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Making Perl Reusable with Modules
by Andy Sylvester | Pages: 1, 2, 3

After modifying Resultant.pm, you need to install the module to make it available for other Perl applications. To avoid configuration issues, install the module in your home directory, separate from your main Perl installation.

  1. In your home directory, create a lib/ directory, then create a perl/ directory within the lib/ directory. The result should resemble:

    /home/myname/lib/perl

  2. Go to your module directory (Music-Resultant) and re-run the build process with a directory path to tell Perl where to install the module:

    $ perl Makefile.PL LIB=/home/myname/lib/perl $
make install

    Once this is complete, the module will be installed in the directory.

The final step in module development is to add tests to the .t file templates created in the module directory. The Perl distribution includes several built-in test modules, such as Test::Simple and Test::More to help test Perl subroutines and modules.

To test the module, open the file Music-Resultant/t/00-load.t. The initial text in this file is:

#!perl -T

use Test::More tests => 1;

BEGIN {
    use_ok( 'Music::Resultant' );
}

diag( "Testing Music::Resultant $Music::Resultant::VERSION, Perl $], $^X" );

You can run this test file from the t/ directory using the command:

perl -I/home/myname/lib/perl -T 00-load.t

The -I switch tells the Perl interpreter to look for the module Resultant.pm in your alternate installation directory. The directory path must immediately follow the -I switch, or Perl may not search your alternate directory for your module. The -T switch is necessary because there is a -T switch in the first line of the test script, which turns on taint checking. (Taint checking only works when enabled at Perl startup; perl will exit with an error if you try to enable it later.) Your results should resemble the following(your Perl version may be different).

1..1
ok 1 - use Music::Resultant;
# Testing Music::Resultant 0.01, Perl 5.008006, perl

The test code from the second listing is easy to convert to the format used by Test::More. Change the number at the end of the tests line from 1 to 4, as you will be adding three more tests to this file. The template file has an initial test to show that the module exists. Next, add tests after the BEGIN block in the file:

# Test 2:
my $seq1 = Resultant->new(5, 3);  # create an object
isa_ok ($seq1, Resultant);        # check object definition

# Test 3: check major generator
my $local_major_generator = $seq1->get_major();
is ($local_major_generator, 5, 'major generator is correct' );

# Test 4: check minor generator
my $local_minor_generator = $seq1->get_minor();
is ($local_minor_generator, 3, 'minor generator is correct' );

To run the tests, retype the earlier command line in the Music-Resultant/ directory:

$ perl -I/home/myname/lib/perl -T t/00-load.t

You should see the results:

1..4
ok 1 - use Music::Resultant;
ok 2 - The object isa Resultant
ok 3 - major generator is correct
ok 4 - minor generator is correct
# Testing Music::Resultant 0.01, Perl 5.008006, perl

These tests create a Resultant object with a major generator of 5 and a minor generator of 3 (Test 2), and check to see that the major generator in the object is correct (Test 3), and that the minor generator is correct (Test 4). They do not cover the resultant terms. One way to check the resultant is to add the test code used in the second listing to the .t file:

# Generate a resultant
$seq1->generate();

# Print the resultant
my $j;
print "The resultant is ";
foreach $j (@{$seq1->{ResultList}}) {
  print "$j ";
}
print "\n";

You should get the following results:

1..4
ok 1 - use Music::Resultant;
ok 2 - The object isa Resultant
ok 3 - major generator is correct
ok 4 - minor generator is correct
The resultant is 3 2 1 3 1 2 3
# Testing Music::Resultant 0.01, Perl 5.008006, perl

That's not valid test output, so it needs a little bit of manipulation. To check the elements of a list using a testing function, install the Test::Differences module and its associated modules from CPAN, using the Perl Package Manager, or some other package manager. To see if you already have the Test::Differences module installed, type perldoc Test::Differences in a terminal window. If the man page does not appear, you probably do not have the module installed.

Once that module is part of your Perl installation, change the number of tests from 4 to 5 on the Test::More statement line and add a following statement after the use Test::More statement:

use Test::Differences;

Finally, replace the code that prints the resultant with:

# Test 5: (uses Test::Differences and associated modules)
$seq1->generate();
my @result   = @{$seq1->{ResultList}};
my @expected = (3, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3);
eq_or_diff \@result, \@expected, "resultant terms are correct";

Now when the test file runs, you can confirm that the resultant is correct:

1..5
ok 1 - use Music::Resultant;
ok 2 - The object isa Resultant
ok 3 - major generator is correct
ok 4 - minor generator is correct
ok 5 - resultant terms are correct
# Testing Music::Resultant 0.01, Perl 5.008006, perl

Summary

There are multiple levels of Perl software development. Once you start to create modules to enable reuse of your Perl code, you will be able to leverage your effort into larger applications. By using Perl testing modules, you can ensure that your code works the way you expect and provide a way to ensure that the modules continue to work as you add more features.

Resources

Here are some other good resources on creating Perl modules:

Here are some good resources for using Perl testing modules like Test::Simple and Test::More:

  • Test::Tutorial gives the basics of using Test:Simple and Test::More.
  • An Introduction to Testing presents the benefits of developing tests and code at the same time, and provides a variety of examples.