NAME

ppk - Perl Packager

SYNOPSIS

~$ ppk main.pl --dists Filesys-POSIX/ -o script
~$ ppk main.pl --dists Filesys-POSIX-0.9.tar.gz -o script
~$ ppk main.pl --modules lib/Foo/Bar.pm=Foo::Bar -o script
~$ ppk main.pl --dists Filesys-POSIX/ -c

DESCRIPTION

ppk provides a means of packaging a main Perl script, along with any number of dependencies in the form of modules explicitly specified by path and their equivalent Perl names; or, entire Perl dists in the form of tarballs or paths to unarchived dists, which contain a MANIFEST in either case.

ARGUMENTS

• main

  The main entry point script around which a standalone wrapper script will be constructed. All arguments passed to the wrapper script will be passed to this main script.

• --dists dists ...

• -d dists ...

  A single instance of the --dists flag, followed by the paths of any number of Perl dists (tarballs or directories) can be passed. All files in the lib/ directory listed in MANIFEST will be copied into the standalone script.

• --modules file=module::name ...

  A single instance of the --modules flag, followed by the paths and Perl module names as pairs separated by an equals (=) sign allow the user to archive only specific modules in disparate locations, into the standalone script.

• --deps-from depsfile

  Specifies a file from which dependencies are read. If depsfile is listed as a single dash ('-') character, then standard input will be read from.

  The format of the file is simple; either dists or modules can be listed, along with empty lines, lines containing whitespace, or comments denoted with the '#' character. Dependencies assume the following syntax:

  • module module::name file

    The file named for file should be packaged as module::name in the static script built.

  • dist dist

    The file or directory referred to by dist will be included in the static script built.

  Example:

    #
    # Script build dependencies
    #
    dist Filesys-POSIX-0.9.1.tar.gz
    dist Mail-Alias-Reader-0.02.tar.gz
    module Foo::Bar::Baz arbitrary/location/Foo/Bar/Baz.pm
    module Foo::Bar::Baz/Boo arbitrary/location/Foo/Bar/Baz/Boo.pm
  

• --output script

• -o script

  This flag specifies the name of the output standalone script file to be created or overwritten.

• --check

• -c

  This flag causes the given main entry point script to be checked against any extracted dists, or modules specified, in a temporary directory.

• --header file

• -H file

  Allows the specification of a header file to be inserted at the top of the output file directly after the Perl shebang.

• --desc string

• -D string

  Specifies a value to insert into any instance of the $Desc$ template that may occur in a header. Requires --header or -h to be passed.

RATIONALE

This tool does NOT perform automatic dependency calculation in the form of either runtime or static analysis; rather, by design, it is meant to allow for the granular selection of dependencies to target specific environments, creating standalone Perl scripts in the smallest footprint feasible.

MECHANISM

The standalone scripts generated by ppk are composed of a standard bootstrapping wrapper, and a __DATA__ section containing the main entry point script, and all dependencies, in a base64-encoded tarball created by tar(1) and gzip(1). The Perl interpreter used to execute the standalone script will be used to execute the main entry point script, passing all arguments from the standalone script's @ARGV array directly to the main entry point script.

Upon initial execution of a generated standalone script, the main entry point script, as well as its dependencies, are extracted into a temporary directory that is to be removed upon natural or forced program termination.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2018, cPanel, L.L.C. All rights reserved. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic for further details.