How to bundle additional non-core CPAN modules with a custom set

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

I have a project for someone where I'm putting in a TT2 CGI and 3 custom modules that it uses. Following the POD for ExtUtils::MakeMaker, ExtUtils::MakeMaker::Tutorial, and reading Makefile.PLs from other modules I've been able to put together a Makefile that takes care of installing the CGI and the 3 new modules.

What I'm stuck on is how to bundle the prerequisites which are not in the 5.8.3 core. The client's clients may not have the connection or the expertise to use the cpan shell to install them, so I need to bundle them with my stuff.

I think I could just put all the extras into my /lib dir and treat them just like the custom ones but this seems weird and difficult--have to move all the test files into /t also and merge all the Makefile.PLs into one(?). So I'd love to find a better/simpler way if there is one. I looked around quite a bit and couldn't find recommendations for how to do it. Please forgive me if I missed something obvious.

Limitations: I cannot use PAR, it needs to be simple and preferably one step along with my 3-module-1-CGI tarball. These are the non-core modules:

requires:
    Date::Calc:                    0
    Template:                      2
    URI::Escape:                   0
[download]

Thank you for looking at it!

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Re: How to bundle additional non-core CPAN modules with a custom set by Thelonius (Priest) on Aug 13, 2005 at 22:02 UTC
You could take a look at `autobundle` in the CPAN module, CPAN::DistroBuilder or Module::Install::Bundle. I haven't used any of them, so I don't know what's easiest.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: How to bundle additional non-core CPAN modules with a custom set by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Aug 14, 2005 at 03:42 UTC
Oh, those look awesome. Thank you! I did search the CPAN for "bundle" but since bundles are named with "Bundle" I didn't have the fortitude to wade through the 900 search results or the brains to narrow the search terms.	[reply]
Re: How to bundle additional non-core CPAN modules with a custom set by saintmike (Vicar) on Aug 13, 2005 at 20:26 UTC
Limitations: I cannot use PAR, it needs to be simple What you're describing is a task PAR is designed to handle easily. It's really simple. Why can't you use it? Simon Cozens has published an article called "Using the Web as a GUI" in The Perl Journal (2004/0411), describing a project just like yours. Unfortunately, it's only available on a subscription basis.	[reply]
Re^2: How to bundle additional non-core CPAN modules with a custom set by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Aug 13, 2005 at 20:38 UTC
I've played with PAR a bit and I really like it. In this case, I'm on a different box (OS X BSD vs Linux) from the client and I don't want to try to develop remotely; I don't want to add hours to the project and I'm barely PAR competant though I had some success with a couple test apps; and I want to give them something with few layers of abstraction. If there isn't a simply way to do what I want without it, though, I am thinking about revisiting PAR for it.	[reply]