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Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
 
 

Module::Metadata (3)

Name

Module::Metadata - Gather package and POD information from perl module files

Synopsis

use Module::Metadata;

# information about a .pm file
my $info = Module::Metadata->new_from_file( $file );
my $version = $info->version;

# CPAN META 'provides' field for .pm files in a directory
my $provides = Module::Metadata->provides(
dir => 'lib', version => 2
);

Description

Perl Programmers Reference Guide                           Module::Metadata(3)



NAME
       Module::Metadata - Gather package and POD information from perl module
       files

VERSION
       version 1.000037

SYNOPSIS
         use Module::Metadata;

         # information about a .pm file
         my $info = Module::Metadata->new_from_file( $file );
         my $version = $info->version;

         # CPAN META 'provides' field for .pm files in a directory
         my $provides = Module::Metadata->provides(
           dir => 'lib', version => 2
         );

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides a standard way to gather metadata about a .pm file
       through (mostly) static analysis and (some) code execution.  When
       determining the version of a module, the $VERSION assignment is
       "eval"ed, as is traditional in the CPAN toolchain.

CLASS METHODS
   "new_from_file($filename, collect_pod => 1, decode_pod => 1)"
       Constructs a "Module::Metadata" object given the path to a file.
       Returns undef if the filename does not exist.

       "collect_pod" is a optional boolean argument that determines whether
       POD data is collected and stored for reference.  POD data is not
       collected by default.  POD headings are always collected.

       If the file begins by an UTF-8, UTF-16BE or UTF-16LE byte-order mark,
       then it is skipped before processing, and the content of the file is
       also decoded appropriately starting from perl 5.8.

       Alternatively, if "decode_pod" is set, it will decode the collected pod
       sections according to the "=encoding" declaration.

   "new_from_handle($handle, $filename, collect_pod => 1, decode_pod => 1)"
       This works just like "new_from_file", except that a handle can be
       provided as the first argument.

       Note that there is no validation to confirm that the handle is a handle
       or something that can act like one.  Passing something that isn't a
       handle will cause a exception when trying to read from it.  The
       "filename" argument is mandatory or undef will be returned.

       You are responsible for setting the decoding layers on $handle if
       required.

   "new_from_module($module, collect_pod => 1, inc => \@dirs, decode_pod =>
       1)"
       Constructs a "Module::Metadata" object given a module or package name.
       Returns undef if the module cannot be found.

       In addition to accepting the "collect_pod" and "decode_pod" arguments
       as described above, this method accepts a "inc" argument which is a
       reference to an array of directories to search for the module.  If none
       are given, the default is @INC.

       If the file that contains the module begins by an UTF-8, UTF-16BE or
       UTF-16LE byte-order mark, then it is skipped before processing, and the
       content of the file is also decoded appropriately starting from perl
       5.8.

   "find_module_by_name($module, \@dirs)"
       Returns the path to a module given the module or package name. A list
       of directories can be passed in as an optional parameter, otherwise
       @INC is searched.

       Can be called as either an object or a class method.

   "find_module_dir_by_name($module, \@dirs)"
       Returns the entry in @dirs (or @INC by default) that contains the
       module $module. A list of directories can be passed in as an optional
       parameter, otherwise @INC is searched.

       Can be called as either an object or a class method.

   "provides( %options )"
       This is a convenience wrapper around "package_versions_from_directory"
       to generate a CPAN META "provides" data structure.  It takes key/value
       pairs.  Valid option keys include:

       version (required)
           Specifies which version of the CPAN::Meta::Spec should be used as
           the format of the "provides" output.  Currently only '1.4' and '2'
           are supported (and their format is identical).  This may change in
           the future as the definition of "provides" changes.

           The "version" option is required.  If it is omitted or if an
           unsupported version is given, then "provides" will throw an error.

       dir Directory to search recursively for .pm files.  May not be
           specified with "files".

       files
           Array reference of files to examine.  May not be specified with
           "dir".

       prefix
           String to prepend to the "file" field of the resulting output. This
           defaults to lib, which is the common case for most CPAN
           distributions with their .pm files in lib.  This option ensures the
           META information has the correct relative path even when the "dir"
           or "files" arguments are absolute or have relative paths from a
           location other than the distribution root.

       For example, given "dir" of 'lib' and "prefix" of 'lib', the return
       value is a hashref of the form:

         {
           'Package::Name' => {
             version => '0.123',
             file => 'lib/Package/Name.pm'
           },
           'OtherPackage::Name' => ...
         }

   "package_versions_from_directory($dir, \@files?)"
       Scans $dir for .pm files (unless @files is given, in which case looks
       for those files in $dir - and reads each file for packages and
       versions, returning a hashref of the form:

         {
           'Package::Name' => {
             version => '0.123',
             file => 'Package/Name.pm'
           },
           'OtherPackage::Name' => ...
         }

       The "DB" and "main" packages are always omitted, as are any "private"
       packages that have leading underscores in the namespace (e.g.
       "Foo::_private")

       Note that the file path is relative to $dir if that is specified.  This
       must not be used directly for CPAN META "provides".  See the "provides"
       method instead.

