NAME

    File::ShareDir::Dist - Locate per-dist shared files

VERSION

    version 0.03

SYNOPSIS

     use File::ShareDir::Dist qw( dist_share );
     
     my $dir = dist_share 'Foo-Bar-Baz';

DESCRIPTION

    File::ShareDir::Dist finds share directories for distributions. It is
    similar to File::ShareDir with a few differences:

    Only supports distribution directories.

      It doesn't support perl modules or perl class directories. I have
      never really needed anything other than a per-dist share directory.

    Doesn't compute filenames.

      Doesn't compute files in the share directory for you. This is what
      File::Spec or Path::Tiny are for.

    Doesn't support old style shares.

      For some reason there are two types. I have never seen or needed the
      older type.

    Hopefully doesn't find the wrong directory.

      It doesn't blindly go finding the first share directory in @INC that
      matches the dist name. It actually checks to see that it matches the
      .pm file that goes along with it.

      That does mean that you need to have a .pm that corresponds to your
      dist name. This is not always the case for some older historical
      distributions, but it has been the recommended convetion for quite
      some time.

    No non-core dependencies.

      File::ShareDir only has Class::Inspector, but since we are only doing
      per-dist share directories we don't even need that.

      The goal of this project is to have no non-core dependencies for the
      two most recent production versions of Perl. As of this writing that
      means Perl 5.26 and 5.24. In the future, we may add dependencies on
      modules that are not part of the Perl core on older Perls.

    Works in your development tree.

      Uses the huristic, for determining if you are in a development tree,
      and if so, uses the common convention to find the directory named
      share. If you are using a relative path in @INC, if the directory
      share is a sibling of that relative entry in @INC and if the last
      element in that relative path is lib.

      Example, if you have the directory structure:

       lib/Foo/Bar/Baz.pm
       share/data

      and you invoke perl with

       % perl -Ilib -MFoo::Bar::Baz -MFile::ShareDir::Dist=dist_share -E 'say dist_share("Foo-Bar-Baz")'

      dist_share will return the (absolute) path to ./share/data. If you
      invoked it with:

       % export PERL5LIB `pwd`/lib
       perl -MFoo::Bar::Baz -MFile::ShareDir::Dist=dist_share -E 'say dist_share("Foo-Bar-Baz")'

      it would not. For me this covers most of my needs when developing a
      Perl module with a share directory.

      prove foils this huristic by making @INC absolute paths. To get
      around that you can use App::Prove::Plugin::ShareDirDist.

    Built in override.

      The hash %File::ShareDir::Dist::over can be used to override what
      dist_share returns. You can also override behavior on the command
      line using a dash followed by a key value pair joined by the equal
      sign. In other words:

       % perl -MFile::ShareDir::Dist=-Foo-Bar-Baz=./share -E 'say File::ShareDir::Dist::dist_share("Foo-Bar-Baz")'
       /.../share

      If neither of those work then you can set PERL_FILE_SHAREDIR_DIST to
      a dist name, directory pair

       % env PERL_FILE_SHAREDIR_DIST=Foo-Bar-Baz=`pwd`/share perl -MFile::ShareDir::Dist -E 'say File::ShareDir::Dist::dist_share("Foo-Bar-Baz")'

      For File::ShareDir you have to either mock the dist_dir function or
      install File::ShareDir::Override. For testing you can use
      Test::File::ShareDir. I have never understood why such a simple
      concept needs three modules to do all of this.

FUNCTIONS

    Functions must be explicitly exported. They are not exported by
    default.

 dist_share

     my $dir = dist_share $dist_name;
     my $dir = dist_share $module_name;

    Returns the absolute path to the share directory of the given
    distribution.

    As a convenience you can also use the "main" module name assoicated
    with the distribution. That means if you want the share directory for
    thet dist Foo-Bar-Baz you may use either Foo-Bar-Baz or Foo::Bar::Baz
    to find it.

    Returns nothing if no share directory could be found.

ENVIRONMENT

    PERL_FILE_SHAREDIR_DIST

      Can be used to set a single dist directory override.

CAVEATS

    All the stuff that is in File::ShareDir but not in this module could be
    considered either caveats or features depending on your perspective I
    suppose.

SEE ALSO

    File::ShareDir

AUTHOR

    Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

    This software is copyright (c) 2017 by Graham Ollis.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

