Dist::Zilla -- part 1

Inspired by RJBS's advent article on Dist::Zilla, I'm getting ready to give it a spin.

Install Dist::Zilla

Install a bundle. This works fine, but didn't bring in Dist::Zilla:

% cpan Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Git

...
JQUELIN/Dist-Zilla-Plugin-Git-1.093410.tar.gz
./Build install -- OK

Attempt to install the base Dist::Zilla, but it failed:


% cpan Dist::Zilla

...
Running make test
Has already been tested successfully
Running make install
Already tried without success

Cleaning my .cpan/build directory and trying again.

Before cleaning up the files, I'll check the makefile for the preqs, to see if I can narrow down the issue. I then cleared out my build space, manually installed the prerequisites, and then installed Dist::Zilla. This worked.

[andrew@mini]% perl Makefile.PL 0 ~/.cpan/build/Dist-Zilla-1.093400-1o8qqf
Warning: prerequisite Config::INI::MVP::Reader 0.024 not found.
Warning: prerequisite Config::MVP 0.092990 not found.
Warning: prerequisite Hash::Merge::Simple 0 not found.
Warning: prerequisite Moose::Autobox 0.09 not found.
Warning: prerequisite MooseX::Types::Path::Class 0 not found.
Warning: prerequisite PPI 0 not found.
Warning: prerequisite String::Flogger 1 not found.
Warning: prerequisite namespace::autoclean 0 not found.
Writing Makefile for Dist::Zilla

[andrew@mini]% rm -rf ~/.cpan/build/*

[andrew@mini]% cpan Config::INI::MVP::Reader Config::MVP Hash::Merge::Simple Moose::Autobox MooseX::Types::Path::Class PPI String::Flogger namespace::autoclean

...[snip]...[this brought in a lot of deps]
/usr/bin/make install -- OK

[andrew@mini]% cpan Dist::Zilla

Installing /apps/perl5/bin/dzil
Appending installation info to /apps/perl5/lib/perl5/i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi/perllocal.pod
RJBS/Dist-Zilla-1.093400.tar.gz
/usr/bin/make install -- OK

And if I'm going to cargo cult from RJBS and use his tool, then I might as well go all the way by installing the RJBS plugin bundle.

cpan Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::RJBS

Now what? Using Dist::Zilla


% dzil new My-Project
will create new dist My-Project in obj(/home/andrew/src/My-Project)
$VAR1 = {};
% cd My-Project
% ls
dist.ini
% cat dist.ini
name = My-Project
version = 1.000
author = andrew
license = Perl_5
copyright_holder = andrew

[@Classic]

% mkdir lib t

Now, create a stub module in lib/My/Project.pm, something like this (copied straight from the quoted article):

use strict;
package My::Project;
# ABSTRACT: our top-secret project for playing bowling against WOPR

use Games::Bowling::Scorecard;
use Games::War::Nuclear::Thermonuclear::Global;
use Path::Resolver 2.012;

=method play_a_game

$project->play_a_game($num_of_players);

This method starts a game. It's a strange game.

=cut

sub play_a_game { ... }

1;


The #ABSTRACT comment will be pulled out and used as META data.

now, let's build the module:


% dzil build
...
beginning to build My-Project
guessing dist's main_module is lib/My/Project.pm
extracting distribution abstract from lib/My/Project.pm
couldn't find a place to insert VERSION section to lib/My/Project.pm
rewriting release test xt/release/pod-coverage.t
rewriting release test xt/release/pod-syntax.t
writing My-Project in My-Project-1.000
writing archive to My-Project-1.000.tar.gz
And now take a look at what it built:


% find My-Project-1.000
My-Project-1.000
My-Project-1.000/Makefile.PL
My-Project-1.000/t
My-Project-1.000/t/release-pod-syntax.t
My-Project-1.000/t/release-pod-coverage.t
My-Project-1.000/dist.ini
My-Project-1.000/README
My-Project-1.000/LICENSE
My-Project-1.000/META.yml
My-Project-1.000/lib
My-Project-1.000/lib/My
My-Project-1.000/lib/My/Project.pm
My-Project-1.000/MANIFEST


This created the META.yml file, built the MANIFEST, created two additional tests: release-pod-syntax and release-pod-coverage, built a README and copied in the correct LICENSE file. And then it tarred it all up for me. Excellent.

There are additional plugins that can be used within the dist.ini file. [@Git] will verify that all the files are checked into git before doing the build. [@RJBS] will use the RJBS bundle, to pull in all the steps he normally uses for a module. Searching for Dist::Zilla::Plugin on cpan produces 6 pages of results.

I'll post an update as I work on using dzil for a real module, and let you know how it goes. So far, I'm pretty excited at keeping my code and boilerplate separated.