The DB-building program can be re-run at any time, and should be after changes to the site. The only purpose in running it, as part of the installation process, is that there has to be a DB to run the tests that everyone expects a CPAN module to have. You as installer probably never know that the program is run.
I don't know what to do with "I might not want all htmls and jpegs included in your database". First, at that point it's your database, not mine. Second, the database consists simply of a hash from .html filenames to the number of .jpg's each calls out. Why would anyone care whether all the files that are linked to the front page are included?
Such a DB is not likely to "overflow the /var space". What does that mean anyway?
How can an Apache2 installation be so non-standard that the DB-making program can't follow the links among its .html files? Keeping a script from
"doing something bad" is a normal part of module development and deployment.
"the unexpected creation of files in specific directories leads to emergency shutdown of the machine" sounds like "turn off your anti-virus software before installing"?
Half the people (1 of 2 :-) say "I don't think a module installation should ask questions" and the other half say "The sysadmin might have very different ideas about where your database should be put". What's a poor module-installer-designer to do? It's not possible to ask a question to determine whether any questions should be asked!
It takes a few seconds to run the DB-making script on my site, not 20 minutes. But I'll put in a check that if the DB already exists, it won't run the script.
You probably don't like CPAN modules for which the testing phase takes minutes.
"there were some changes necessary in the database": the DB reflects the contents of the site. It and CloseKeepAlive are a closed (private) system. "Changes become necessary" only when the site changes.
Installing a module intended for Apache servers, on machines that aren't Apache servers, is something I hadn't thought of. I suggest you not include CloseKeepAlive in your general distribution of CPAN modules.
The first thing that Apache::Test does is to ask "where is your Apache server?" If that question doesn't lead to starting up a test server, the (rest of the) tests don't get run. So I guess I should move the running of the DB-making script to the testing phase. Does that help with your concerns?
The pod docs will be updated to cover running the DB-making script. The posted page was just to give people an idea what CloseKeepAlive is about.
Despite all that, thanks for replying. Each correspondent contributes things to the packaging, testing, and installation. Except that "whether to ask where to put the DB" looks like a true conundrum.
Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
Please read these before you post! —
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
- a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
| |
For: |
|
Use: |
| & | | & |
| < | | < |
| > | | > |
| [ | | [ |
| ] | | ] |
Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.