NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

If you are going to write a platform specific MM package, please try to limit the necessary overrides to primitive methods, and if it is not possible to do so, let's work out how to achieve that gain.

If you are overriding any of these methods in your Makefile.PL (in the MY class), please report that to the makemaker mailing list. We are trying to minimize the necessary method overrides and switch to data driven Makefile.PLs wherever possible. In the long run less methods will be overridable via the MY class.

METHODS

Not all of the methods below are overridable in a Makefile.PL. Overridable methods are marked as (o). All methods are overridable by a platform specific MM_*.pm file (See MM_VMS) and MM_OS2).

Preloaded methods

canonpath

No physical check on the filesystem, but a logical cleanup of a path. On UNIX eliminated successive slashes and successive ``/.''.

catdir

Concatenate two or more directory names to form a complete path ending with a directory. But remove the trailing slash from the resulting string, because it doesn't look good, isn't necessary and confuses OS2. Of course, if this is the root directory, don't cut off the trailing slash :-)

catfile

Concatenate one or more directory names and a filename to form a complete path ending with a filename

curdir

Returns a string representing of the current directory. ``.'' on UNIX.

rootdir

Returns a string representing of the root directory. ``/'' on UNIX.

updir

Returns a string representing of the parent directory. ``..'' on UNIX.

SelfLoaded methods

c_o (o)

Defines the suffix rules to compile different flavors of C files to object files.

cflags (o)

Does very much the same as the cflags script in the perl distribution. It doesn't return the whole compiler command line, but initializes all of its parts. The const_cccmd method then actually returns the definition of the CCCMD macro which uses these parts.

clean (o)

Defines the clean target.

const_cccmd (o)

Returns the full compiler call for C programs and stores the definition in CONST_CCCMD.

const_config (o)

Defines a couple of constants in the Makefile that are imported from %Config.

const_loadlibs (o)

Defines EXTRALIBS, LDLOADLIBS, BSLOADLIBS, LD_RUN_PATH. See Liblist for details.

constants (o)

Initializes lots of constants and .SUFFIXES and .PHONY

depend (o)

Same as macro for the depend attribute.

dir_target (o)

Takes an array of directories that need to exist and returns a Makefile entry for a .exists file in these directories. Returns nothing, if the entry has already been processed. We're helpless though, if the same directory comes as $(FOO) _and_ as ``bar''. Both of them get an entry, that's why we use ``::''.

dist (o)

Defines a lot of macros for distribution support.

dist_basics (o)

Defines the targets distclean, distcheck, skipcheck, manifest.

dist_ci (o)

Defines a check in target for RCS.

dist_core (o)

Defeines the targets dist, tardist, zipdist, uutardist, shdist

dist_dir (o)

Defines the scratch directory target that will hold the distribution before tar-ing (or shar-ing).

dist_test (o)

Defines a target that produces the distribution in the scratchdirectory, and runs 'perl Makefile.PL; make ;make test' in that subdirectory.

dlsyms (o)

Used by AIX and VMS to define DL_FUNCS and DL_VARS and write the *.exp files.

dynamic (o)

Defines the dynamic target.

dynamic_bs (o)

Defines targets for bootstrap files.

dynamic_lib (o)

Defines how to produce the *.so (or equivalent) files.

exescan

Deprecated method. Use libscan instead.

extliblist

Called by init_others, and calls ext ExtUtils::Liblist. See Liblist for details.

file_name_is_absolute

Takes as argument a path and returns true, if it is an absolute path.

find_perl

Finds the executables PERL and FULLPERL

Methods to actually produce chunks of text for the Makefile

force (o)

Just writes FORCE:

guess_name

Guess the name of this package by examining the working directory's name. MakeMaker calls this only if the developer has not supplied a NAME attribute.

has_link_code

Returns true if C, XS, MYEXTLIB or similar objects exist within this object that need a compiler. Does not descend into subdirectories as needs_linking() does.

init_dirscan

Initializes DIR, XS, PM, C, O_FILES, H, PL_FILES, MAN*PODS, EXE_FILES.

init_main

Initializes NAME, FULLEXT, BASEEXT, PARENT_NAME, DLBASE, PERL_SRC, PERL_LIB, PERL_ARCHLIB, PERL_INC, INSTALLDIRS, INST_*, INSTALL*, PREFIX, CONFIG, AR, AR_STATIC_ARGS, LD, OBJ_EXT, LIB_EXT, EXE_EXT, MAP_TARGET, LIBPERL_A, VERSION_FROM, VERSION, DISTNAME, VERSION_SYM.

