Table of Contents
At any given time, the package perl should represent the current
stable upstream version of Perl revision 5 (see Appendix A, Perl 6).
Only one package may contain the
/usr/bin/perl binary and that package must
either be perl or a
dependency of that package (see Section 2.2, “Base Package”).
Where possible, Perl should be compiled to provide binary compatibility to at least the last released package version to allow a grace period over which binary module packages may be re-built against the new package (see Section 4.4.2, “Binary and Other Architecture Dependent Modules”).
The perl-base package must
provide perlapi-
for all released package versions it is compatible with. The
choice of abinameabiname is arbitrary, but if
it differs from
$Config{version}[1], it must be
specified in $Config{debian_abi}.
In order to provide a minimal installation of Perl for use by
applications without requiring the whole of Perl to be installed,
the perl-base package
contains the binary and a basic set of modules.
As Perl has been part of the essential set for some time and is
used without dependencies by such things as package maintainer
scripts, perl-base must be
priority required and marked as
essential.
Note that the perl-base
package is intended only to provide for exceptional circumstances
and the contents may change. In general, only packages which form
part of the base system should use only the facilities of
perl-base rather than
declaring a dependency on perl.
Perl searches several different locations for modules, referred to
in this document as core in which
modules distributed with Perl are installed,
vendor for packaged modules and
site for modules installed by the local
administrator.
The module search path (@INC) in the current
Debian packages has been ordered to include these locations in the
following order[2]
site (current)
Modules installed by the local administrator for the current version of Perl (see Chapter 3, Locally Installed Modules).
$Config{sitearch} (currently /usr/local/lib/arch-triplet/perl/version)
$Config{sitelib} (currently /usr/local/share/perl/version)
Where version indicates the
current Perl version ($Config{version}).
These locations, particularly
$Config{sitearch}, may change if the
binary interface between the Perl interpreter and compiled
modules has to be changed in an incompatible way without a
change in version. While this
will only be done as a last resort, packages should use
$Config{sitelib} and
$Config{sitearch}, not hardcode the
current locations.[3]
vendor
Packaged modules (see Chapter 4, Packaged Modules).
$Config{vendorarch} (currently /usr/lib/arch-triplet/perl5/shortversion)
$Config{vendorlib} (currently /usr/share/perl5)
Where shortversion indicates the
current Perl major version (for example
5.22).
These locations, particularly
$Config{vendorarch}, may change if
necessary[4]. Packages should use
$Config{vendorlib} and
$Config{vendorarch}, not hardcode the
current locations.[5]
core
Modules included in the core Perl distribution.
$Config{archlib} (currently /usr/lib/arch-triplet/perl/shortversion)
$Config{privlib} (currently /usr/share/perl/shortversion)
Where shortversion indicates the
current Perl major version (for example
5.22).
These locations should be considered internal to the
perl source package.
If necessary, packages should use
$Config{archlib} and
$Config{privlib} instead of hardcoding
the current locations.[6]
site (old)
site directories (as above) for
modules installed with previously released perl packages for which the
current package is binary compatible are included if
present.
In each of the directory pairs above, the lib
component is for binary (XS) modules, and
share for architecture-independent
(pure-perl) modules.
The POD files and manual pages which do not refer to programs may
be split out into a separate perl-doc package.
Manual pages distributed with packages built from the perl source package must be installed into the standard directories:
Manual pages for programs and scripts are installed into
/usr/share/man/man1 with the extension
.1.
Manual pages for modules are installed into
/usr/share/man/man3 with the extension
.3perl.
The extensions used for manual pages distributed with module packages are different. See Section 4.1, “Vendor Directories”.
[1] see the
Config module
[2] @INC contains other paths which should be considered internal to the implementation of the perl packaging
[3] Build systems based on
ExtUtils::MakeMaker and
Module::Build do this
automatically.
[4] For example, to include the multiarch triplet
[5] Build systems based on
ExtUtils::MakeMaker and
Module::Build do this automatically.
[6] Build systems based
on ExtUtils::MakeMaker and
Module::Build do this automatically.