extension had something special in producing a new script with the correct "#!" line, but I can't recall where I found it.

In short, I'd like to do something like

perl myScript.PL

and have a runnable version of my script back, or

perl Makefile.PL ; make ; make install

and have a runnable version of my script installed in a sensible location

Can anybody point me to the right direction?

Thanks in advance

Ciao!
--bronto

The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

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Re: Creating installable scripts by liz (Monsignor) on Aug 12, 2003 at 18:18 UTC
Check out "EXE_FILES" in ExtUtils::MakeMaker. From the documentation: 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. If your executables start with something like #!perl or #!/usr/bin/perl MakeMaker will change this to the path of the perl 'Makefile.PL' was invoked with so the programs will be sure to run properly even if perl is not in /usr/bin/perl. Whenever I need to have scripts installed, I just put them in the "scripts" directory and add: `EXE_FILES => [<script/*>],` [download] to the call to ExtUtils::MakeMaker's "WriteMakefile". Liz	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Creating installable scripts by bronto (Priest) on Aug 12, 2003 at 18:52 UTC
BINGO! ++liz! That was exactly what I was looking for! Surely I noticed that feature when I read the docs of ExtUtils::MakeMaker months ago, but I completely forgot where I learnt about it; just remembered that something somewhere worked that way. Thanks a lot! Ciao! `--bronto` The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway). --John M. Dlugosz	[reply]
Re: Creating installable scripts by particle (Vicar) on Aug 12, 2003 at 17:44 UTC
if i understand you correctly, PAR might just help. have a look. it might not be the exact solution, but it lets you execute your script on any machine, even those without perl installed. ~Particle accelerates	[reply]