inc::latest(3pm)					 Perl Programmers Reference Guide					  inc::latest(3pm)

NAME

       inc::latest - use modules bundled in inc/ if they are newer than installed ones

SYNOPSIS

	 # in Build.PL
	 use inc::latest 'Module::Build';

DESCRIPTION

       The "inc::latest" module helps bootstrap configure-time dependencies for CPAN distributions.  These dependencies get bundled into the "inc"
       directory within a distribution and are used by Build.PL (or Makefile.PL).

       Arguments to "inc::latest" are module names that are checked against both the current @INC array and against specially-named directories in
       "inc".  If the bundled verison is newer than the installed one (or the module isn't installed, then, the bundled directory is added to the
       start of <@INC> and the module is loaded from there.

       There are actually two variations of "inc::latest" -- one for authors and one for the "inc" directory.  For distribution authors, the
       "inc::latest" installed in the system will record modules loaded via "inc::latest" and can be used to create the bundled files in "inc",
       including writing the second variation as "inc/latest.pm".

       This second "inc::latest" is the one that is loaded in a distribution being installed (e.g. from Build.PL).  This bundled "inc::latest" is
       the one that determines which module to load.

   Special notes on bundling
       The "inc::latest" module creates bundled directories based on the packlist file of an installed distribution.  Even though "inc::latest"
       takes module name arguments, it is better to think of it as bundling and making available entire distributions.	When a module is loaded
       through "inc::latest", it looks in all bundled distributions in "inc/" for a newer module than can be found in the existing @INC array.

       Thus, the module-name provided should usually be the "top-level" module name of a distribution, though this is not strictly required.  For
       example, Module::Build has a number of heuristics to map module names to packlists, allowing users to do things like this:

	 use inc::latest 'Devel::AssertOS::Unix';

       even though Devel::AssertOS::Unix is contained within the Devel-CheckOS distribution.

       At the current time, packlists are required.  Thus, bundling dual-core modules may require a 'forced install' over versions in the latest
       version of perl in order to create the necessary packlist for bundling.

USAGE

       When calling "use", the bundled "inc::latest" takes a single module name and optional arguments to pass to that module's own import method.

	 use 'inc::latest' 'Foo::Bar' qw/foo bar baz/;

   Author-mode
       You are in author-mode inc::latest if any of the Author-mode methods are available.  For example:

	 if ( inc::latest->can('write') ) {
	   inc::latest->write('inc');
	 }

       loaded_modules()
	     my @list = inc::latest->loaded_modules;

	   This takes no arguments and always returns a list of module names requested for loading via "use inc::latest 'MODULE'", regardless of
	   wether the load was successful or not.

       write()
	     inc::latest->write( 'inc' );

	   This writes the bundled version of inc::latest to the directory name given as an argument.  It almost all cases, it should be '"inc"'.

       bundle_module()
	     for my $mod ( inc::latest->loaded_modules ) {
	       inc::latest->bundle_module($mod, $dir);
	     }

	   If $mod corresponds to a packlist, then this function creates a specially-named directory in $dir and copies all .pm files from the
	   modlist to the new directory (which almost always should just be 'inc').  For example, if Foo::Bar is the name of the module, and $dir
	   is 'inc', then the directory would be 'inc/inc_Foo-Bar' and contain files like this:

	     inc/inc_Foo-Bar/Foo/Bar.pm

	   Currently, $mod must have a packlist.  If this is not the case (e.g. for a dual-core module), then the bundling will fail.  You may be
	   able to create a packlist by forced installing the module on top of the version that came with core Perl.

   As bundled in inc/
       All methods are private.  Only the "import" method is public.

AUTHOR

       Eric Wilhelm <ewilhelm@cpan.org>, David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2009 by Eric Wilhelm and David Golden

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

SEE ALSO

       Module::Build

perl v5.12.1							    2010-04-26							  inc::latest(3pm)