Building module by hand

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

To build a module by hand on a Unix machine,* is this correct?

I put the unpacked source into

/home/user/.cpan/build

Navigate to that directory and type

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test


make install
[download]

And this creates the proper (everything)?

And -- when removing modules on a Unix machine, I just remove the same directory that was created in
/home/user/.cpan/build -- is that correct? What about one other thing -- is there a central file or database that keeps track of all installed modules? Do I have to remove an entry from that?

One node here says that using CPAN and 'clean' will remove a module as well. Can someone verify that...

*The reason that I'm building by scratch is because I do not want the latest version of certain modules; I want older versions.

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Re: Building module by hand by davorg (Chancellor) on Nov 03, 2004 at 15:29 UTC
To build a module by hand on a Unix machine, is this correct?* I put the unpacked source into /home/user/.cpan/build That doesn't matter. You can build and install it from any directory. Navigate to that directory and type `perl Makefile.PL make make test` `make install` You probably need to be root for this step. And this creates the proper (everything)? Yes And -- when removing modules on a Unix machine, I just remove the same directory that was created in /home/user/.cpan/build -- is that correct? No. The "make install" installs the module into your library path (probably under /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.x/site_perl). You'll need to manually remove the files from there. What about one other thing -- is there a central file or database that keeps track of all installed modules? Do I have to remove an entry from that? Try "perldoc perllocal" for this list. One node here says that using CPAN and 'clean' will remove a module as well. Can someone verify that... That's nonsense. That will just clean up the directory that you ran the installation from. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club." -- Chip Salzenberg	[reply]
Re^2: Building module by hand by jdtoronto (Prior) on Nov 03, 2004 at 19:53 UTC
davorg said: Navigate to that directory and type perl Makefile.PL make make test make install You probably need to be root for this step. My epxerience has been that the make and make test can be done as any user, bu thte make install probably needs to be root. jdtoronto	[reply]
Re: Building module by hand by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Nov 03, 2004 at 15:26 UTC
Except that it is not important where you unpack the the source yes that is the correct way to install a module. The locally installed modules are added to a file called `perllocal.pod` you can see the installed module by doing `perldoc perllocal` As to uninstalling a module you will have to track down the installed files in `@INC` and delete then. /J\	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Building module by hand by kutsu (Priest) on Nov 03, 2004 at 15:34 UTC
It doesn't matter where you put the module, but yes those procedures are correct. However, you can specify the version you want using the CPAN module (perl -MCPAN -e 'shell') through the install command. From man CPAN: `...if you would like to install version 1.23_90, you need to know wher +e the distribution file resides on CPAN relative to the authors/id/ d +irectory. If the author is BAR, this might be BAR/Foo-1.23_90.tar.gz; + so you would have to say install BAR/Foo-1.23_90.tar.gz The first example will be driven by an object of the class CPAN +::Module, the second by an object of class CPAN::Distribution.` [download] "Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." Ambrose Bierce	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Building module by hand by Fletch (Bishop) on Nov 03, 2004 at 15:24 UTC
`perldoc perlmodinstall`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Building module by hand by leriksen (Curate) on Nov 04, 2004 at 04:58 UTC
I usually do `prompt> perl Makefile.PL && make test //review output and check for 100% pass prompt> su //login as root rootprompt>make install && exit prompt>` [download] well-behaved modules need little more than this Note the 'CPAN' shell 'clean' does exactly the same as 'make clean', which is delete local temp files (Makefile gets renamed). No 'uninstall'ing gets done. Uninstall support in Perl modules is patchy at best. use brain;	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Building module by hand by astaines (Curate) on Nov 03, 2004 at 19:43 UTC
Hi, Your description of the build process is correct. Your idea for removing the module won't work. I don't have a Unix machine to hand just now, but perl installs modules somewhere specific on each architecture. The install directory is not the build directory, so just removing the build directory won't work. On Windows modules live in "\perl\lib" and "\perl\site\lib" mostly. -- Anthony Staines	[reply]