Stephen A. Jarjoura wrote: > 1. What's the common / accepted method for modifying module > functionality on your own system? As a temporary hack, I just > overloaded the method... Is it acceptable to actually edit the > modules source code? Do people write their own derived classes? > > How is this usually dealt with?
All of the above. (I'm surprised this hasn't received a pile of responses.) > As a temporary hack, I just overloaded the method I wanted to change... That's perfectly valid as a short-term or long-term solution. That's the whole point of the OO approach. > Is it acceptable to actually edit the modules source code? If the previous approach won't solve the problem, sure. If it is your own personal installation, your biggest concern will be remembering which modules you've modified so you don't overwrite them on the next upgrade (assuming the maintainer hasn't incorporated your changes). Using RCS, saving a copy of the original in a file like module.orig, and moving the module to your site directory all might be good practices to follow. I have a handful of modules in my installation where I've altered the source to fix bugs - some of which have been reported to the module maintainer and others that I haven't gotten around to. > Do people write their own derived classes? Of course. A good portion of CPAN is derived modules. You'll have to make the judgment call whether your altered functionality is extending the existing module or fixing the core functionality. If the latter, obviously getting the original module fixed would be the preferred approach. > 2. What is an acceptable way to communicate these changes back to the > module's author? Can I just send him an email? Is there a bugzilla > like tool I should use? Email directly to the author or a module-specific mailing list used to be the way to go. These days the best thing to do is to file a bug at http://rt.perl.org/ where it can easily be found by other users of the module. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
