create $VERSION from the modtime of the file

[merlyn]

The $VERSION of a module needs to be monotonically increasing for new releases. This snippet can be placed into a module to create a version number that depends on the modification time of the module, calculated in GMT, in a human-readable format as YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS. The only problem you'll have is if you release two different releases within the same second. Slow down. {grin}

## the following code must be all on one line:
$VERSION = sub { sprintf "%04d%02d%02d.%02d%02d%02d", 1900+$_[5], 1+$_
+[4], @_[3,2,1,0] }->(gmtime +(stat __FILE__)[9]);

[The Mad Hatter]

That's one hell of a version number. Anyway, I don't think that will work with PAUSE.

[merlyn]

PAUSE won't have a problem with it, but I didn't think about the "copying" problem. So, it's not as good an idea as I had hoped. Too clever, not enough smarts.

[The Mad Hatter]

Are you sure? I don't think Safe.pm will like the stat.

[legato]

While I understand the desire to be Lazy, wouldn't it be sufficient to use a script like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

for (glob '*.pm') {
   my $ver = sub { sprintf "%04d%02d%02d.%02d%02d%02d", 
                   1900+$_[5], 1+$_[4], @_[3,2,1,0]    
                 }->(gmtime +(stat $_)[9]);
   open IN, '<', $_ or die "Failed to update $_ to $ver";
   open OUT, '>' "$_.new" or die "Failed to create $_.new";
   while (<IN>) {
      s:^((our|my|local)\s+)$VERSION\.+=\.+\;:\$VERSION = $ver\;:;
      print OUT $_;
   }
   close IN;
   close OUT;
   unlink $_;
   rename ("$_.new", $_);
}

((untested, but you get the idea))?

In this form, it would update $VERSION for all modules in the current directory. I use something like this (more complex, as it updates many things for company code standards), and have had no trouble at all.