Today, I released my second CPAN module. While writing my first CPAN module, I used Dist::Zilla for uploading my module to CPAN, but when I looked into it today, I had to go through some dzil plugins again. So, I thought that I should write a blog post about this.

Basic directory structured of the module:

Assuming, my module name is X::Y::Z, I need to create a directory with name X-Y-Z. Output of find command should look like this:

lib               # all code goes in lib/
lib/X             # code for X will go here
lib/X/Y           # code for Y will go here
lib/X/Y/Z.pm      # code for Z will go here
t/                # all tests will go here
dist.ini          # explained below

For example : see this module.

Writing dist.ini:

Following is my dist.ini. I’ve pasted it below with comments for explaination (starting with ‘;’).

name = Plack-Middleware-FixMissingBodyInRedirect
version = 0.01
author = Upasana <me@upasana.me>
license = Perl_5
copyright_holder = Upasana

; this plugin gathers all files in a dist,
; if root is not given it defaults to where dist.ini is located
[GatherDir]

; this plugin will add META.yml file to the dist
; META.yml contains information related to dist like abstract, author,
; which modules are required for building & testing the dist,
; which modules are required during runtime,
; pre-requisites etc.
[MetaYAML]

;for removing unwanted files, e.g. files starting a '.'
[PruneCruft]

; This plugin builds Makefile.PL, that uses ExtUtils::MakeMaker
; ExtUtils::MakeMaker create a module Makefile.
; (I found this thing very lengthy & very complicated,
; I've myself not understood it well).
[MakeMaker]

; will create a META.json, for replacing old style META.yml
; META.json contains same information as META.yml, but in JSON format
[MetaJSON]

; adds a LICENSE file containing the full text of dist's license
[License]

; adds a README file to the dist,
; citing the dist's name, version, abstract % license
[Readme]

; This plugin rip apart your kind of POD & reconstructs it as old real POD
; (I really don't know the difference between the two kinds of PODs though)
; By default, it'll modify the files under:
; :InstallModules - .pm/.pod files under lib/ directory
; :ExecFiles - executable files in the distribution
[PodWeaver]

; This plugin will read MANIFEST.SKIP file &
; skip all the files decalred in it, while building the dist
; My MANIFEST.SKIP contains this text:
; ^.*~$
; because I want to skip backup files, which starts with any character,
; but ends with '~'
[ManifestSkip]

; This plugin checks POD coverage of all subs,
; to indicate that some subs should be treated as covered,
; even if no documentation can be found, you can add:
; =for Pod::Coverage sub_name other_sub this_one_too.
; It generates xt/release/pod-coverage.t file
[PodCoverageTests]

; for checking POD syntax
[PodSyntaxTests]

; This plugin runs before a release happens,
; It'll extract to-be-released archive into a temporary directory,
; run all the tests, if tests fail then it'll abort the release,
; else it'll release the dist to CPAN & clean-up the temporary directory
[TestRelease]

; This plugin checks for correct line endings in the dist
; It generates xt/release/eol.t file
[EOLTests]

; This plugin allows the "dzil release" command to upload the dist
; to CPAN. It'll look for PAUSE account configuration in dist.ini
; (I would suggest to use the latter options for saving PAUSE configuration)
; or in ~/.dzil/config.ini in the following format:
; [%PAUSE]
; username = YOUR-PAUSE-ID
; password = YOUR-PAUSE-PASSWORD
; If above configuration doesn't exist, then it'll look into ~/.pause
; in the following format:
; user YOUR-PAUSE-ID
; password YOUR-PAUSE-PASSWORD
; If none of the above exists, then it'll prompt you for PAUSE credentials
[UploadToCPAN]

; This plugin prompts the author whether or not to continue before
; releasing the distribution to CPAN. It gives authors
; a chance to abort before they upload.
; The default is "no", but you can set the environment variable
; DZIL_CONFIRMRELEASE_DEFAULT to "yes" if you just want to hit enter to release.
[ConfirmRelease]

; This plugin will automatically extracts pre-requisties from your modules
; You can manually add pre-requisites by using Prereqs plugin
[AutoPrereqs]

Releasing dist to CPAN:

After writing dist.ini, you should test & build your dist & see if everything is fine in resulted tarball. For testing & building your dist, do

dzil test --all
dzil build

If everything goes well with the above commands, you can release your dist to CPAN, by doing

dzil release

Source:
I’ve taken most of the explanation from PODs of various Dist::Zilla::Plugin::* modules.