[SOLVED] Using Dist::Zilla dist.ini how can I have files that I only use for testing?

Using Dist::Zilla dist.ini how can I have files that I only use for testing?

In a Dist::Zilla-based distribution I would like to have some files that are only used for testing, but do not get installed. These are mockup libs that aren't needed for runtime.

How do I do that?

Solution

CPAN distributions never install the t and xt directories. You can put your tests and your mock libs into t.

As an example, take my module MooseX::LocalAttribute. In the dist, there is a t/, a t/lib and an xt/.

If you install this using cpanm -l into a local lib dir, you will see there are no tests installed. This happens automatically. It's just how CPAN works.

$ cpanm -l mylib MooseX::LocalAttribute
--> Working on MooseX::LocalAttribute
Fetching http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/S/SI/SIMBABQUE/MooseX-LocalAttribute-0.05.tar.gz ... OK
Configuring MooseX-LocalAttribute-0.05 ... OK
Building and testing MooseX-LocalAttribute-0.05 ... OK
Successfully installed MooseX-LocalAttribute-0.05
1 distribution installed

$ tree mylib
mylib
├── lib
│   └── perl5
│       ├── MooseX
│       │   └── LocalAttribute.pm
│       └── x86_64-linux
│           ├── auto
│           │   └── MooseX
│           │       └── LocalAttribute
│           └── perllocal.pod
└── man
    └── man3
        └── MooseX::LocalAttribute.3

9 directories, 3 files

Note that as long as stuff is in t/lib (or anywhere under t/, really), you do not have to hide the package names from the PAUSE indexer. It's smart enough to not find it.