Module...d::SDL(3pm)

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the Module...d::SDL(3pm) page from User Contributed Perl Documentation — it's the manual for Module::Build::SDL, aka a Module::Build subclass for building SDL apps/games. 🦋

⚠️ [not stable yet] — yes, that's literally part of the name line. No cap, it's giving work-in-progress realness. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

When you're creating a new SDL application/game, you can create Build.PL like this:

use Module::Build::SDL;

my $builder = Module::Build::SDL->new(
    module_name   => 'Games::Demo',
    dist_version  => '1.00',
    dist_abstract => 'Demo game based on Module::Build::SDL',
    dist_author   => 'coder@cpan.org',
    license       => 'perl',
    requires      => {
        'SDL'     => 0,
    },
    #+ others Module::Build options
)->create_build_script();

Once you've created a SDL application/game via Module::Build::SDL as described above, you can use some extra build targets/actions — they're lowkey the best part: ✨

• make a PAR distribution — you can create a PAR distribution like:

$ perl ./Build.PL
$ ./Build
$ ./Build par

There are some extra parameters related to the 'par' action you can pass to Module::Build::SDL->new():

parinput  => 'bin/scriptname.pl'
paroutput => 'filename.par.exe',
parlibs   => [ qw/SDL SDL_main SDL_gfx/ ],  #external libraries (.so/.dll) to be included into PAR
parmods   => [ qw/Module::A Module::B/ ],   #extra modules to be included into PAR

• run from the distribution directory — to run the game from distribution directory you can use:

$ perl ./Build.PL
$ ./Build
$ ./Build run

• TODO — maybe some additional actions: parexe, parmsi, deb, rpm

🧚 DESCRIPTION 🧚

Module::Build::SDL is a subclass of Module::Build created to make easy some tasks specific to SDL applications — e.g. packaging SDL application/game into PAR archive. 💖

🌸 APPLICATION/GAME LAYOUT 🌸

Module::Build::SDL expects the following layout in the project directory:

#example: game with the main *.pl script + data files + modules (*.pm)
Build.PL
lib/
    Games/
          Demo.pm
bin/
    game-script.pl
data/
    whatever_data_files_you_need.jpg

the most simple game should look like:

#example: simple one-script apllication/game
Build.PL
bin/
   game-script.pl

In short — there are 3 expected subdirectories:

• bin — one or more perl scripts (*.pl) to start the actual application/game
• lib — application/game specific modules (*.pm) organized in dir structure in "usual perl manners"
• data — directory for storing application data (pictures, sounds etc.). This subdirectory is handled as a "ShareDir" (see File::ShareDir for more details)
• As the project is (or could be) composed as a standard perl distribution it also support standard subdirectory 't' (with tests).

👑 RULES TO FOLLOW 👑

When creating a SDL application/game based on Module::Build::SDL it is recommended to follow these rules:

• Use the name for your game from Games::* namespace; it will make the later release to CPAN much easier.
• Put all data files into data subdirectory and access the data subdir only via File::ShareDir (namely by calling distdir() function)
• TODO — maybe add more

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okay that's the whole page, bestie 💖 — this was Module...d::SDL(3pm), from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-08-19. now go build something iconic 🎀✨