Perl/Tips

This page is intended to be a repository of "gotchas", and other little quick fixes, that aren't rare but are just uncommon enough that you forget how you did it last time:) This page is NOT part of the official packaging guidelines.

Makefile.PL vs Build.PL

Perl modules typically utilize one of two different buildsystems:

• ExtUtils::MakeMaker
• ExtUtils::Build

The two different styles are easily recognizable:  ::MakeMaker employs the Makefile.PL build file, and is the "classical" approach; ::Build is the (relative) new kid on the block, with support for things MakeMaker cannot do. While the ultimate choice of which system to employ is clearly in the hands of upstream, if Build.PL is present in a distribution the packager should employ that build framework, unless there is an awfully good reason otherwise.

See also ["Perl/Build.PL VsMakefile.PL"] .

Tests / build steps requiring network access

This happens from time to time. Some package's tests (or other steps, e.g. signature validation) require network access to return success, but their actual execution isn't essential to the proper building of the package. In these cases, it's often nice to have a simple, transparent, clean way of enabling these steps on your local system (for, e.g., maximum testing), but to have them disabled when actually run through the buildsys/mock.

One easy way to do this is with the "--with" system of conditionals rpmbuild can handle. Running, e.g., "rpmbuild --with network_tests foo.src.rpm" is analagous to including a "--define '_with_network_tests 1'" on the command line. We can test for the existance of that conditional, and take (or not take!) certain actions based on it.

See, e.g., the perl-POE-Component-Client-HTTP spec file for an example.

One way to indicate this inside your spec is to prepend a notice along the lines of:

# some text
# about the change

Then, at the point of the operation, e.g. "make test", that needs to be disabled silently under mock to enable the package build to succeed:

%check
%{?!_with_network_tests:rm t/01* t/02* t/09* t/11* t/50* t/54*}

make test

Now to execute local builds with the network bits enabled, either call rpmbuild with "--with network_tests" or add the line "%_with_network_tests 1" to your ~/.rpmmacros file. Remember to test with _with_network_tests undefined before submitting to the buildsys, to check for syntax errors!

rpmlint errors

script-without-shellbang

Problem:

Rpmlint returns something to the effect of:

E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/Comment.pm
E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/MyBase.pm
E: perl-WWW-Myspace script-without-shellbang /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/WWW/Myspace/FriendAdder.pm

Solution:

This error is caused by the exec bit being set on one or more .pm files. The solution is to strip the exec bit, for example, in the %install section:

find %{buildroot} -type f -name '*.pm' -exec chmod -x {} 2>/dev/null ';'

file-not-utf8

Problem:

W: perl-Class-MakeMethods file-not-utf8 /usr/share/man/man3/Class::MakeMethods::Docs::ReadMe.3pm.gz
W: perl-Class-MakeMethods file-not-utf8 /usr/share/man/man3/Class::MakeMethods::Attribute.3pm.gz

Solution:

Convert the errant file to UTF-8. Assuming the codepage the file is currently under is ISO-8859-1, this will do the trick (often by reviewers wanted in %prep section, in %build for generated man pages):

cd blib/man3
for i in Docs::ReadMe.3pm Attribute.3pm ; do
iconv --from=ISO-8859-1 --to=UTF-8 Class::MakeMethods::$i > new
mv new Class::MakeMethods::$i
done

If you are using iconv, you should be BR'ing it, but it's in glibc-common, which is installed anyway...