changes

source of perl for linux application,

   require to fail when the argument to require is an expression
   involving File::Spec. We now assign the result of the File::Spec
   call to a variable and then call require with that variable.

 - Tilde-expansion is now performed on arguments passed to a
   compatibility-Makefile.PL [Spotted by Sam Vilain]

 - We now run the 'gzip' and 'tar' values through split_like_shell()
   when running the 'dist' action, so that e.g. the 'gzip' value can
   be set to something like "gzip -f --best" and it'll work
   correctly. [Spotted by Chris Dolan]

 - Work around some bad mojo between Fedora Core [with its very long
   @INC] and old versions of Test::Harness [with its propensity to
   compound the number of @INC entries] that produced an "argument
   list too long" error during testing.  [assisted by Ville Skytta,
   David Golden, & Randy Sims]

 - Killed an infinite loop that would happen in y_n() in interactive
   mode if the author provided no default value. [Max Maischein]

0.2607 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)  Sat Dec 18 14:14:09 CST 2004

 - Instead of freezing @INC in the 'Build' script to the value it had
   when Build.PL was run, we now just add those additional values that
   aren't part of the default compiled-in @INC. [Michael Schwern]

 - The run_perl_script() method will now propagate any extra entries
   in @INC (such as those added by "use lib" or the -I command-line
   switch) to the subprocess.  This helps situations in which you want
   to tell the subprocess where to find a certain module, for
   instance.  [Michael Schwern]

0.2606 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Tue Dec  7 22:33:11 CST 2004

 - Fixed a linking bug on Win32, in which compiled C code object files
   never got linked in with the modules being built. [Dominic
   Mitchell]

 - Fixed a bug in the new_from_context() method in which any arguments
   passed made us die. [Spotted by Jos Boumans]

0.2605 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Tue Nov 30 07:16:13 CST 2004

 - Fixed a bug in which zero-length arguments for hash-valued
   parameters (e.g. " --config foo= ") weren't being allowed.

 - The tests now play better with environments in which version.pm is
   pre-loaded, like in bleadperl. [John Peacock & Michael Schwern]

 - Fixed a syntax error in one of the tests under perl 5.005.

0.2604 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Wed Nov 17 14:32:42 CST 2004

 - Fixed a split_like_shell() bug introduced in 0.2603 for Windows, in
   which an array reference passed as an argument was returned as an
   array reference, rather than as a list. [Spotted by Steve Hay]

 - module_name() will now return '' instead of undef when module_name
   is not set.  This eliminates a couple uninitialized-value
   warnings. [Suggested by Michael Schwern]

 - The expand_test_dir() method will now skip dotfiles (like ._foo.t,
   which sometimes gets automatically created on Mac systems) when
   'recursive_test_files' is in effect. [Tom Insam]

0.2603 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Mon Nov 15 10:28:00 CST 2004

 - Added documentation for the new_from_context() method.

 - Completely rewrote the split_like_shell() method for the Windows
   platform so it works like the command.com shell. [Randy Sims]

0.2602 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Thu Nov  4 11:19:29 CST 2004

 - The two bug fixes in 0.2601 gnashed against each other incorrectly,
   resulting in a Win32 bug in split_like_shell().  Fixed.  [Spotted
   by Steve Hay & Randy Sims]

 - Removed a couple of 'use warnings' statements from the code - they
   were causing compile failures on 5.005_04, where warnings.pm isn't
   available. [Blair Zajac]

0.2601 (Bug fix release in 0.26 series)   Wed Nov  3 20:09:27 CST 2004

 - Fixed some backslash problems with split_like_shell() on
   Win32. [Steve Hay]

 - Fixed a bug in split_like_shell() in which leading whitespace was
   creating an empty word, manifesting as something like "gcc - no
   such file or directory" during tests. [Spotted by Warren L. Dodge]

0.26  Sat Oct  9 17:51:01 CDT 2004

 - Removed some language from the Module::Build::Compat documentation
   that encouraged people to include a Build.PL without a Makefile.PL.
   Also changed "a replacement for MakeMaker" to "an alternative to
   MakeMaker" in the main documentation, which is basically what I
   meant all along (i.e. a replacement for MakeMaker in your
   particular build process - MakeMaker is never going to be fully
   replaced in the perl world at large, of course), but some people
   got the impression I was a little more truculent toward MakeMaker
   than I really am.

