Re: Extract / Insert text files

On 8 Mar 2000, Johan Vromans wrote:

> John Nolan <[email protected]> writes:
> 
> > My only question is this:  Why can't the existing CPAN utilities
> > for processing module tarballs be retrofitted for script tarballs? 
> > The work required for making this happen has got to be exceedingly small. 
> > Or am I missing something?  I've never understood what the obstacle
> > actually is. 
> 
> Neither did I.
> 
> While we think that a script is just a plain (Perl) file, its
> distribution involves just a little bit more. For example, a script
> needs to be installed and, at least, the leading #! line needs to be
> adjusted to the local Perl installation. The script can contain the
> documentation in POD, but an acompanying README would be mandatory
> since that is the first document you read to decide whether you are
> going to use, even download, the kit.
> 
> Also, some kind of verification that the script actually runs and
> produces the correct results should be included. By this time, we have
> exactly what the modules tarballs have, or should have ;-).
[snip]

Hi,
    I have a script, sdist, under the CPAN category of the scripts
archive, that does some of the stuff that h2xs does for creating
module distribution templates - it creates skeleton README, MANIFEST,
INSTALL, and Makefile.PL files, as well as a template with
various pod headings for the script itself. A t/ subdirectory
is also created for which test scripts can be included.
This can then be used to create a distribution (via 'make dist' 
or 'make zipdist'), which one can use to install scripts via 
the same procedure as for modules - this puts scripts in the 
usual place, adjusts #! for the local configuration, etc. This 
though addresses the user end of things - the software processing 
these on CPAN won't recognize them as script distributions yet.

best regards,
randy kobes