Deep in one of the current threads on autobundling installers, someone (I think Jos) mentioned a hitherto unkown (to me) module called CPANPLUS::Shell::Default::Plugins::Prereqs, which is another very cool plugin for CPANPLUS.
It will give a very nice overview of what other dists a given dist (local or on CPAN) needs, and will even install them. While the last point isn't so revolutionary for regular CPAN stuff, I find it very comfortable for custom code that's not on CPAN. Yes, Module::Install can also do that, but I think it's evil and I really hate make (or rather Makefiles - using tabs for semantics is just fu̷cked)
Examples
~$ cpanp /prereqs show Moose Module Req Ver Installed CPAN Satisfied Test::LongString 0 0.11 0.11 Yes Scalar::Util 1.18 1.19 1.19 Yes Test::Exception 0.21 0.27 0.27 Yes Filter::Simple 0 0.82 0.82 Yes Class::MOP 0.66 0.65 0.66 No ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.44 6.44 6.46 Yes Sub::Exporter 0.972 0.980 0.980 Yes Carp 0 1.08 1.08 Yes Test::More 0.62 0.80 0.80 Yes List::MoreUtils 0 0.22 0.22 Yes
It also works on stuff that's not on CPAN. You just need to chdir into the dir containing Build.PL (of course it also works with Makefile.PL, but no sane person is still using that...)
~$ cd revdev/RevDev-Schema ~/revdev/RevDev-Schema$ cpanp /prereqs show . Module Req Ver Installed CPAN Satisfied DBIx::SchemaChecksum 0.23 0.23 0.23 Yes DBIx::Class 0 0.08010 0.08010 Yes Array::Diff 0.04 0.04 0.04 Yes RevDev::Utils 0.10 0.12 0.11 Yes DBD::Pg 2.10.0 2.10.5 2.010007 Yes Sys::Hostname 0 1.11 1.11 Yes DateTime::Format::Pg 0 0.16002 0.16002 Yes
And of course it's totally easy to install the dependencies:
~$ cpanp /prereqs install Moose Module Req Ver Installed CPAN Satisfied Test::LongString 0 0.11 0.11 Yes ... Class::MOP 0.66 0.65 0.66 No Running [/opt/perl5.10/bin/perl /opt/perl5.10/bin/cpanp-run-perl /home/domm/.cpanplus/5.10.0/build/Class-MOP-0.66/Makefile.PL ]... Testing if you have a C compiler Checking if your kit is complete... Looks good Writing Makefile for Class::MOP ... Result: PASS ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.44 6.44 6.46 Yes ...
Another very sharp tool in my deployment toolbox. MGRIMES++
... it recommends AGAINST the use of auto_install() and I even tried to remove the feature altogether (but it didn't stick, too many things broke).
