Chapter 4

The last line tells you which test failed and where to look in test.pl for the 

failing test.

The complete test script for Data::Counter is included in Listing 4 6.

Listing 4 6. Modified test.pl for Data::Counter

use Test;

BEGIN { plan tests => 2 };

use Data::Counter qw(count);

ok(1); # If we made it this far, we re ok.

# make sure count works

ok(count("one", "two", "three") == 3);

README

The README file is often a potential user's first contact with a module. When you 

upload a module to CPAN, the README file is extracted and placed alongside the 

module. Its job is to introduce the module and give information about installation. 

The generated README (see Listing 4 7) is self explanatory. Some of the information 

is redundant the header contains the version number that you'll also specify in 

your module file, and the list of dependencies should be the same as the infor 

mation in your Makefile.PL PREREQ_PM setting. This means that you'll have to be 

careful to keep the information in the README up to date as your module changes. 

Don't worry about the COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE section for now I'll be covering this 

in detail later in this chapter.

Listing 4 7. README Generated by h2xs

Data/Counter version 0.01

========================

The README is used to introduce the module and provide instructions on

how to install the module, any machine dependencies it may have (for

example C compilers and installed libraries) and any other information

that should be provided before the module is installed.

A README file is required for CPAN modules since CPAN extracts the

README file from a module distribution so that people browsing the

archive can use it get an idea of the modules uses. It is usually a

good idea to provide version information here so that people can

decide whether fixes for the module are worth downloading.

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