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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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Pet Peeve of the Day: PREFIX 6 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • I think that perl Build.PL --install-base /var/lookie/here is what you want. Give it a try!

    --David

    • It's similar, but intentionally not the same as the byzantine demented logic of PREFIX. The real problem is that neither CPAN nor CPANPLUS support the Module::Build arguments, even though the latter will run Build.PL scripts in preference to Makefile.PL.
      • I like the the byzantine demented logic of PREFIX. It does what I expect it to, and works like all the other packages installed into my local site_perl referenced by $ENV{PERL5LIB}. And then there's this beauty:
        rspier@bear ~/.cpan/build/Module-Build-0.25$ perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/tmp/foo
        Sorry, PREFIX is not supported.  See the Module::Build
        documentation for 'destdir' or 'install_base' instead.
        • You might like it, but it's really, really, really complicated to support. I think install_base will do what you expect it to do too. I think what you really dislike is that if you have PREFIX set as a standard argument for CPAN or CPANPLUS, it just doesn't work with Module::Build, which is annoying.
          • --install_base produces a different structure than PREFIX does, so use lib or $PERL5LIB are different for each.
            • --install_base produces a different structure than PREFIX does

              So does PREFIX. The heuristics of how PREFIX works drifts from version to version of MakeMaker especially between 5.x and 6.x. Part of the problem is nobody can really quite agree on how it should work. The other part is its attempts to make the PREFIX layout match the system layout. Fix one thing, break another. For the longest time modules installed on Debian came out funny because they put things in /usr/share. I've tried to get a handle on it but its like trying to eat jello with a fork. Its really quite insane.

              I'd love to see Module::Build's Makefile.PL handle PREFIX but its quite a bit harder than you think. Times two. About the only thing that could be done is to somehow pull the logic out of ExtUtils::MM_Unix->init_INSTALL and make it a function of ExtUtils::Install or something so Module::Build and ExtUtils::MakeMaker can share the same code. Good luck.

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