Back to main site | Back to man page index

PERLNEWMOD(1)                              Perl Programmers Reference Guide                             PERLNEWMOD(1)



NAME
       perlnewmod - preparing a new module for distribution

DESCRIPTION
       This document gives you some suggestions about how to go about writing Perl modules, preparing them for
       distribution, and making them available via CPAN.

       One of the things that makes Perl really powerful is the fact that Perl hackers tend to want to share the
       solutions to problems they've faced, so you and I don't have to battle with the same problem again.

       The main way they do this is by abstracting the solution into a Perl module. If you don't know what one of
       these is, the rest of this document isn't going to be much use to you. You're also missing out on an awful lot
       of useful code; consider having a look at perlmod, perlmodlib and perlmodinstall before coming back here.

       When you've found that there isn't a module available for what you're trying to do, and you've had to write
       the code yourself, consider packaging up the solution into a module and uploading it to CPAN so that others
       can benefit.

   Warning
       We're going to primarily concentrate on Perl-only modules here, rather than XS modules. XS modules serve a
       rather different purpose, and you should consider different things before distributing them - the popularity
       of the library you are gluing, the portability to other operating systems, and so on. However, the notes on
       preparing the Perl side of the module and packaging and distributing it will apply equally well to an XS
       module as a pure-Perl one.

   What should I make into a module?
       You should make a module out of any code that you think is going to be useful to others. Anything that's
       likely to fill a hole in the communal library and which someone else can slot directly into their program. Any
       part of your code which you can isolate and extract and plug into something else is a likely candidate.

       Let's take an example. Suppose you're reading in data from a local format into a hash-of-hashes in Perl,
       turning that into a tree, walking the tree and then piping each node to an Acme Transmogrifier Server.

       Now, quite a few people have the Acme Transmogrifier, and you've had to write something to talk the protocol
       from scratch - you'd almost certainly want to make that into a module. The level at which you pitch it is up
       to you: you might want protocol-level modules analogous to Net::SMTP which then talk to higher level modules
       analogous to Mail::Send. The choice is yours, but you do want to get a module out for that server protocol.

       Nobody else on the planet is going to talk your local data format, so we can ignore that. But what about the
       thing in the middle? Building tree structures from Perl variables and then traversing them is a nice, general
       problem, and if nobody's already written a module that does that, you might want to modularise that code too.

       So hopefully you've now got a few ideas about what's good to modularise.  Let's now see how it's done.

   Step-by-step: Preparing the ground
       Before we even start scraping out the code, there are a few things we'll want to do in advance.

       Look around
          Dig into a bunch of modules to see how they're written. I'd suggest starting with Text::Tabs, since it's in
          the standard library and is nice and simple, and then looking at something a little more complex like
          File::Copy.  For object oriented code, "WWW::Mechanize" or the "Email::*" modules provide some good
          examples.

          These should give you an overall feel for how modules are laid out and written.

       Check it's new

          Perl modules included on CPAN have a naming hierarchy you should try to fit in with. See perlmodlib for
          more details on how this works, and browse around CPAN and the modules list to get a feel of it. At the
          very least, remember this: modules should be title capitalised, (This::Thing) fit in with a category, and
          explain their purpose succinctly.

       Check again
          While you're doing that, make really sure you haven't missed a module similar to the one you're about to
          write.

          When you've got your name sorted out and you're sure that your module is wanted and not currently
          available, it's time to start coding.

   Step-by-step: Making the module
       Start with module-starter or h2xs
          The module-starter utility is distributed as part of the Module::Starter CPAN package.  It creates a
          directory with stubs of all the necessary files to start a new module, according to recent "best practice"
          for module development, and is invoked from the command line, thus:

              module-starter --module=Foo::Bar \
                 --author="Your Name" [email protected]

          If you do not wish to install the Module::Starter package from CPAN, h2xs is an older tool, originally
          intended for the development of XS modules, which comes packaged with the Perl distribution.

          A typical invocation of h2xs for a pure Perl module is:

              h2xs -AX --skip-exporter --use-new-tests -n Foo::Bar

          The "-A" omits the Autoloader code, "-X" omits XS elements, "--skip-exporter" omits the Exporter code,
          "--use-new-tests" sets up a modern testing environment, and "-n" specifies the name of the module.

       Use strict and warnings
          A module's code has to be warning and strict-clean, since you can't guarantee the conditions that it'll be
          used under. Besides, you wouldn't want to distribute code that wasn't warning or strict-clean anyway,
          right?

       Use Carp
          The Carp module allows you to present your error messages from the caller's perspective; this gives you a
          way to signal a problem with the caller and not your module. For instance, if you say this:

              warn "No hostname given";

          the user will see something like this:

              No hostname given at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/Net/Acme.pm
              line 123.

          which looks like your module is doing something wrong. Instead, you want to put the blame on the user, and
          say this:

              No hostname given at bad_code, line 10.

          You do this by using Carp and replacing your "warn"s with "carp"s. If you need to "die", say "croak"
          instead. However, keep "warn" and "die" in place for your sanity checks - where it really is your module at
          The work isn't over until the paperwork is done, and you're going to need to put in some time writing some
          documentation for your module.  "module-starter" or "h2xs" will provide a stub for you to fill in; if
          you're not sure about the format, look at perlpod for an introduction. Provide a good synopsis of how your
          module is used in code, a description, and then notes on the syntax and function of the individual
          subroutines or methods. Use Perl comments for developer notes and POD for end-user notes.

       Write tests
          You're encouraged to create self-tests for your module to ensure it's working as intended on the myriad
          platforms Perl supports; if you upload your module to CPAN, a host of testers will build your module and
          send you the results of the tests. Again, "module-starter" and "h2xs" provide a test framework which you
          can extend - you should do something more than just checking your module will compile.  Test::Simple and
          Test::More are good places to start when writing a test suite.

       Write the README
          If you're uploading to CPAN, the automated gremlins will extract the README file and place that in your
          CPAN directory. It'll also appear in the main by-module and by-category directories if you make it onto the
          modules list. It's a good idea to put here what the module actually does in detail, and the user-visible
          changes since the last release.

   Step-by-step: Distributing your module
       Get a CPAN user ID
          Every developer publishing modules on CPAN needs a CPAN ID.  Visit "http://pause.perl.org/", select
          "Request PAUSE Account", and wait for your request to be approved by the PAUSE administrators.

       "perl Makefile.PL; make test; make dist"
          Once again, "module-starter" or "h2xs" has done all the work for you.  They produce the standard
          "Makefile.PL" you see when you download and install modules, and this produces a Makefile with a "dist"
          target.

          Once you've ensured that your module passes its own tests - always a good thing to make sure - you can
          "make dist", and the Makefile will hopefully produce you a nice tarball of your module, ready for upload.

       Upload the tarball
          The email you got when you received your CPAN ID will tell you how to log in to PAUSE, the Perl Authors
          Upload SErver. From the menus there, you can upload your module to CPAN.

       Announce to the modules list
          Once uploaded, it'll sit unnoticed in your author directory. If you want it connected to the rest of the
          CPAN, you'll need to go to "Register Namespace" on PAUSE.  Once registered, your module will appear in the
          by-module and by-category listings on CPAN.

       Announce to clpa
          If you have a burning desire to tell the world about your release, post an announcement to the moderated
          "comp.lang.perl.announce" newsgroup.

       Fix bugs!
          Once you start accumulating users, they'll send you bug reports. If you're lucky, they'll even send you
          patches. Welcome to the joys of maintaining a software project...

AUTHOR
       Simon Cozens, "[email protected]"

       Updated by Kirrily "Skud" Robert, "[email protected]"