If you use Build.PL with Module::Build then creating the distribution file has the following steps:
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.
