# $Id: README,v 3.1 2003/08/14 14:08:34 ronisaac Exp $ # Copyright (c) 2001-2003, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Co. # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. # Please see the copyright notice at the end of this file for more information. ========================= README FOR Env::Modulecmd ========================= * WHAT IS IT? By definition, from www.modules.org: The Modules package provides for the dynamic modification of a user's environment via modulefiles. Each modulefile contains the information needed to configure the shell for an application. Once the Modules package is initialized, the environment can be modified on a per-module basis using the module command which interprets modulefiles. Typically modulefiles instruct the module command to alter or set shell environment variables such as PATH, MANPATH, etc. modulefiles may be shared by many users on a system and users may have their own collection to supplement or replace the shared modulefiles Here's an example: let's say you have several releases of xemacs installed, and you want an easy way to choose your favorite release. Here's a modulefile that might be called "xemacs/21.1.14": #%Module prepend-path PATH /usr/xemacs/21.1.14/bin prepend-path MANPATH /usr/xemacs/21.1.14/man Then there's a binary, called modulecmd, which outputs eval'able code in a variety of languages. If your shell is ksh, you might type: "eval `modulecmd ksh load xemacs/21.1.14`" to properly configure your environment. Now, modulecmd supports perl as well. If you issue the command "modulecmd perl load xemacs/21.1.14", given the above modulefile, it will spit out something like this (well not exactly, but here's a simplified version): $ENV{'PATH'} = "/usr/xemacs/21.1.14/bin:" . $ENV{'PATH'}; $ENV{'MANPATH'} = "/usr/xemacs/21.1.14/man:" . $ENV{'MANPATH'}; That's where Env::Modulecmd comes in. You say Env::Modulecmd::load ('xemacs/21.1.14') and it will run modulecmd and eval the output. (It can also unload modules and do some other fancy stuff, like check for errors.) Note that this is useful only to people who use modulecmd and have some modulefiles installed. * INSTALLATION To install this module type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install * DEFAULT PATHS There are two environment variables that are critical to the operation of both Env::Modulecmd and modulecmd itself: PERL_MODULECMD The full path to modulecmd. If present, Env::Modulecmd will always use its value to invoke modulecmd. Otherwise, it will attempt to invoke "modulecmd", relying on it being in the PATH. MODULEPATH A colon-separated list of directories where modulecmd itself should look for modulefiles. Env::Modulecmd doesn't use this value directly, but modulecmd will not work if it's not set properly, so Env::Modulecmd can set it for you as a convenience. At build time, you can specify default values for these two variables, to be used in the event they're missing from the environment when Env::Modulecmd is invoked. If you're building with perl5.005 or later, give one or both of them as arguments to "make": make DEFAULT_PERL_MODULECMD=/path/to/modulecmd DEFAULT_MODULEPATH=/a:/b:/c If you're using perl5.004 or earlier, you'll need to edit Modulecmd.pm by hand before installing. The two values go in the obvious spots near the top of the file. Note that these default values will work with any version of perl at runtime; however, the facility used to replace the tokens in Modulecmd.pm with the values supplied to "make" at build time requires perl5.005 or better. * DOCUMENTATION See the pod documentation in Modulecmd.pm. * COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Written by Ron Isaacson <ron.isaacson@morganstanley.com> Copyright (c) 2001-2003, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Co. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.