Author dependencies in Dist::Zilla

Wanna edit/tweak/build/play-with a Dist::Zilla based perl module you've checked out? Seems daunting because "the module installer isn't included" or "what if I don't have the same helper modules that the author uses?" ? Worry Not!

It's easy to get the minimal pieces installed, so let's get to it.

Basic steps for building/using a Dist::Zilla based module from raw source:

1. Check out module source
2. install Dist::Zilla:
   cpanm Dist::Zilla
3. install author deps:
   dzil authordeps | cpanm
4. install module deps:
   dzil listdeps | cpanm
5. build module with dzil:
   dzil build

1. Check out module source

For my example, I'm migrating my own App::PM::Website sources from an old laptop to a new one.

Looking for example code to checkout? Try searching for dist.ini on github to find an interesting perl module. ;)

% git clone git@github.com:spazm/app-pm-website 
% cd app-pm-website

Check the code out of the repository and cd into the top level.

2. Install Dist::Zilla

On this relatively clean perl 5.12.3 install, cpanm Dist::Zilla brought in 81 packages.

% cpan Dist::Zilla
[andrew@fred]% cpanm Dist::Zilla           127 (git)-[dev] ~/src/app-pm-website--> Working on Dist::ZillaFetching http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/R/RJ/RJBS/Dist-Zilla-4.300002.tar.gz ... OK
[... snip ...]
Building and testing Dist-Zilla-4.300002 ... OKSuccessfully installed Dist-Zilla-4.30000291 distributions installed

3. Install author dependencies

dzil authordeps will show the modules necessary for Dist::Zilla to build the module from raw source into a built module. Pipe this to cpanm to install the modules.

% dzil authordeps
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::MetaResources
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::AutoPrereqs
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::Repository
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::NextRelease
Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Basic
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::AutoVersion
Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Git
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::PkgVersion
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::MetaJSON
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::PodWeaver

% dzil authordeps | cpanm
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::MetaResources is up to date. (4.300002)
--> Working on Dist::Zilla::Plugin::Repository
[... snip ...]
Successfully installed Dist-Zilla-Plugin-PodWeaver-3.101641
11 distributions installed

4. Install module dependencies

Install the authordeps before module dependencies, in case authordeps are required for dzil to calculate the module dependencies. E.g. I needed PodWeaver installed via authordeps before I could run dzil listdeps to see the module dependencies.

% dzil listdeps
App::Cmd
App::Cmd::Command
App::Cmd::Tester
base
Config::YAML
Data::Dumper
Date::Parse
DateTime
DateTime::Format::Strptime
ExtUtils::MakeMaker
HTTP::DAV
Net::Netrc
POSIX
strict
Template
Test::Class
Test::Class::Load
Test::More
warnings

% dzil listdeps | cpanm
App::Cmd is up to date. (0.312)
base is up to date. (2.15)
--> Working on Config::YAML
[...snip...]
Successfully installed Test-Class-0.36
Test::More is up to date. (0.98)
10 distributions installed

5. Build module

dzil build will build the module into a directory and tar it up ready for cpan.

Similarly, dzil test will build the code and run the tests, you'll use this to verify your changes to the target module.

% dzil build
[DZ] beginning to build App-PM-Website
[DZ] guessing dist's main_module is lib/App/PM/Website.pm
[DZ] extracting distribution abstract from lib/App/PM/Website.pm
[DZ] writing App-PM-Website in App-PM-Website-0.112890
[DZ] building archive with Archive::Tar; install Archive::Tar::Wrapper for improved speed
[DZ] writing archive to App-PM-Website-0.112890.tar.gz

And now I can get back to the task at hand, improving this module. I'll let you know how that goes too.