| CPAN(3pm) | Perl Programmers Reference Guide | CPAN(3pm) |
CPAN - query, download and build perl modules from CPAN sites
Interactive mode:
perl -MCPAN -e shell
--or--
cpan
Basic commands:
# Modules:
cpan> install Acme::Meta # in the shell
CPAN::Shell->install("Acme::Meta"); # in perl
# Distributions:
cpan> install NWCLARK/Acme-Meta-0.02.tar.gz # in the shell
CPAN::Shell->
install("NWCLARK/Acme-Meta-0.02.tar.gz"); # in perl
# module objects:
$mo = CPAN::Shell->expandany($mod);
$mo = CPAN::Shell->expand("Module",$mod); # same thing
# distribution objects:
$do = CPAN::Shell->expand("Module",$mod)->distribution;
$do = CPAN::Shell->expandany($distro); # same thing
$do = CPAN::Shell->expand("Distribution",
$distro); # same thing
The CPAN module automates or at least simplifies the make and install of perl modules and extensions. It includes some primitive searching capabilities and knows how to use LWP, HTTP::Tiny, Net::FTP and certain external download clients to fetch distributions from the net.
These are fetched from one or more mirrored CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) sites and unpacked in a dedicated directory.
The CPAN module also supports named and versioned bundles of modules. Bundles simplify handling of sets of related modules. See Bundles below.
The package contains a session manager and a cache manager. The session manager keeps track of what has been fetched, built, and installed in the current session. The cache manager keeps track of the disk space occupied by the make processes and deletes excess space using a simple FIFO mechanism.
All methods provided are accessible in a programmer style and in an interactive shell style.
Enter interactive mode by running
perl -MCPAN -e shell
or
cpan
which puts you into a readline interface. If "Term::ReadKey" and either of "Term::ReadLine::Perl" or "Term::ReadLine::Gnu" are installed, history and command completion are supported.
Once at the command line, type "h" for one-page help screen; the rest should be self-explanatory.
The function call "shell" takes two optional arguments: one the prompt, the second the default initial command line (the latter only works if a real ReadLine interface module is installed).
The most common uses of the interactive modes are
Arguments to these commands are either strings exactly matching the identification string of an object, or regular expressions matched case-insensitively against various attributes of the objects. The parser only recognizes a regular expression when you enclose it with slashes.
The principle is that the number of objects found influences how an item is displayed. If the search finds one item, the result is displayed with the rather verbose method "as_string", but if more than one is found, each object is displayed with the terse method "as_glimpse".
Examples:
cpan> m Acme::MetaSyntactic
Module id = Acme::MetaSyntactic
CPAN_USERID BOOK (Philippe Bruhat (BooK) <[...]>)
CPAN_VERSION 0.99
CPAN_FILE B/BO/BOOK/Acme-MetaSyntactic-0.99.tar.gz
UPLOAD_DATE 2006-11-06
MANPAGE Acme::MetaSyntactic - Themed metasyntactic variables names
INST_FILE /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Acme/MetaSyntactic.pm
INST_VERSION 0.99
cpan> a BOOK
Author id = BOOK
EMAIL [...]
FULLNAME Philippe Bruhat (BooK)
cpan> d BOOK/Acme-MetaSyntactic-0.99.tar.gz
Distribution id = B/BO/BOOK/Acme-MetaSyntactic-0.99.tar.gz
CPAN_USERID BOOK (Philippe Bruhat (BooK) <[...]>)
CONTAINSMODS Acme::MetaSyntactic Acme::MetaSyntactic::Alias [...]
UPLOAD_DATE 2006-11-06
cpan> m /lorem/
Module = Acme::MetaSyntactic::loremipsum (BOOK/Acme-MetaSyntactic-0.99.tar.gz)
Module Text::Lorem (ADEOLA/Text-Lorem-0.3.tar.gz)
Module Text::Lorem::More (RKRIMEN/Text-Lorem-More-0.12.tar.gz)
Module Text::Lorem::More::Source (RKRIMEN/Text-Lorem-More-0.12.tar.gz)
cpan> i /berlin/
Distribution BEATNIK/Filter-NumberLines-0.02.tar.gz
Module = DateTime::TimeZone::Europe::Berlin (DROLSKY/DateTime-TimeZone-0.7904.tar.gz)
Module Filter::NumberLines (BEATNIK/Filter-NumberLines-0.02.tar.gz)
Author [...]