 - Added the formal concepts of "features" and "config data" for
   distributions.  This allows the module author to define a certain
   set of features that the user can switch on and off (usually
   according to whether they have the proper prerequisites for them),
   and to save build-time configuration information in a standardized
   format.  See the main documentation of Module::Build for more
   details.  (Note that the name of this system was called
   "BuildConfig" for a while in beta, but now it's called
   "ConfigData".)

 - Added an 'auto_features' capability, which simplifies the process
   of defining features that depend on a set of prerequisites.

 - Added the 'get_options' parameter, which lets module authors
   declare certain command-line arguments their Build.PL can accept
   [David Wheeler]

 - Changed the split_like_shell() method to use the shellwords()
   function from Text::ParseWords (a core module since 5.0), which
   does a much better job than the split() we were using.

 - Added a 'testpod' action, which checks the syntactic validity of
   all POD files in the distribution using Test::Pod.  This eliminates
   the need for doing so in a regression test. [Initial patch by Mark
   Stosberg]

 - Added a process_files_by_extension() method, which generalizes the
   kind of processing (essentially just copying) that happens for .pm
   and .pod files, and makes it available to other user-defined types
   of files.  See the new cookbook entry.

 - Improved compatibility with version.pm when authors are using
   version objects as their $VERSION variables.  Now
   version_from_file() can deal with these objects.  Currently we
   stringify them right away, but perhaps in the future we will
   preserve them as objects for a while.

 - During 'distdir' and 'distmeta' actions, die a bit more gracefully
   if there's no MANIFEST (i.e. explicitly say that a MANIFEST is
   required). [Spotted by Adrian Howard]

 - Eliminated a recursive dependency between creating the MANIFEST
   file and creating the META.yml file.  [Spotted by Dave Rolsky]

 - On Win32, where a single directory might be known variously as
   "Module-Build-0.25_03" or "MODULE~1.25_", we now use
   Win32::GetShortPathName($cwd) to verify that the 'Build' script is
   being run from the correct directory, rather than just a string
   comparison.

 - The add_to_cleanup() method will now accept glob()-style patterns
   in addition to explicit filenames.  Also documented the fact that
   they can be specified in either Unix-style or native-style
   notation.

 - Passing a PREFIX value to a pass-through Makefile 'make install'
   now has the same effect as passing it to 'perl Makefile.PL' (it
   dies with a helpful message).

 - Added the 'testcover' action, which runs a test suite using
   Devel::Cover.  [Dave Rolsky]

 - Added the 'lib' and 'arch' installation directories to the search
   path for the 'diff' action, since they won't necessarily (though
   they usually will) be in @INC at installation time. [Suggested by
   Kevin Baker]

 - The "=head3" POD directive isn't supported in older podlators
   (particularly Pod::Man), so we don't use it anymore.

 - Fixed a typo & improved the docs in the SUBCLASSING section. [Ron
   Savage]

 - Added the '.tmp' suffix to the default MANIFEST.SKIP file, which
   should avoid adding things like pod2htmi.tmp to the MANIFEST [Ron
   Savage]

 - Backup files from Emacs, containing the string '.#' in their names,
   should no longer find their way into the blib/ directory (and from
   there into installation directories).

 - Worked around an unpleasant interaction between version.pm and the
   version-checking code that makes sure Module::Build's version
   hasn't changed during the lifetime of the 'Build' script. [Reported
   by Trevor Schellhorn]

 - Fixed a problem in htmlify_pods() that would produce test failures
   on Cygwin (and probably elsewhere).  [Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

 - Fixed a test failure on Cygwin (and probably elsewhere) in
   t/compat.t, resulting from empty environment variables being set to
   the empty string (as opposed to simply being unset) by their mere
   presence in the "EXPORT:" list.

 - Fixed a fatal error that occurred when the author specified
   'dist_author' manually in their Build.PL script. [Spotted by Ron
   Savage]

 - The 'provides' section of the META.yml file wasn't being built
   properly on Win32, because of a mismatch between URL-format and
   native-format pathnames.  Fixed.  [Reported by Robert Rothenberg]

 - The progress message "lib/Foo.xs -> lib/Foo.c" was previously being
   output even when the Foo.c file wasn't being rebuilt.  It's now
   fixed.

