name¶

This is the name of the dist. It will usually look like "Foo-Bar".

version¶

This is the version of the dist, usually some kind of versiony string like 1.234 or maybe 1.2.3.

abstract¶

The abstract! This is a short, pithy description of the distribution, usually less than a sentence.

release_status¶

This is the dist's release status. (See CPAN::Meta::Spec.) It defaults to "stable" but "unstable" and "testing" are valid values.

cpan_author¶

This is the PAUSE id of the author, like "RJBS".

archive_ext¶

This is the extension of the archive to build, when you build an archive. This defaults to "tar.gz". "zip" works. Other things might. Try it and find out.

append¶

This is an arrayref of hashrefs, each of which looks like:

  { file => $filename, content => $character_string }

The content will be UTF-8 encoded and put into a file with the given name.

This feature is a bit weird. Maybe it will go away eventually.

mtime¶

If given, this is the epoch seconds to which to set the mtime of the generated file. This is useful in rare occasions.

x_authority¶

This is the "X_Authority" header that gets put into the META files.

license¶

This is the meta spec license string for the distribution. It defaults to "perl_5".

authors¶

This is an array of strings who are used as the authors in the dist metadata. The default is:

  [ "AUTHOR <AUTHOR@cpan.local>" ]

...where "AUTHOR" is the "cpan_author" of the dist.

include_provides_in_meta¶

This is a bool. If true, the produced META files will include a "provides" key based on the packages in the dist. It defaults to false, to match the most common behavior of dists in the wild.

provides¶

This is a hashref that gets used as the "provides" in the metadata.

If not provided, it is built from the "packages" provided in construction.

If no packages were provided, for a dist named Foo-Bar, it defaults to:

  { 'Foo::Bar' => { version => $DIST_VERSION, file => "lib/Foo/Bar.pm" } }

archive_basename¶

If written to disk, the archive will be written to...

  $dist->archive_basename . '.' . $dist->archive_ext

The default is:

  $dist->name . '.' . ($dist->version // 'undef')

omitted_files¶

If given, this is an arrayref of filenames that shouldn't be automatically generated and included.

packages¶

This is an array of Module::Faker::Package objects. It's built by "provides" if needed, but you might want to look at using the "from_struct" method to set it up.

more_metadata¶

This can be given as a hashref of data to merge into the CPAN::Meta files.

meta_munger¶

If given, this is a coderef that's called just before the CPAN::Meta data for the dist is written to disk, an can be used to change things, especially into invalid data. It is expected to return the new content to serialize.

It's called like this:

  $coderef->($struct, { format => $format, version => $version });

...where $struct is the result of "$cpan_meta->as_struct". $version is the version number of the target metafile. Normally, both version 1.4 and 2 are requested. $format is either "yaml" or "json".

If the munger returns a string instead of a structure, it will be used as the content of the file being written. This lets you put all kinds of nonsense in those meta files. Have fun, go nuts!

modules¶

This produces and returns a list of Module::Faker::Module objects, representing modules. Modules, if you're not as steeped in CPAN toolchain nonsense, are the ".pm" files in which packages are defined.

These are produced by combining the packages from "packages" into files based on their "in_file" attributes.

"make_dist_dir"¶

  my $directory_name = $dist->make_dist_dir(\%arg);

This returns the name of a directory into which the dist's contents have been written. If a "dir" argument is provided, the dist will be written to a directory beneath that dir. Otherwise, it will be written below a temporary directory.

make_archive¶

  my $archive_filename = $dist->make_archive(\%arg);

This writes the dist archive file, like a tarball or zip file. If a "dir" argument is given, it will be written in that directory. Otherwise, it will be written to a temporary directory. If the "author_prefix" argument is given and true, it will be written under a hashed author dir, like:

  U/US/USERID/Foo-Bar-1.23.tar.gz

from_file¶

  my $dist = Module::Faker::Dist->from_file($filename);

Given a filename with dist configuration, this builds the dist described by the file.

Given a file ending in "yaml" or "yml" or "json", it's treated as a CPAN::Meta file and interpreted as such. The key "X_Module_Faker" can be present to provide attributes that don't match data found in a meta file.

Given a file ending in "dist", all the configuration comes from the filename, which should look like this:

  AUTHOR_Dist-Name-1.234.tar.gz.dist

from_struct¶

  my $dist = Module::Faker::Dist->from_struct(\%arg);

This is sugar over "new", working like this:

• packages version defaults to the dist version unless specified
• packages for dist Foo-Bar defaults to Foo::Bar unless specified
• if specified, packages is an optlist