Re: [Module::Build] Ready for 0.22?

[Glenn L. <pe...@ne...>]

On approximately 1/10/2004 12:44 AM, came the following characters from
the keyboard of Randy W. Sims:
> On 1/10/2004 12:18 AM, Glenn Linderman wrote:
> 
>> On approximately 1/9/2004 3:27 PM, came the following characters from
>> the keyboard of Ken Williams:
>>
>>>  - The 'dist' action now accepts an optional 'tar' parameter to use a
>>>    system utility for building the tarball, and a 'gzip' parameter for
>>>    compressing it.  If these are used, Archive::Tar won't be invoked.
>>>
>>> The idea is that people who still can't get Archive::Tar to work 
>>> might have some other alternative, like a Cygwin tar/gzip or whatever.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yep, that sounds useful as a workaround to dysfunctional Archive::Tar 
>> releases.  If PPM can deal with such, and I suspect it can, as I guess 
>> that is why modules built with MakeMaker don't have that problem... 
>> they pretty much require having a TAR and GZIP program on the box.  
>> And PPM can deal with MakeMaker built modules.
>>
>> I really don't understand how, if PPM uses A::T to dearchive modules, 
>> why M::B using A::T to archive the modules in the first place wouldn't 
>> work, but that seems to be the way it is at the moment.  But I don't 
>> know how PPM really dearchives modules, or maybe A::T is more robust 
>> at dearchiving than it is at archiving.
> 
> 
> I don't know why this is just now occuring to me (prolly 'cuz I don't 
> use ppm), but ppm can use both .tar.gz archives and .zip archives. If 
> you look at the repository at 
> <http://ppm.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/8xx-builds-only/Windows/> 
> you'll see that all of them are .zip archives, so that's the reason this 
> issue has never come up before wrt ppm. There are a couple of other 
> repositories out there (Jenda Krynicky's and Randy Kobes' though I don't 
> remember the urls); I suspect that they either use zips or use a working 
> version of tar to create their archives.

I think the PPMPackages URL you reference above simply has the .tar.gz 
file, and the .ppd files, packaged together into a .zip file, for 
slightly simpler downloading for people that want to make their own 
installation repository without depending on being on-line during 
installations.  So while I am not knowledgable enough to confirm or deny 
whether ppm can or cannot use .zip archives, I don't think the 
referenced URL supports the theory.

> MakeMaker has a zipdist target in addition to the regular dist target. I 
>  personally don't see the value in providing support for another format. 
> FWIW, I believe M::B shouldn't try to do more than it absolutely has to 
> so that it stays simple and easy to maintain and port. If/When a plugin 
> architecture is adopted for M::B, someone could easily add a zipdist 
> target as an addon as well as other ActiveState specific stuff like 
> their custom html man pages, etc. Or it may be possible to use the new 
> 'tar' and 'gzip' arguments to fool M::B into creating a zip, but I 
> haven't tried it yet.
> 
> Regards,
> Randy.

-- 
Glenn -- http://nevcal.com/
===========================
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