Alien::Libxml2(3)

💖 Alien::Libxml2 💖

okay so bestie, this is a manual page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation, section 3, and it's about a lil module called Alien::Libxml2. It's literally the icon that gets the C libxml2 library onto your system so other Perl stuff can use it. Let's get into it 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

Alien::Libxml2 — install the C libxml2 library on your system 💅

---

🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 0.20 — that's the one, bestie ✨

---

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

so like, depending on what you're building, you call it a different way. three whole vibes, take your pick:

In your Makefile.PL:

use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
use Alien::Base::Wrapper ();

WriteMakefile(
  Alien::Base::Wrapper->new('Alien::Libxml2')->mm_args2(
    # MakeMaker args
    NAME => 'My::XS',
    ...
  ),
);

In your Build.PL:

use Module::Build;
use Alien::Base::Wrapper qw( Alien::Libxml2 !export );

my $builder = Module::Build->new(
  ...
  configure_requires => {
    'Alien::Libxml2' => '0',
    ...
  },
  Alien::Base::Wrapper->mb_args,
  ...
);

$build->create_build_script;

In your FFI::Platypus script or module:

use FFI::Platypus;
use Alien::Libxml2;

my $ffi = FFI::Platypus->new(
  lib => [ Alien::Libxml2->dynamic_libs ],
);

no cap, that's the whole flow. pick the one that matches your build system and go off 👑

---

💀 DESCRIPTION 💀

This module provides libxml2 for other modules to use. that's it, that's the job, and it does it flawlessly 🎀

---

🙈 CAVEATS 🙈

okay so listen up because this part matters:

• There was an older existing Alien::LibXML, but it uses the older Alien::Build::ModuleBuild and the author prefers this version, which is based on the more robust alienfile system. periodt. 💅
• libxml2 has some optional prereqs, including zlib and iconv. For a share install you will want to make sure that these are installed prior to installing Alien::Libxml2 if you want to make use of features relying on them. yes, order matters bestie 😭
• For a system install, you want to make sure the development packages for libxml2, zlib and iconv are installed if libxml2 has been configured to use them, otherwise XML::LibXML will not install as expected. If the tests for this module fail with a missing iconv.h or zlib.h, then this is likely the reason. 🫠

bestie. if it's failing and you see iconv.h or zlib.h in the error, it's this. it's always this. go install the dev packages and come back 💖

---

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• Alien::LibXML — Older Alien for the same library.
• XML::LibXML — Perl interface to libxml2, which uses this Alien.

---

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Author: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>

Contributors:

• Shlomi Fish (shlomif)
• Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN)

shoutout to the whole squad for making this happen 🫶✨

---

🌈 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🌈

This software is copyright (c) 2013-2024 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.

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀✨💖

cute lil sign-off: this one came from perl version v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-25 🌸 go forth and link your XML, you've got this 👑💅