Provided by: libpar-dist-perl_0.49-2_all 
NAME
PAR::Dist - Create and manipulate PAR distributions
VERSION
This document describes version 0.47 of PAR::Dist, released November 29, 2009.
SYNOPSIS
As a shell command:
% perl -MPAR::Dist -eblib_to_par
In programs:
use PAR::Dist;
my $dist = blib_to_par(); # make a PAR file using ./blib/
install_par($dist); # install it into the system
uninstall_par($dist); # uninstall it from the system
sign_par($dist); # sign it using Module::Signature
verify_par($dist); # verify it using Module::Signature
install_par("http://foo.com/DBI-1.37-MSWin32-5.8.0.par"); # works too
install_par("http://foo.com/DBI-1.37"); # auto-appends archname + perlver
install_par("cpan://SMUELLER/PAR-Packer-0.975"); # uses CPAN author directory
DESCRIPTION
This module creates and manipulates PAR distributions. They are architecture-specific PAR
files, containing everything under blib/ of CPAN distributions after their "make" or
"Build" stage, a META.yml describing metadata of the original CPAN distribution, and a
MANIFEST detailing all files within it. Digitally signed PAR distributions will also
contain a SIGNATURE file.
The naming convention for such distributions is:
$NAME-$VERSION-$ARCH-$PERL_VERSION.par
For example, "PAR-Dist-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par" corresponds to the 0.01 release of
"PAR-Dist" on CPAN, built for perl 5.8.0 running on "i386-freebsd".
FUNCTIONS
Several functions are exported by default. Unless otherwise noted, they can take either a
hash of named arguments, a single argument (taken as $path by "blib_to_par" and $dist by
other functions), or no arguments (in which case the first PAR file in the current
directory is used).
Therefore, under a directory containing only a single test.par, all invocations below are
equivalent:
% perl -MPAR::Dist -e"install_par( dist => 'test.par' )"
% perl -MPAR::Dist -e"install_par( 'test.par' )"
% perl -MPAR::Dist -einstall_par;
If $dist resembles a URL, "LWP::Simple::mirror" is called to mirror it locally under
$ENV{PAR_TEMP} (or "$TEMP/par/" if unspecified), and the function will act on the fetched
local file instead. If the URL begins with "cpan://AUTHOR/", it will be expanded
automatically to the author's CPAN directory (e.g.
"http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/A/AU/AUTHOR/").
If $dist does not have a file extension beginning with a letter or underscore, a dash and
$suffix ($ARCH-$PERL_VERSION.par by default) will be appended to it.
blib_to_par
Takes key/value pairs as parameters or a single parameter indicating the path that
contains the blib/ subdirectory.
Builds a PAR distribution from the blib/ subdirectory under "path", or under the current
directory if unspecified. If blib/ does not exist, it automatically runs Build, make,
Build.PL or Makefile.PL to create it.
Returns the filename of the generated PAR distribution.
Valid parameters are:
path
Sets the path which contains the blib/ subdirectory from which the PAR distribution will
be generated.
name, version, suffix
These attributes set the name, version and platform specific suffix of the distribution.
Name and version can be automatically determined from the distributions META.yml or
Makefile.PL files.
The suffix is generated from your architecture name and your version of perl by default.
dist
The output filename for the PAR distribution.
quiet
Set to true to suppress as much output as possible.
install_par
Installs a PAR distribution into the system, using "ExtUtils::Install::install_default".
If only a single parameter is given, it is treated as the value for the "dist" parameter.
Valid named parameters are:
dist
The .par file to install. The heuristics outlined in the FUNCTIONS section above apply.
prefix
This string will be prepended to all installation paths. If it isn't specified, the
environment variable "PERL_INSTALL_ROOT" is used as a prefix.
uninstall_shadows
This corresponds to the "uninstall_shadows" option of ExtUtils::Install. Quoting its
manual: If "uninstall_shadows" is set to true, any differing versions throughout @INC
will be uninstalled. This is "make install UNINST=1".
verbose
This corresponds to the "verbose" option of ExtUtils::Install. According to its manual:
If "verbose" is true, will print out each file removed. This is "make install
VERBINST=1". "verbose" values going up to 5 show increasingly more diagnostics output.
Default verbosity for PAR::Dist is 1.
If you're just going to install into the running perl like everything else, you can stop
reading the rest of this section now.
Additionally, you can use several parameters to change the default installation
destinations. You don't usually have to worry about this unless you are installing into a
user-local directory. The following section outlines the parameter names and default
settings:
Parameter From To
inst_lib blib/lib $Config{installsitelib} (*)
inst_archlib blib/arch $Config{installsitearch}
inst_script blib/script $Config{installscript}
inst_bin blib/bin $Config{installbin}
inst_man1dir blib/man1 $Config{installman1dir}
inst_man3dir blib/man3 $Config{installman3dir}
packlist_read $Config{sitearchexp}/auto/$name/.packlist
packlist_write $Config{installsitearch}/auto/$name/.packlist
The "packlist_write" parameter is used to control where the .packlist file is written to.
(Necessary for uninstallation.) The "packlist_read" parameter specifies a .packlist file
to merge in if it exists. By setting any of the above installation targets to "undef", you
can remove that target altogether. For example, passing "inst_man1dir => undef,
inst_man3dir => undef" means that the contained manual pages won't be installed. This is
not available for the packlists.
