Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser - Alien user documentation
perldoc Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser
User Contributed Perl Documentation Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser(3) NAME Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser - Alien user documentation VERSION version 1.89 SYNOPSIS perldoc Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser DESCRIPTION This document is intended for a user of an Alien::Base based Alien module's user. Although specifically geared for Alien::Base subclasses, it may have some useful hints for Alien in general. Full working examples of how to use an Alien module are also bundled with Alien::Build in the distribution's "example/user" directory. Those examples use Alien::xz, which uses alienfile + Alien::Build + Alien::Base. The following documentation will assume you are trying to use an Alien called "Alien::Foo" which provides the library "libfoo" and the command line tool "foo". Many Aliens will only provide one or the other. The best interface to use for using Alien::Base based aliens is Alien::Base::Wrapper. This allows you to combine multiple aliens together and handles a number of corner obscure corner cases that using Aliens directly does not. Also as of 0.64, Alien::Base::Wrapper comes bundled with Alien::Build and Alien::Base anyway, so it is not an extra dependency. What follows are the main use cases. Module::Build use Module::Build; use Alien::Base::Wrapper qw( Alien::Foo !export ); use Alien::Foo; my $build = Module::Build->new( ... configure_requires => { 'Alien::Base::Wrapper' => '0', 'Alien::Foo' => '0', ... }, Alien::Base::Wrapper->mb_args ... ); $build->create_build_script; The key gotcha for using Alien from a "Build.PL" for an XS module is remembering to explicitly making the Alien a configuration prerequisite. ExtUtils::MakeMaker use ExtUtils::MakeMaker; use Alien::Base::Wrapper qw( Alien::Foo !export ); WriteMakefile( ... CONFIGURE_REQUIRES => { 'Alien::Base::Wrapper' => '0', 'Alien::Foo' => '0', }, Alien::Base::Wrapper->mm_args ... ); MakeMaker is similar, make sure that you explicitly make your Alien a configure prerequisite. Inline::C / Inline::CPP use Inline 0.56 with => 'Alien::Foo'; Although not widely used, Inline::C and Inline::CPP can be configured to use an Alien::Base based Alien with the "with" keyword. ExtUtils::Depends use ExtUtils::MakeMaker; use ExtUtils::Depends; my $pkg = ExtUtils::Depends->new("Alien::Foo"); WriteMakefile( ... $pkg->get_makefile_vars, ... ); ExtUtils::Depends works similar to Alien::Base::Wrapper, but uses the Inline interface under the covers. Dist::Zilla [@Filter] -bundle = @Basic -remove = MakeMaker [Prereqs / ConfigureRequires] Alien::Foo = 0 [MakeMaker::Awesome] header = use Alien::Base::Wrapper qw( Alien::Foo !export ); WriteMakefile_arg = Alien::Base::Wrapper->mm_args FFI::Platypus use FFI::Platypus; use Alien::Foo; my $ffi = FFI::Platypus->new( lib => [ Alien::Foo->dynamic_libs ], ); Not all Aliens provide dynamic libraries, but those that do can be used by FFI::Platypus. Unlike an XS module, these need to be a regular run time prerequisite. Inline::C use Inline with => 'Alien::Foo'; use Inline C => <<~'END'; #include <foo.h> const char *my_foo_wrapper() { foo(); } END sub exported_foo() { my_foo_wrapper(); } tool use Alien::Foo; use Env qw( @PATH ); unshift @ENV, Alien::Foo->bin_dir; system 'foo', '--bar', '--baz'; Some Aliens provide tools instead of or in addition to a library. You need to add them to the "PATH" environment variable though. (Unless the tool is already provided by the system, in which case it is already in the path and the "bin_dir" method will return an empty list). ENVIRONMENT ALIEN_INSTALL_TYPE Although the recommended way for a consumer to use an Alien::Base based Alien is to declare it as a static configure and build-time dependency, some consumers may prefer to fallback on using an Alien only when the consumer itself cannot detect the necessary package. In some cases the consumer may want the user to opt-in to using an Alien before requiring it. To keep the interface consistent among Aliens, the consumer of the fallback opt-in Alien may fallback on the Alien if the environment variable "ALIEN_INSTALL_TYPE" is set to any value. The rationale is that by setting this environment variable the user is aware that Alien modules may be installed and have indicated consent. The actual implementation of this, by its nature would have to be in the consuming CPAN module. This behavior should be documented in the consumer's POD. See "ENVIRONMENT" in Alien::Build for more details on the usage of this environment variable. AUTHOR Author: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org> Contributors: Diab Jerius (DJERIUS) Roy Storey (KIWIROY) Ilya Pavlov David Mertens (run4flat) Mark Nunberg (mordy, mnunberg) Christian Walde (Mithaldu) Brian Wightman (MidLifeXis) Zaki Mughal (zmughal) mohawk (mohawk2, ETJ) Vikas N Kumar (vikasnkumar) Flavio Poletti (polettix) Salvador Fandio (salva) Gianni Ceccarelli (dakkar) Pavel Shaydo (zwon, trinitum) Kang-min Liu (, gugod) Nicholas Shipp (nshp) Juan Julin Merelo Guervs (JJ) Joel Berger (JBERGER) Petr Pisar (ppisar) Lance Wicks (LANCEW) Ahmad Fatoum (a3f, ATHREEF) Jos Joaqun Atria (JJATRIA) Duke Leto (LETO) Shoichi Kaji (SKAJI) Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN) Paul Evans (leonerd, PEVANS) COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2011-2019 by Graham Ollis. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. ATTRIBUTES See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes: +---------------+--------------------------------+ |ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +---------------+--------------------------------+ |Availability | library/perl-5/alien-build-532 | +---------------+--------------------------------+ |Stability | Volatile | +---------------+--------------------------------+ NOTES Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source- code-downloads.html. This software was built from source available at https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community source was downloaded from http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/P/PL/PLICEASE/Alien-Build-1.89.tar.gz. Further information about this software can be found on the open source community website at http://search.cpan.org/dist/Alien-Build/. perl v5.32.0 2019-09-25 Alien::Build::Manual::AlienUser(3)