Thank you for considering contributing to this distribution. This file contains instructions that will help you work with the source code.
The distribution is managed with Dist::Zilla. This means that many of the usual files you might expect are not in the repository, but are generated at release time. Some generated files are kept in the repository as a convenience (e.g. Build.PL/Makefile.PL and META.json).
Generally, you do not need Dist::Zilla to contribute patches. You may need Dist::Zilla to create a tarball. See below for guidance.
If you have App::cpanminus 1.6 or later installed, you can use cpanm to satisfy dependencies like this:
$ cpanm --installdeps --with-develop .
You can also run this command (or any other cpanm command) without installing
App::cpanminus first, using the fatpacked cpanm script via curl or wget:
$ curl -L https://cpanmin.us | perl - --installdeps --with-develop .
$ wget -qO - https://cpanmin.us | perl - --installdeps --with-develop .
Otherwise, look for either a cpanfile or META.json file for a list of
dependencies to satisfy.
You can run tests directly using the prove tool:
$ prove -l
$ prove -lv t/some_test_file.t
For most of my distributions, prove is entirely sufficient for you to test
any patches you have. I use prove for 99% of my testing during development.
Please try to match any existing coding style. If there is a .perltidyrc
file, please install Perl::Tidy and use perltidy before submitting patches.
Dist::Zilla is a very powerful authoring tool, optimized for maintaining a large number of distributions with a high degree of automation, but it has a large dependency chain, a bit of a learning curve and requires a number of author-specific plugins.
To install it from CPAN, I recommend one of the following approaches for the quickest installation:
# using CPAN.pm, but bypassing non-functional pod tests
$ cpan TAP::Harness::Restricted
$ PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 HARNESS_CLASS=TAP::Harness::Restricted cpan Dist::Zilla
# using cpanm, bypassing *all* tests
$ cpanm -n Dist::Zilla
In either case, it's probably going to take about 10 minutes. Go for a walk, go get a cup of your favorite beverage, take a bathroom break, or whatever. When you get back, Dist::Zilla should be ready for you.
Then you need to install any plugins specific to this distribution:
$ dzil authordeps --missing | cpanm
You can use Dist::Zilla to install the distribution's dependencies if you haven't already installed them with cpanm:
$ dzil listdeps --missing --develop | cpanm
You can instead combine these two steps into one command by installing Dist::Zilla::App::Command::installdeps then running:
$ dzil installdeps
Once everything is installed, here are some dzil commands you might try:
$ dzil build
$ dzil test
$ dzil regenerate
You can learn more about Dist::Zilla at http://dzil.org/
This distribution maintains the generated META.json and either Makefile.PL
or Build.PL in the repository. This allows two things:
Travis CI can build and test the distribution without
requiring Dist::Zilla, and the distribution can be installed directly from
Github or a local git repository using cpanm for testing (again, not
requiring Dist::Zilla).
$ cpanm git://github.com/Author/Distribution-Name.git
$ cd Distribution-Name; cpanm .
Contributions are preferred in the form of a Github pull request. See Using pull requests for further information. You can use the Github issue tracker to report issues without an accompanying patch.
This file was adapted from an initial CONTRIBUTING.mkdn file from David
Golden under the terms of the Apache 2 license, with inspiration from the
contributing documents from Dist::Zilla::Plugin::Author::KENTNL::CONTRIBUTING
and Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Author::ETHER.