1NAME 2 Task::Weaken - Ensure that a platform has weaken support 3 4DESCRIPTION 5 One recurring problem in modules that use Scalar::Util's "weaken" 6 function is that it is not present in the pure-perl variant. 7 8 While this isn't necesarily always a problem in a straight CPAN-based 9 Perl environment, some operating system distributions only include the 10 pure-Perl versions, don't include the XS version, and so weaken is then 11 "missing" from the platform, despite passing a dependency on 12 Scalar::Util successfully. 13 14 Most notably this is RedHat Linux at time of writing, but other come and 15 go and do the same thing, hence "recurring problem". 16 17 The normal solution is to manually write tests in each distribution to 18 ensure that "weaken" is available. 19 20 This restores the functionality testing to a dependency you do once in 21 your Makefile.PL, rather than something you have to write extra tests 22 for each time you write a module. 23 24 It should also help make the package auto-generators for the various 25 operating systems play more nicely, because it introduces a dependency 26 that they have to have a proper weaken in order to work. 27 28 How this Task works 29 Part of the problem seems to stem from the fact that some distributions 30 continue to include modules even if they fail some of their tests. 31 32 To get around that for this module, it will do a few dirty tricks. 33 34 If Scalar::Util is not available at all, it will issue a normal 35 dependency on the module. However, if Scalar::Util is relatively new ( 36 it is >= 1.19 ) and the module does not have weaken, the install will 37 bail out altogether with a long error encouraging the user to seek 38 support from their vendor (this problem happens most often in 39 vendor-packaged Perl versions). 40 41 This distribution also contains tests to ensure that weaken is available 42 using more normal methods. 43 44 So if your module uses "weaken", you can just add the following to your 45 Module::Install-based Makefile.PL (or equivalent). 46 47 requires 'Task::Weaken' => 0; 48 49AUTHOR 50 Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>, <http://ali.as/> 51 52SEE ALSO 53 Task, Scalar::Util, <http://ali.as/> 54 55COPYRIGHT 56 Copyright 2006 - 2009 Adam Kennedy. 57 58 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it 59 under the same terms as Perl itself. 60 61 The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included 62 with this module. 63 64