!!!! This package is seriously outdated !!!!

Note (2011-03-26 andk): This package once implemented sort of a
poor man's git in the times when perl sources were kept in a Perforce
repository. Since the perl repo itself switched to git in 2008 this
package is outdated and hardly of use for anybody. It will probably be
removed from CPAN soon.


About this distro
-----------------

This collection of scripts and modules provides access to the APC
(Archive of Perl Changes).

Data Prerequisites
------------------

You need to mirror parts of the APC repository to your local disk.
This is described in the buildaperl manpage.

Scripts
-------

patchaperlup                 a low level script that only builds
                             new perl sources from old perl
                             sources by applying numerically
                             sorted patchfiles.

buildaperl                   a wrapper around patchaperlup that
                             is able to compile and install a new
                             perl into its own cache area.

binsearchaperl               a wrapper around buildaperl that is
                             able to run already built perls from the
                             cache area as well as build new perls via
                             buildaperl and compare their
                             functionality. If there is a different
                             behaviour between two perls, the script
                             is able to determine the exact patch
                             number that caused the change.

perlpatch2svn                *** DEPRECATED ***
                             parse a stream of patches from the
                             APC and feed them into a Subversion
                             repository. Pedantically reconstruct
                             as much as possible from the
                             Perforce repository, binary files
                             that are missing in the APC are
                             restored from a dump.

apc2svn                      *** DEPRECATED ***
                             a wrapper around perlpatch2svn which
                             has a concept how a future
                             subversion repository might look
                             like. It is able to import the whole
                             APC into an empty or prepopulated
                             repository. Incremental updates from
                             APC into this repository supported.
                             **Use with caution**, the repository
                             layout itself is still subject to
                             change.


Modules
-------

Perl::Repository::APC        provides methods to get at the
                             important metadata of the
                             APC--branches, perl versions and
                             patches.

Perl::Repository::APC2SVN    *** DEPRECATED ***
                             a collection of utility functions
                             for the scripts that deal with
                             importing the APC into a Subversion
                             repository.

Perl::Repository::APC::BAP   Rules how to translate arguments
                             5.6.0@5666, 5.7.3@, @17000, etc. as
                             short names for patched perl
                             versions. Only used by buildaperl.

Copyright
---------

Code and data are copyright (C) 2002,2003,2005,2006,2007,2008 Andreas
Koenig and Rafael Garcia-Suarez. They can be used, modified, and
redistributed under the same terms as Perl itself.
