alpha dists without the underscores

Hi all,

Here's a patch of an idea I've been toying with:  the ability to publish 
an alpha version using the little-known "-TRIAL" string in the tarball 
name.

The trigger mechanism is to have the string "# ALPHA" on your $VERSION 
line.  That might have drawbacks, but is also 1) very simple and 2) 
leaves a permanent artifact in the deployed file (so you can read the 
source and say "oh, this was an alpha".)

Drawbacks?  It's assuming that "# ALPHA" is a comment -- but really what 
sort of crazy stuff are you doing with the $VERSION line where 
including the string "# ALPHA" in a non-alpha release is necessary and 
not confusing?

It is at least not more arbitrary than the "_" convention and would 
allow us to eliminate the whole eval($VERSION) thing as-recommended in 
David's post about versions (which, btw, triggers perl critic's wrath.)

For reason #2, I'm reluctant to do it with e.g. a command-line option or 
Build.PL parameter.  Some sort of artifact in the deployed .pm is very 
useful for debugging an installed module.

We talked about this a bit on IRC, but it hasn't been much farther than 
that.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Eric


Index: lib/Module/Build/Base.pm
===================================================================
--- lib/Module/Build/Base.pm	(revision 13275)
+++ lib/Module/Build/Base.pm	(working copy)
@@ -1049,7 +1049,9 @@
     my $version_from = File::Spec->catfile( split( qr{/}, 
$dist_version_from ) );
     my $pm_info = Module::Build::ModuleInfo->new_from_file( 
$version_from )
       or die "Can't find file $version_from to determine version";
-    $p->{dist_version} = $self->normalize_version( 
$pm_info->version() );
+    my $v = $pm_info->version;
+    $p->{dist_version} = $self->normalize_version($v);
+    $p->{dist_version} .= eval {$v->{isalpha}} ? '-TRIAL' : '';
   }
 
   die ("Can't determine distribution version, must supply 
either 'dist_version',\n".
Index: lib/Module/Build/ModuleInfo.pm
===================================================================
--- lib/Module/Build/ModuleInfo.pm	(revision 13275)
+++ lib/Module/Build/ModuleInfo.pm	(working copy)
@@ -328,6 +328,7 @@
 
   # Bless it into our own version class
   $result = Module::Build::Version->new($result);
+  $result->{isalpha} = 1 if($line =~ m/# ALPHA/);
 
   return $result;
 }

-- 
"If you only know how to use a hammer, every problem begins to look like
a nail."
--Richard B. Johnson
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