Automatically fetching binaries if no C compiler found

Hi list,

as most of you probably know, during PAR build time (perl Makefile.PL), 
it offers to fetch a binary PAR release from CPAN if no C compiler was 
found. This is the case on more or less all Windows machines.

Most of this behavior is implemented in a little-known (because as of 
yet undocumented) Module::Install extension named Module::Install::PAR. 
I wrote some documentation yesterday and made some trivial changes to 
the code. I suppose it might end up in the next release of 
Module::Install, but I have not gotten feedback from Audrey or Adam yet.

That means if you are using Module::Install for one of your CPAN 
distributions, you can now add optional binary loading with just a 
couple of lines of code in your Makefile.PL. They could look like this:

par_base 'YOUR_CPAN_ID';

unless ( can_cc() ) { # no C compiler?
    extract_par( fetch_par() );
}

This should work with the current module install if you add arguments to 
fetch_par: fetch_par() becomes fetch_par('', '').

'Work' here means that this code will fetch a file named 
YOUR-DISTRO-VERSION-ARCHITECTURE-PERL_VERSION.par from your CPAN directory.

Of course, asking the user whether he wants to use a binary might be a 
good idea. For details, please look at the POD documentation in the 
attached, modified Module::Install::PAR.pm

It is also possible to add custom logic that changes the name of the 
file downloaded from CPAN.

When is this all a good idea?
- If you have an XS module that is difficult to compile on a particular 
platform, you could provide binaries via CPAN.
- If you need certain dynamic libraries that are difficult to install on 
a platform, you might be able to include them in the binary.
- You are running a CPAN::Mini mirror and inject your organizations 
private packages, this might make deployment on a limited set of 
platforms much smoother. (I wish I had had that idea when I faced the 
deployment nightmare.)

When is this not a good idea at all?
- For any pure-perl module on CPAN which installs cleanly on most or all 
platforms anyway.
- The last point covers > 98% of CPAN, of course.

Do you think this would be worthwhile to extend beyond just 
Module::Install based distributions? (I.e. write a Module::Build 
subclass or similar.)

Documented and fixed Module::Install::PAR attached.

Thanks for reading,
Steffen

PAR.pm
Description: Perl program