NAME

Module::Install::Template - Treat module source code as a template

SYNOPSIS

    # in C<Makefile.PL>:

    process_templates(
        first_year => 2007,
        rest_from  => "$ENV{HOME}/.mitlib/standard_pod",
        start_tag  => '{%',
        end_tag    => '%}',
    );

DESCRIPTION

This module, if used in the "Makefile.PL" as shown in the synopsis, treats module source code files as templates and processes them with the Template Toolkit during "make" time.

That is, "lib/" is expected to contain templates, and "blib/lib/" will contain the resulting files as processed by the Template Toolkit.

This only happens on the author's side. The end-user will not notice any of it.

This module provides one subroutine: "process_templates()". It takes named arguments. Of these, "start_tag" and "end_tag" are treated specially and used for the template's start and end tag definitions. "rest_from" instructs this module to look for distribution attributes ("version", "perl_version", "author", "license", "abstract") that haven't been set yet in the given file.

For example, you might have some standard POD template that you use in all your modules - standard stuff like installation, availability, author, copyright notices and so on. You could have that in the special directory "~/.mitlib" ("mit" here stands for 'Module::Install::Template'). Because of that, the Module::Install directive "all_from" won't work properly. With "rest_from" you can instruct this module to take the remaining distribution attributes from your standard template.

The Makefile had to be slightly patched so that "make dist" still works - normally "make dist" takes files from "lib/", but here these are the templates. We are interested in the finished files, so we override the relevant Makefile portions to use "blib/lib/" instead.

This documentation is somewhat lacking - I'll try to improve it.

Because of the "Makefile" munging, this module might not work for distributions that use XS or SWIG.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

No bugs have been reported.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-module-install-template@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at <http://rt.cpan.org>.

INSTALLATION

See perlmodinstall for information and options on installing Perl modules.

AVAILABILITY

The latest version of this module is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Visit <http://www.perl.com/CPAN/> to find a CPAN site near you. Or see <http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Install-Template/>.

AUTHOR

Marcel Grünauer, "<marcel@cpan.org>"

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.