init_others

Initializes EXTRALIBS, BSLOADLIBS, LDLOADLIBS, LIBS, LD_RUN_PATH, OBJECT, BOOTDEP, PERLMAINCC, LDFROM, LINKTYPE, NOOP, FIRST_MAKEFILE, MAKEFILE, NOECHO, RM_F, RM_RF, TEST_F, TOUCH, CP, MV, CHMOD, UMASK_NULL

install (o)

Defines the install target.

installbin (o)

Defines targets to install EXE_FILES.

libscan (o)

Takes a path to a file that is found by init_dirscan and returns false if we don't want to include this file in the library. Mainly used to exclude RCS, CVS, and SCCS directories from installation.

linkext (o)

Defines the linkext target which in turn defines the LINKTYPE.

lsdir

Takes as arguments a directory name and a regular expression. Returns all entries in the directory that match the regular expression.

macro (o)

Simple subroutine to insert the macros defined by the macro attribute into the Makefile.

makeaperl (o)

Called by staticmake. Defines how to write the Makefile to produce a static new perl.

By default the Makefile produced includes all the static extensions in the perl library. (Purified versions of library files, e.g., DynaLoader_pure_p1_c0_032.a are automatically ignored to avoid link errors.)

makefile (o)

Defines how to rewrite the Makefile.

manifypods (o)

Defines targets and routines to translate the pods into manpages and put them into the INST_* directories.

maybe_command

Returns true, if the argument is likely to be a command.

maybe_command_in_dirs

method under development. Not yet used. Ask Ilya :-)

needs_linking (o)

Does this module need linking? Looks into subdirectory objects (see also has_link_code())

nicetext

misnamed method (will have to be changed). The MM_Unix method just returns the argument without further processing.

On VMS used to insure that colons marking targets are preceded by space - most Unix Makes don't need this, but it's necessary under VMS to distinguish the target delimiter from a colon appearing as part of a filespec.

parse_version

parse a file and return what you think is $VERSION in this file set to

pasthru (o)

Defines the string that is passed to recursive make calls in subdirectories.

path

Takes no argument, returns the environment variable PATH as an array.

perl_script

Takes one argument, a file name, and returns the file name, if the argument is likely to be a perl script. On MM_Unix this is true for any ordinary, readable file.

perldepend (o)

Defines the dependency from all *.h files that come with the perl distribution.

pm_to_blib

Defines target that copies all files in the hash PM to their destination and autosplits them. See Install/DESCRIPTION

post_constants (o)

Returns an empty string per default. Dedicated to overrides from within Makefile.PL after all constants have been defined.

post_initialize (o)

Returns an empty string per default. Used in Makefile.PLs to add some chunk of text to the Makefile after the object is initialized.

postamble (o)

Returns an empty string. Can be used in Makefile.PLs to write some text to the Makefile at the end.

prefixify

Check a path variable in $self from %Config, if it contains a prefix, and replace it with another one.

Takes as arguments an attribute name, a search prefix and a replacement prefix. Changes the attribute in the object.

processPL (o)

Defines targets to run *.PL files.

realclean (o)

Defines the realclean target.

replace_manpage_separator

Takes the name of a package, which may be a nested package, in the form Foo/Bar and replaces the slash with ::. Returns the replacement.

static (o)

Defines the static target.

static_lib (o)

Defines how to produce the *.a (or equivalent) files.

staticmake (o)

Calls makeaperl.

subdir_x (o)

Helper subroutine for subdirs

subdirs (o)

Defines targets to process subdirectories.

test (o)

Defines the test targets.

test_via_harness (o)

Helper method to write the test targets

test_via_script (o)

Other helper method for test.

tool_autosplit (o)

Defines a simple perl call that runs autosplit. May be deprecated by pm_to_blib soon.

tools_other (o)

Defines SHELL, LD, TOUCH, CP, MV, RM_F, RM_RF, CHMOD, UMASK_NULL in the Makefile. Also defines the perl programs MKPATH, WARN_IF_OLD_PACKLIST, MOD_INSTALL. DOC_INSTALL, and UNINSTALL.

tool_xsubpp (o)

Determines typemaps, xsubpp version, prototype behaviour.

top_targets (o)

Defines the targets all, subdirs, config, and O_FILES

writedoc

Obsolete, depecated method. Not used since Version 5.21.

xs_c (o)

Defines the suffix rules to compile XS files to C.

xs_o (o)

Defines suffix rules to go from XS to object files directly. This is only intended for broken make implementations.

perl_archive

This is internal method that returns path to libperl.a equivalent to be linked to dynamic extensions. UNIX does not have one but OS2 and Win32 do.

export_list

This is internal method that returns name of a file that is passed to linker to define symbols to be exported. UNIX does not have one but OS2 and Win32 do.

SEE ALSO