NAME

ExtUtils::Install - install files from here to there


SYNOPSIS

use ExtUtils::Install;

install($hashref,$verbose,$nonono);

uninstall($packlistfile,$verbose,$nonono);

pm_to_blib($hashref);


DESCRIPTION

Both install() and uninstall() are specific to the way ExtUtils::MakeMaker handles the installation and deinstallation of perl modules. They are not designed as general purpose tools.

install() takes three arguments. A reference to a hash, a verbose switch and a don't-really-do-it switch. The hash ref contains a mapping of directories: each key/value pair is a combination of directories to be copied. Key is a directory to copy from, value is a directory to copy to. The whole tree below the ``from'' directory will be copied preserving timestamps and permissions.

There are two keys with a special meaning in the hash: ``read'' and ``write''. After the copying is done, install will write the list of target files to the file named by $hashref->{write}. If there is another file named by $hashref->{read}, the contents of this file will be merged into the written file. The read and the written file may be identical, but on AFS it is quite likely, people are installing to a different directory than the one where the files later appear.

install_default() takes one or less arguments. If no arguments are specified, it takes $ARGV[0] as if it was specified as an argument. The argument is the value of MakeMaker's FULLEXT key, like Tk/Canvas. This function calls install() with the same arguments as the defaults the MakeMaker would use.

The argumement-less form is convenient for install scripts like

  perl -MExtUtils::Install -e install_default Tk/Canvas

Assuming this command is executed in a directory with populated blib directory, it will proceed as if the blib was build by MakeMaker on this machine. This is useful for binary distributions.

uninstall() takes as first argument a file containing filenames to be unlinked. The second argument is a verbose switch, the third is a no-don't-really-do-it-now switch.

pm_to_blib() takes a hashref as the first argument and copies all keys of the hash to the corresponding values efficiently. Filenames with the extension pm are autosplit. Second argument is the autosplit directory.


DISCLAIMER

We are painfully aware that these documents may contain incorrect links and misformatted HTML. Such bugs lie in the automatic translation process that automatically created the hundreds and hundreds of separate documents that you find here. Please do not report link or formatting bugs, because we cannot fix per-document problems. The only bug reports that will help us are those that supply working patches to the installhtml or pod2html programs, or to the Pod::HTML module itself, for which I and the entire Perl community will shower you with thanks and praises.

If rather than formatting bugs, you encounter substantive content errors in these documents, such as mistakes in the explanations or code, please use the perlbug utility included with the Perl distribution.

--Tom Christiansen, Perl Documentation Compiler and Editor


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