perl Build.PL

will check if the dependencies are there (similar to perl Makefile.PL in the case of Makefile.PL) and create a file called Build without any extension which is just another Perl script.

Then we run

perl Build

that will rearrange directories, create the blib/ directory and copy files there.

The we run

perl Build test

that will run all the unit- and other automation tests checking if the distribution is ready.

Then comes the time when you might want to create your MANIFEST file. If you maintain MANIFEST.SKIP then at this point you need to run

perl Build manifest

that will take all the files in the current directory tree, exclude the onse that match one of the regexes in MANIFEST.SKIP and include the list of the others in the MANIFEST file.

Once you have the up-to-date MANIFEST file we can run

perl Build dist

to create the zip file.

This is the file you'd distribute either via CPAN or directly to your clients.

Installing a distribution

If you want to install one of these distributions, you would run

perl Build.PL
perl Build
perl Build test

just as during the creationg of the distribution, but then you'd run

perl Build install

to install the files.