Alien::m4(3)

💖 Alien::m4 💖

okay bestie, so this little gem is straight out of the User Contributed Perl Documentation collection, and it's literally the manual page for Alien::m4. Yes, THE Alien::m4. We're gonna go through it together, no cap. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

Alien::m4 — find or build GNU m4 💅

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🎀 VERSION 🎀

version 0.21 — that's the one, periodt.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

Two ways to pull up, depending on your vibe.

🫶 From a Perl script

use Alien::m4;
use Env qw( @PATH );
unshift @PATH, Alien::m4->bin_dir;  # m4 is now in your path

🫶 From Alien::Base Build.PL

use Alien:Base::ModuleBuild;
my $builder = Module::Build->new(
  ...
  alien_bin_requires => {
    'Alien::m4' => '0.07',
  },
  ...
);
$builder->create_build_script;

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🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

This package is here for all the other CPAN modules out there that need GNU m4 in their life. It's giving ✨supportive bestie✨ energy. It just finds it for you, or builds it, no drama.

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👑 METHODS 👑

exe

my $m4 = Alien::m4->exe;

Returns the "name" of m4. Like, normally that name is "m4", but on some platforms it might be gm4 or gnum4, or honestly whatever tf $ENV{M4} says it is. She's flexible like that. 💁♀️

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🧚 HELPERS 🧚

m4

%{m4}

Returns the name of the m4 command. Usually just "m4". Short, sweet, iconic. ⭐

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💀 CAVEATS 💀

okay so, why GNU m4 specifically?? Valid question, bestie.

Lots of Unixen come with BSD or other variants of m4, and ngl those are perfectly good. Like, genuinely fine.

BUT 😭 the main use case for this module is Alien::Autotools and friends, and Autoconf requires the GNU m4. Probably for political reasons, possibly for technical reasons — we don't make the rules, we just report them. 🙈

So if you're on one of these Unixen, don't despair!! 🫶 You can usually install the GNU version of m4 either by building from source or by installing a binary package, and it might go by the name "gm4" or "gnum4". This module will find it, and Alien::Autotools will be able to use it. Slay. 🔥

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🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org> — the main character who made this happen. 👑

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💜 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.

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fr fr, that's the whole page. go forth and find your m4. 💖

and that's a wrap!! this one shipped with perl v5.42.0 on 2026-02-19 — mwah, catch you on the next manpage bestie 🎀✨🦋