What does dmake do when installing a new module?

Question

I just managed to install the perl / Tk module after a big fight. I understand that I do not understand what dmake or make does, etc.

I am using strawberry perl installed on C: \ strawberry.

Fisrt I unpacked the module into another directory and ran perl makefile.pl, which worked fine. Then I tried dmake, which did not work. I think it will be obvious to people who know how this works.

When I placed the module as a subdirectory of C: \ strawberry, I was able to run perl makefile.pl, dmake, dmake test and install dmake.

I assume that installing dmake adds some executables to the interpreter, and the module should work in a subdirectory. Is there any article anywhere that explains what it does in detail?

Answer 1

When you see the Makefile.PL file, it means that the module that installs the system is ExtUtils :: MakeMaker .

EU :: MM is a classic system for installing Perl modules related to CPAN Dawn. He relied on the make program, a generic and powerful dependency tracking tool, to be available on almost every unix system, and also relied on all kinds of unixy patterns and behavior.

Makefile.PL is a Perl script that is supported by the author of the module. It reads information about your system from Perl itself and uses it to create a Makefile. This Makefile instructs make on the steps to take. For more information about make , check out the Wikipedia Page in Make . In essence, what make does is look at the rules that tell it which files to do. It recursively looks at all the rules for creating the “target” (for example, when you entered make install, “install” was the target), and then follows them until (a) reaches the target or (b) it explodes awful. We all hope for (a), but (b) it often happens. :)

Unfortunately, in Windows-land we do not. Or a compiler. Usually, anyway.

dmake is a make program that works very well on Windows. Strawberry Perl packs everything you need to create in a UNIX-like Windows environment into a convenient package, creating what you just did.

Answer 2

This may be too big a question, but dmake has the -v (for more details)

dmake -v

dmake -v target

which will display information about what exactly dmake does during installation.