The examples illustrate several aspects: the first three queries target modules, authors, or distros directly and yield exactly one result. The last two use regular expressions and yield several results. The last one targets all of bundles, modules, authors, and distros simultaneously. When more than one result is available, they are printed in one-line format.
known module name in format Foo/Bar.pm module
other embedded slash distribution
- with trailing slash dot directory
enclosing slashes regexp
known module name in format Foo::Bar module
If the argument is a distribution file name (recognized by embedded slashes), it is processed. If it is a module, CPAN determines the distribution file in which this module is included and processes that, following any dependencies named in the module's META.yml or Makefile.PL (this behavior is controlled by the configuration parameter "prerequisites_policy"). If an argument is enclosed in slashes it is treated as a regular expression: it is expanded and if the result is a single object (distribution, bundle or module), this object is processed.
Example:
install Dummy::Perl # installs the module
install AUXXX/Dummy-Perl-3.14.tar.gz # installs that distribution
install /Dummy-Perl-3.14/ # same if the regexp is unambiguous
"get" downloads a distribution file and untars or unzips it, "make" builds it, "test" runs the test suite, and "install" installs it.
Any "make" or "test" is run unconditionally. An
install <distribution_file>
is also run unconditionally. But for
install <module>
CPAN checks whether an install is needed and prints module up to date if the distribution file containing the module doesn't need updating.
CPAN also keeps track of what it has done within the current session and doesn't try to build a package a second time regardless of whether it succeeded or not. It does not repeat a test run if the test has been run successfully before. Same for install runs.
The "force" pragma may precede another command (currently: "get", "make", "test", or "install") to execute the command from scratch and attempt to continue past certain errors. See the section below on the "force" and the "fforce" pragma.
The "notest" pragma skips the test part in the build process.
Example:
cpan> notest install Tk
A "clean" command results in a
make clean
being executed within the distribution file's working directory.
The second form limits or expands the output with shell globbing as in the following examples:
ls JV/make*
ls GSAR/*make*
ls */*make*
The last example is very slow and outputs extra progress indicators that break the alignment of the result.
Note that globbing only lists directories explicitly asked for, for example FOO/* will not list FOO/bar/Acme-Sthg-n.nn.tar.gz. This may be regarded as a bug that may be changed in some future version.
If the configurations variable "build_dir_reuse" is set to a true value, then CPAN.pm reads the collected YAML files. If the stored signature matches the currently running perl, the stored state is loaded into memory such that persistence between sessions is effectively established.
In all these cases, the user can override this stubborn behaviour by prepending the command with the word force, for example:
cpan> force get Foo
cpan> force make AUTHOR/Bar-3.14.tar.gz
cpan> force test Baz
cpan> force install Acme::Meta
Each forced command is executed with the corresponding part of its memory erased.
The "fforce" pragma is a variant that emulates a "force get" which erases the entire memory followed by the action specified, effectively restarting the whole get/make/test/install procedure from scratch.
The shell offers to run in downgraded mode when another process is holding the lockfile. This is an experimental feature that is not yet tested very well. This second shell then does not write the history file, does not use the metadata file, and has a different prompt.
CPAN.pm ignores SIGPIPE. If the user sets "inactivity_timeout", a SIGALRM is used during the run of the "perl Makefile.PL" or "perl Build.PL" subprocess. A SIGALRM is also used during module version parsing, and is controlled by "version_timeout".
The commands available in the shell interface are methods in the package CPAN::Shell. If you enter the shell command, your input is split by the Text::ParseWords::shellwords() routine, which acts like most shells do. The first word is interpreted as the method to be invoked, and the rest of the words are treated as the method's arguments. Continuation lines are supported by ending a line with a literal backslash.
"autobundle" writes a bundle file into the "$CPAN::Config->{cpan_home}/Bundle" directory. The file contains a list of all modules that are both available from CPAN and currently installed within @INC. Duplicates of each distribution are suppressed. The name of the bundle file is based on the current date and a counter, e.g. Bundle/Snapshot_2012_05_21_00.pm. This is installed again by running "cpan Bundle::Snapshot_2012_05_21_00", or installing "Bundle::Snapshot_2012_05_21_00" from the CPAN shell.
Return value: path to the written file.
