NAME
Inline::Module::LeanDist - Develop your module with Inline but
distribute lean XS
SYNOPSIS
In your module (say "Acme::Math::XS::LeanDist"):
use Inline::Module::LeanDist C => 'DATA';
This module forwards all its parameters to Inline.
NOTE: Currently the entire use statement must be on one line! The DATA
section is generally the best place to put your code (heredocs won't
work).
In "Makefile.PL":
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
use Inline::Module::LeanDist::MakefilePL;
WriteMakefile(
NAME => 'Acme::Math::XS::LeanDist',
OBJECT => '',
postamble => {
inline => {
file => 'lib/Acme/Math/XS/LeanDist.pm',
},
},
);
NOTE: The "postamble.inline.file" parameter should be the filename of
your module that is using Inline, and you must have an "OBJECT"
parameter in the "WriteMakefile" arguments.
DESCRIPTION
This module is heavily inspired by Inline::Module. I wrote it because I
wanted to be able to use Inline during development, but ship
distributions that have no dependencies on it or any other module (for
example Inline::Filters and its plugins). I wanted to ship distributions
that were (from the user's perspective) identical to the XS dists I
would have created by hand (without Inline).
Essentially, Inline compiles your code as lazily as possible which means
all compilation dependencies are required at run-time. Inline::Module
pushes the compilation dependencies back to build time. However,
Inline::Module::LeanDist goes yet one step futher and pushes back the
compilation dependencies to distribution creation time (of course the
normal XS tool-chain dependency is still required).
The advantage of the Inline::Module approach over Inline is that
start-up time is faster for your modules since the fairly heavy-weight
Inline system isn't loaded, and a compiled version of your module is
always available no matter the state of the current ".inline" directory
(or which user is running the program, file-system permissions, etc).
Inline::Module::LeanDist has all of these advantages as well as some
additional ones: Downloading and installing Inline is not necessary to
build the distribution. This also goes for any other dependencies (such
as the "ragel" binary required by Inline::Filters::Ragel).
With Inline::Module::LeanDist you don't need to worry about updates to
Inline/Inline::Module/etc breaking your distribution, not that there is
any more reason to expect "Inline::*" to break than say "MakeMaker" or
"Test::*". Inline::Module recommends avoiding back-compat problems by
bundling hundreds of KB of Inline and its dependencies along with every
distribution. I recommend against that. Fortunately there is a C"bundle
=> 0" option in Inline::Module to stop the bundling. Just add the
required modules to your distribution's build-time pre-requisites.
Finally, with Inline::Module::LeanDist you don't need to mess around
with Inline::Module's awkward "stub" packages.
On the other hand, Inline::Module will likely work for more ILSMs: this
module module has only been tested with Inline::C so far. Also, although
it's a bit subjective, in my opinion Inline::Module is nicer to develop
with over Inline since it always puts the ".so" files into "blib/" which
is more "normal" than the ".inline" directory (and of course it's nice
that running "make" actually, you know, compiles your code).
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Basically it's all a huge hack. :)
During development time, the Inline::Module::LeanDist forwards all its
parameters to Inline so you develop with normal Inline practices.
However, Inline::Module::LeanDist::MakefilePL modifies "Makefile.PL" so
that at "make dist" time, it will comment out the "use
Inline::Module::LeanDist::MakefilePL;" line in "Makefile.PL". It will
also comment out the "use Inline::Module::LeanDist" line in your module
and replace it with an XSLoader invocation. Finally, it copies the
generated ".xs" file from the ".inline" directory into the distribution
and adds this to the "OBJECT" parameter in "Makefile.PL" (as well as the
dist's "MANIFEST").
The consequence of all this hacking is that the created distributions
are lean, XS-only distributions.
EXAMLES
Acme::Math::XS::LeanDist - This is a very simple example in the style of
Acme::Math::XS and co.
Unicode::Truncate - This is an actually somewhat useful module that
doubles as a proof of concept for Inline::Module::LeanDist and
Inline::Filters::Ragel.
BUGS
It really ought to be possible to have multiple separate files in a
single dist that use Inline, but this is not yet supported.
It should support "Build.PL" in addition to "Makefile.PL".
It should support other ILSMs (C++ at least).
"make" prints some annoying warning, need to figure out how to insert
dist actions with MakeMaker:
Makefile:884: warning: overriding commands for target `distdir'
Makefile:632: warning: ignoring old commands for target `distdir'
SEE ALSO
Inline-Module-LeanDist github repo
<https://github.com/hoytech/Inline-Module-LeanDist>
Inline::Module
AUTHOR
Doug Hoyte, "<doug@hcsw.org>"
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2015 Doug Hoyte.
This module is licensed under the same terms as perl itself.