NAME

  Apache::PerlVINC - Allows versioning of modules among directories or v-hosts.

SYNOPSIS

#example httpd.conf:

<VirtualHost dave.domain.com>

  # include the module. this line must be here.
  PerlModule Apache::PerlVINC

  # set the include path
  PerlINC /home/dave/site/files/modules
  # make sure VINC reloads the modules
  PerlFixupHandler Apache::PerlVINC
  # aptionally have VINC unload versioned modules
  PerlCleanupHandler Apache::PerlVINC


  # reloads Stuff::Things for all requests
  PerlVersion Stuff/Things.pm

  <Location /Spellcheck>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlHandler Spellcheck

    # reload version of this module found in PerlINC line
    PerlVersion Spellcheck.pm 
  </Location>

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost steve.domain.com>

  PerlModule Apache::PerlVINC
    
  <Location /Spellcheck>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlHandler Spellcheck
    PerlFixupHandler Apache::PerlVINC
    # only reload for requests in /Spellcheck

    PerlINC /home/steve/site/files/modules
    PerlVersion Spellcheck.pm  # makes PerlVINC load this version
  </Location>

</VirtualHost>

DESCRIPTION

With this module you can run two copies of a module without having to worry about which version is being used. Suppose you have two VirtualHost or Location that want to each use their own version of Spellcheck.pm. Durning the FixUp phase, Apache::PerlVINC will tweak @INC and reload Spellcheck. Optionally, it will unload that version if you specify Apache::PerlVINC as a PerlCleanUpHandler.

As you can guess, this module slows things down a little because it unloads and reloads on a per-request basis. Hence, this module should only be used in a development environment, not a mission critical one.

DIRECTIVES

PerlINC

Takes only one argument: the path to be prepended to @INC. In v0.1, this was stored internally as an array. This is no longer the case. However, it still works somewhat as expected in that subsequent calls to PerlINC will not overwrite the previous ones, provided they are not in the same config section (see BUGS). They will both be prepended to @INC. Note that @INC is not changed for the entire request, so dont count on that path being in @INC for your scripts.

PerlVersion

This directives specifies the files you want reloaded. Depending on where this directive sits, files will be loaded (and perhaps unloaded). Ie. if this sits in a Location section, the files will only be reloaded on requests to that location. If this lies in a server section, all requests to the server or v-host will have these files reloaded.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

Under some setups, PerlModule'ing PerlVINC will cause the server to silently crash on startup. Upgrading Apache::ExtUtils to v/1.04 might fix the problem. As of this writing, the current version of mod_perl (1.24) does not contain this version of Apache::ExtUtils. Until the next version is released, you will have to obtain it from the latest cvs snapshot.

If the PerlINC directive is used twice in the same config section, the first call will be overwritten. Ie.

  PerlINC /qwe
  PerlINC /poi
 
  <Location /asdf/>
    PerlINC /zxc
  </Location>

For requests outside of /asdf/, @INC will contain /poi. Inside /asdf/ @INC will contain /zxc and /poi. This is kinda sucky, I know, and I hope to fix for the next release.

AUTHORS

 Doug MacEachern <dougm@pobox.com>
 Dave Moore <dave@epals.com>

COPYRIGHT

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