ExtUtils::Packlist(3pm)                         Perl Programmers Reference Guide                         ExtUtils::Packlist(3pm)



NAME
       ExtUtils::Packlist - manage .packlist files

SYNOPSIS
          use ExtUtils::Packlist;
          my ($pl) = ExtUtils::Packlist->new('.packlist');
          $pl->read('/an/old/.packlist');
          my @missing_files = $pl->validate();
          $pl->write('/a/new/.packlist');

          $pl->{'/some/file/name'}++;
             or
          $pl->{'/some/other/file/name'} = { type => 'file',
                                             from => '/some/file' };

DESCRIPTION
       ExtUtils::Packlist provides a standard way to manage .packlist files.  Functions are provided to read and write .packlist
       files.  The original .packlist format is a simple list of absolute pathnames, one per line.  In addition, this package
       supports an extended format, where as well as a filename each line may contain a list of attributes in the form of a
       space separated list of key=value pairs.  This is used by the installperl script to differentiate between files and
       links, for example.

USAGE
       The hash reference returned by the new() function can be used to examine and modify the contents of the .packlist.  Items
       may be added/deleted from the .packlist by modifying the hash.  If the value associated with a hash key is a scalar, the
       entry written to the .packlist by any subsequent write() will be a simple filename.  If the value is a hash, the entry
       written will be the filename followed by the key=value pairs from the hash.  Reading back the .packlist will recreate the
       original entries.

FUNCTIONS
       new()
           This takes an optional parameter, the name of a .packlist.  If the file exists, it will be opened and the contents of
           the file will be read.  The new() method returns a reference to a hash.  This hash holds an entry for each line in
           the .packlist.  In the case of old-style .packlists, the value associated with each key is undef.  In the case of
           new-style .packlists, the value associated with each key is a hash containing the key=value pairs following the
           filename in the .packlist.

       read()
           This takes an optional parameter, the name of the .packlist to be read.  If no file is specified, the .packlist
           specified to new() will be read.  If the .packlist does not exist, Carp::croak will be called.

       write()
           This takes an optional parameter, the name of the .packlist to be written.  If no file is specified, the .packlist
           specified to new() will be overwritten.

       validate()
           This checks that every file listed in the .packlist actually exists.  If an argument which evaluates to true is
           given, any missing files will be removed from the internal hash.  The return value is a list of the missing files,
           which will be empty if they all exist.

       packlist_file()
           This returns the name of the associated .packlist file

EXAMPLE
       Here's "modrm", a little utility to cleanly remove an installed module.

           #!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

           use strict;
           use IO::Dir;
           use ExtUtils::Packlist;
           use ExtUtils::Installed;

           sub emptydir($) {
               my ($dir) = @_;
               my $dh = IO::Dir->new($dir) || return(0);
               my @count = $dh->read();
               $dh->close();
               return(@count == 2 ? 1 : 0);
           }

           # Find all the installed packages
           print("Finding all installed modules...\n");
           my $installed = ExtUtils::Installed->new();

           foreach my $module (grep(!/^Perl$/, $installed->modules())) {
              my $version = $installed->version($module) || "???";
              print("Found module $module Version $version\n");
              print("Do you want to delete $module? [n] ");
              my $r = <STDIN>; chomp($r);
              if ($r && $r =~ /^y/i) {
                 # Remove all the files
                 foreach my $file (sort($installed->files($module))) {
                    print("rm $file\n");
                    unlink($file);
                 }
                 my $pf = $installed->packlist($module)->packlist_file();
                 print("rm $pf\n");
                 unlink($pf);
                 foreach my $dir (sort($installed->directory_tree($module))) {
                    if (emptydir($dir)) {
                       print("rmdir $dir\n");
                       rmdir($dir);
                    }
                 }
              }
           }

AUTHOR
       Alan Burlison <Alan.BurlisonATuk.com>

POD ERRORS
       Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:

       Around line 39:
           =back without =over



perl v5.12.4                                               2011-06-01                                    ExtUtils::Packlist(3pm)