Catalyst

You know the problem, you got a application perfectly running on your development box, but then shudder you have to quickly move it to another one for demonstration/deployment/testing...

PAR packages can save you from a lot of trouble here. They are usual Zip files that contain a blib tree, you can even include all prereqs and a perl interpreter by setting a few flags! Follow these few points to try it out!

Install Catalyst 5.61 (or later) and PAR 0.89

% perl -MCPAN -e 'install Catalyst'
...
% perl -MCPAN -e 'install PAR'
...

Create a application

% catalyst.pl MyApp
...
% cd MyApp

Add these lines to Makefile.PL (below "catalyst_files();")

catalyst_par_core();   # Include modules that are also included
                       # in the standard Perl distribution,
                       # this is optional but highly suggested

catalyst_par();        # Generate a PAR as soon as the blib
                       # directory is ready

Prepare the Makefile, test your app, create a PAR (the two Makefile.PL calls are no typo)

% perl Makefile.PL
...
% make test
...
% perl Makefile.PL
...

Future versions of Catalyst (5.62 and newer) will use a similar but more elegant calling convention.

% perl Makefile.PL
...
% make catalyst_par
...

Congratulations! Your package "myapp.par" is ready, the following steps are just optional.

Test your PAR package with "parl" (no typo) :)

% parl myapp.par
Usage:
    [parl] myapp[.par] [script] [arguments]

  Examples:
    parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl -r
    myapp myapp_cgi.pl

  Available scripts:
    myapp_cgi.pl
    myapp_create.pl
    myapp_fastcgi.pl
    myapp_server.pl
    myapp_test.pl

% parl myapp.par myapp_server.pl
You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000

Yes, this nifty little starter application gets automatically included. You can also use "catalyst_par_script('myapp_server.pl')" to set a default script to execute.

Want to create a binary that includes the Perl interpreter? No problem!

% pp -o myapp myapp.par
% ./myapp myapp_server.pl
You can connect to your server at http://localhost:3000

Have fun!

-- sri

cookbook : original article

last updated 3 years ago #