 - Fixed a couple of places in Compat.pm where it could have forgotten
   which perl interpreter it had been run with ($^X isn't very
   trustworthy).

 - On some systems, the way we updated the timestamp on the
   "lib/Foo.bs" file (one of the output files for XS-based modules)
   was failing.  It's been replaced by a simple call to utime().

 - Fixed a problem in t/compat.t that prevented it from being run
   individually using 'make test TEST_FILES=t/compat.t'.  The problem
   was that a couple environment variables (TEST_FILES, MAKEFLAGS)
   were being passed through to subprocesses, and confused them.

 - Fixed an important typo in the documentation for the 'install_base'
   parameter ('libdoc' and 'bindoc' were switched). [Ray Zimmerman]

 - The pass-through Makefiles (type 'small' or 'passthrough') now
   support the TEST_FILES parameter to 'make test'.

 - Fixed a fatal error that would occur on perl 5.005 when building
   HTML documentation, because its version of Pod::Html was old and
   didn't like some of the parameters we fed it. [Spotted by Blair
   Zajac]

 - The final line of the generated pass-through Makefile was missing
   its trailing newline, which is now fixed. [Chip Salzenberg]

 - We now depend on YAML version at least 0.35 and at most version
   0.49, so that we don't pick up a new (and backward-incompatible) beta
   version from CPAN.

 - Squashed a warning in t/basic.t about '"Foo::Module::VERSION" used
   only once', and one in PPMMaker about $^V being undefined. [Blair
   Zajac]

 - Added a couple temporary output files from HTML documentation
   generation to the cleanup list.  [Toby Ovod-Everett]

 - The PodParser module will now only extract paragraphs in the
   'AUTHOR' section of the pod if they contain an '@' character.  This
   tends to do a better job, heuristically speaking, of returning
   relevant stuff.

 - Added regression tests and a helper method ( add_build_elements() )
   for adding new elements to the build process.  Also some
   documentation.

 - Wrote a recipe in the Cookbook for adding new elements to the build
   process, and a recipe for changing the order in which the steps in
   the build process will occur.

0.25  Sun Apr 25 11:12:36 CDT 2004

 - During the 'distdir' action, if no MANIFEST.SKIP file exists, we
   will now create a reasonable default one. [Randy Sims]

 - In Makefile compatibility mode, some arguments (like UNINST,
   TEST_VERBOSE, etc.) given to 'make' are now recognized and passed
   through to Module::Build. [Randy Sims]

 - The regression tests now make sure that several pass-through
   Makefile.PL parameters are dealt with correctly.

 - Added support for the 'LIB' parameter to passthrough
   Makefile.PLs. [Spotted by Jesse Erlbaum]

 - Passing a 'PREFIX' parameter to a passthrough Makefile.PL was
   supposed to make it die with a helpful error message, but instead
   it just ignored it and blindly tried to install to the wrong place.
   This is now fixed.  [Spotted by Jesse Erlbaum]

 - Added an extra_compiler_flags() accessor method.

 - If the 'recursive_test_files' option was turned on, the test files
   weren't sorted, but returned in an apparently random order.  Now
   they're sorted.  [Martyn Peck]

 - Documented the 'tar' and 'gzip' parameters to the 'dist' and
   'ppmdist' actions.

 - The generation of HTML documentation now works (it was accidentally
   partially implemented with an itchy patch-application finger in
   0.24).  [Randy Kobes]

 - Fixed a fatal bug when building META.yml with YAML.pm and
   'dynamic_config' is set. [Reported by Jaap Karssenberg]

 - Fixed some incorrect error messages that occurred when
   compiling/linking C sources went awry.

 - If the author uses a custom builder subclass, that subclass will
   now be loaded correctly in the passthrough Makefile.PL if the
   author uses the 'small' or 'passthrough' Makefile.PL options in
   Module::Build::Compat. [Martyn Peck and Jaap Karssenberg]

 - If the author uses a custom builder subclass created dynamically