   "log_info (internal)"
       Used internally to perform logging; imported from Log::Contextual if
       Log::Contextual has already been loaded, otherwise simply calls warn.

OBJECT METHODS
   "name()"
       Returns the name of the package represented by this module. If there is
       more than one package, it makes a best guess based on the filename. If
       it's a script (i.e. not a *.pm) the package name is 'main'.

   "version($package)"
       Returns the version as defined by the $VERSION variable for the package
       as returned by the "name" method if no arguments are given. If given
       the name of a package it will attempt to return the version of that
       package if it is specified in the file.

   "filename()"
       Returns the absolute path to the file.  Note that this file may not
       actually exist on disk yet, e.g. if the module was read from an in-
       memory filehandle.

   "packages_inside()"
       Returns a list of packages. Note: this is a raw list of packages
       discovered (or assumed, in the case of "main").  It is not filtered for
       "DB", "main" or private packages the way the "provides" method does.
       Invalid package names are not returned, for example "Foo:Bar".  Strange
       but valid package names are returned, for example "Foo::Bar::", and are
       left up to the caller on how to handle.

   "pod_inside()"
       Returns a list of POD sections.

   "contains_pod()"
       Returns true if there is any POD in the file.

   "pod($section)"
       Returns the POD data in the given section.

   "is_indexable($package)" or "is_indexable()"
       Available since version 1.000020.

       Returns a boolean indicating whether the package (if provided) or any
       package (otherwise) is eligible for indexing by PAUSE, the Perl Authors
       Upload Server.  Note This only checks for valid "package" declarations,
       and does not take any ownership information into account.

SUPPORT
       Bugs may be submitted through the RT bug tracker
       <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Module-Metadata> (or
       bug-Module-Metadata@rt.cpan.org <mailto:bug-Module-
       Metadata@rt.cpan.org>).

       There is also a mailing list available for users of this distribution,
       at <http://lists.perl.org/list/cpan-workers.html>.

       There is also an irc channel available for users of this distribution,
       at "#toolchain" on "irc.perl.org" <irc://irc.perl.org/#toolchain>.

AUTHOR
       Original code from Module::Build::ModuleInfo by Ken Williams
       <kwilliams@cpan.org>, Randy W. Sims <RandyS@ThePierianSpring.org>

       Released as Module::Metadata by Matt S Trout (mst)
       <mst@shadowcat.co.uk> with assistance from David Golden (xdg)
       <dagolden@cpan.org>.

CONTRIBUTORS
       o   Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org>

       o   David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>

       o   Vincent Pit <perl@profvince.com>

       o   Matt S Trout <mst@shadowcat.co.uk>

       o   Chris Nehren <apeiron@cpan.org>

       o   Tomas Doran <bobtfish@bobtfish.net>

       o   Olivier Mengue <dolmen@cpan.org>

       o   Graham Knop <haarg@haarg.org>

       o   tokuhirom <tokuhirom@gmail.com>

       o   Tatsuhiko Miyagawa <miyagawa@bulknews.net>

       o   Christian Walde <walde.christian@googlemail.com>

       o   Leon Timmermans <fawaka@gmail.com>

       o   Peter Rabbitson <ribasushi@cpan.org>

       o   Steve Hay <steve.m.hay@googlemail.com>

       o   Jerry D. Hedden <jdhedden@cpan.org>

       o   Craig A. Berry <cberry@cpan.org>

       o   Craig A. Berry <craigberry@mac.com>

       o   David Mitchell <davem@iabyn.com>

       o   David Steinbrunner <dsteinbrunner@pobox.com>

       o   Edward Zborowski <ed@rubensteintech.com>

       o   Gareth Harper <gareth@broadbean.com>

       o   James Raspass <jraspass@gmail.com>

       o   Chris 'BinGOs' Williams <chris@bingosnet.co.uk>

       o   Josh Jore <jjore@cpan.org>

       o   Kent Fredric <kentnl@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
       Original code Copyright (c) 2001-2011 Ken Williams.  Additional code
       Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Matt Trout and David Golden.  All rights
       reserved.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself.



ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |   ATTRIBUTE VALUE     |
       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |Availability   | runtime/perl-532      |
       +---------------+-----------------------+
       |Stability      | Pass-through 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/src/5.0/perl-5.32.0.tar.gz.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at https://www.perl.org/.



perl v5.32.0                      2020-06-14               Module::Metadata(3)