Again, the defaults will be the normal site paths from %Config.
(*) If the ".par"'s inst_archlib section (normally "blib/arch") isn't empty, the code in
inst_lib (normally "blib/lib") is also installed into the inst_archlib path. This makes
sense for XS modules. If, however, you override "inst_lib", this automatic conversion is
also overridden! You can use the named parameter "auto_inst_lib_conversion => 1" to re-
enable the conversion for custom inst_lib's.
Finally, you may specify a "custom_targets" parameter. Its value should be a reference to
a hash of custom installation targets such as
custom_targets => { 'blib/my_data' => '/some/path/my_data' }
You can use this to install the .par archives contents to arbitrary locations.
uninstall_par
Uninstalls all previously installed contents of a PAR distribution, using
"ExtUtils::Install::uninstall".
Takes almost the same parameters as "install_par", but naturally, the installation target
parameters do not apply. The only exception to this is the "packlist_read" parameter which
specifies the .packlist file to read the list of installed files from. It defaults to
"$Config::Config{installsitearch}/auto/$name/.packlist".
Additionally, the "uninstall_shadows" parameter of "install_par" isn't available.
sign_par
Digitally sign a PAR distribution using "gpg" or Crypt::OpenPGP, via Module::Signature.
verify_par
Verify the digital signature of a PAR distribution using "gpg" or Crypt::OpenPGP, via
Module::Signature.
Returns a boolean value indicating whether verification passed; $! is set to the return
code of "Module::Signature::verify".
merge_par
Note: Since version 0.32 of PAR::Dist, this function requires a YAML reader. The order of
precedence is:
YAML:XS YAML YAML::Syck YAML::Tiny
Merges two or more PAR distributions into one. First argument must be the name of the
distribution you want to merge all others into. Any following arguments will be
interpreted as the file names of further PAR distributions to merge into the first one.
merge_par('foo.par', 'bar.par', 'baz.par')
This will merge the distributions "foo.par", "bar.par" and "baz.par" into the distribution
"foo.par". "foo.par" will be overwritten!
The original META.yml of "foo.par" is retained, but augmented with any "provides",
"requires", "recommends", "build_requires", and "configure_requires" sections from the
other ".par" files.
remove_man
Remove the man pages from a PAR distribution. Takes one named parameter: dist which should
be the name (and path) of the PAR distribution file. The calling conventions outlined in
the "FUNCTIONS" section above apply.
The PAR archive will be extracted, stripped of all "man\d?" and "html" subdirectories and
then repackaged into the original file.
get_meta
Opens a PAR archive and extracts the contained META.yml file. Returns the META.yml file
as a string.
Takes one named parameter: dist. If only one parameter is passed, it is treated as the
dist parameter. (Have a look at the description in the "FUNCTIONS" section above.)
Returns undef if no PAR archive or no META.yml within the archive were found.
parse_dist_name
First argument must be a distribution file name. The file name is parsed into distribution
name, distribution version, architecture name, and perl version.
Returns the results as a list in the above order. If any or all of the above cannot be
determined, returns undef instead of the undetermined elements.
Supported formats are:
Math-Symbolic-0.502-x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi-5.8.7
Math-Symbolic-0.502
The ".tar.gz" or ".par" extensions as well as any preceding paths are stripped before
parsing. Starting with "PAR::Dist" 0.22, versions containing a preceding "v" are parsed
correctly.
This function is not exported by default.
generate_blib_stub
Creates a blib/lib subdirectory in the current directory and prepares a META.yml with meta
information for a new PAR distribution. First argument should be the name of the PAR
distribution in a format understood by "parse_dist_name()". Alternatively, named
arguments resembling those of "blib_to_par" are accepted.
After running "generate_blib_stub" and injecting files into the blib directory, you can
create a PAR distribution using "blib_to_par". This function is useful for creating
custom PAR distributions from scratch. (I.e. not from an unpacked CPAN distribution)
Example:
use PAR::Dist;
use File::Copy 'copy';
generate_blib_stub(
name => 'MyApp', version => '1.00'
);
copy('MyApp.pm', 'blib/lib/MyApp.pm');
blib_to_par(); # generates the .par file!
"generate_blib_stub" will not overwrite existing files.
contains_binaries
This function is not exported by default.
Opens a PAR archive tries to determine whether that archive contains platform-specific
binary code.
Takes one named parameter: dist. If only one parameter is passed, it is treated as the
dist parameter. (Have a look at the description in the "FUNCTIONS" section above.)
Throws a fatal error if the PAR archive could not be found.
Returns one if the PAR was found to contain binary code and zero otherwise.
SEE ALSO
PAR, ExtUtils::Install, Module::Signature, LWP::Simple
AUTHORS
Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org> 2003-2007
Steffen Mueller <smueller@cpan.org> 2005-2011
PAR has a mailing list, <par@perl.org>, that you can write to; send an empty mail to
<par-subscribe@perl.org> to join the list and participate in the discussion.
Please send bug reports to <bug-par@rt.cpan.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2003-2011 by Audrey Tang <autrijus@autrijus.org>.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.
See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>