Note: this feature is still in alpha state and may change in future versions of CPAN.pm
This commands provides a statistical overview over recent download activities. The data for this is collected in the YAML file "FTPstats.yml" in your "cpan_home" directory. If no YAML module is configured or YAML not installed, no stats are provided.
mkmyconfig() writes your own CPAN::MyConfig file into your "~/.cpan/" directory so that you can save your own preferences instead of the system-wide ones.
scans current perl installation for modules that have a newer version available on CPAN and provides a list of them. If called without argument, all potential upgrades are listed; if called with arguments the list is filtered to the modules and regexps given as arguments.
The listing looks something like this:
Package namespace installed latest in CPAN file CPAN 1.94_64 1.9600 ANDK/CPAN-1.9600.tar.gz CPAN::Reporter 1.1801 1.1902 DAGOLDEN/CPAN-Reporter-1.1902.tar.gz YAML 0.70 0.73 INGY/YAML-0.73.tar.gz YAML::Syck 1.14 1.17 AVAR/YAML-Syck-1.17.tar.gz YAML::Tiny 1.44 1.50 ADAMK/YAML-Tiny-1.50.tar.gz CGI 3.43 3.55 MARKSTOS/CGI.pm-3.55.tar.gz Module::Build::YAML 1.40 1.41 DAGOLDEN/Module-Build-0.3800.tar.gz TAP::Parser::Result::YAML 3.22 3.23 ANDYA/Test-Harness-3.23.tar.gz YAML::XS 0.34 0.35 INGY/YAML-LibYAML-0.35.tar.gz
It suppresses duplicates in the column "in CPAN file" such that distributions with many upgradeable modules are listed only once.
Note that the list is not sorted.
The "recent" command downloads a list of recent uploads to CPAN and displays them slowly. While the command is running, a $SIG{INT} exits the loop after displaying the current item.
Note: This command requires XML::LibXML installed.
Note: This whole command currently is just a hack and will probably change in future versions of CPAN.pm, but the general approach will likely remain.
Note: See also smoke
recompile() is a special command that takes no argument and runs the make/test/install cycle with brute force over all installed dynamically loadable extensions (a.k.a. XS modules) with 'force' in effect. The primary purpose of this command is to finish a network installation. Imagine you have a common source tree for two different architectures. You decide to do a completely independent fresh installation. You start on one architecture with the help of a Bundle file produced earlier. CPAN installs the whole Bundle for you, but when you try to repeat the job on the second architecture, CPAN responds with a "Foo up to date" message for all modules. So you invoke CPAN's recompile on the second architecture and you're done.
Another popular use for "recompile" is to act as a rescue in case your perl breaks binary compatibility. If one of the modules that CPAN uses is in turn depending on binary compatibility (so you cannot run CPAN commands), then you should try the CPAN::Nox module for recovery.
The "report" command temporarily turns on the "test_report" config variable, then runs the "force test" command with the given arguments. The "force" pragma reruns the tests and repeats every step that might have failed before.
*** WARNING: this command downloads and executes software from CPAN to your computer of completely unknown status. You should never do this with your normal account and better have a dedicated well separated and secured machine to do this. ***
The "smoke" command takes the list of recent uploads to CPAN as provided by the "recent" command and tests them all. While the command is running $SIG{INT} is defined to mean that the current item shall be skipped.
Note: This whole command currently is just a hack and will probably change in future versions of CPAN.pm, but the general approach will likely remain.
Note: See also recent
The "upgrade" command first runs an "r" command with the given arguments and then installs the newest versions of all modules that were listed by that.
Although it may be considered internal, the class hierarchy does matter for both users and programmer. CPAN.pm deals with the four classes mentioned above, and those classes all share a set of methods. Classical single polymorphism is in effect. A metaclass object registers all objects of all kinds and indexes them with a string. The strings referencing objects have a separated namespace (well, not completely separated):
Namespace Class
words containing a "/" (slash) Distribution
words starting with Bundle:: Bundle
everything else Module or Author
Modules know their associated Distribution objects. They always refer to the most recent official release. Developers may mark their releases as unstable development versions (by inserting an underscore into the module version number which will also be reflected in the distribution name when you run 'make dist'), so the really hottest and newest distribution is not always the default. If a module Foo circulates on CPAN in both version 1.23 and 1.23_90, CPAN.pm offers a convenient way to install version 1.23 by saying
install Foo
This would install the complete distribution file (say BAR/Foo-1.23.tar.gz) with all accompanying material. But if you would like to install version 1.23_90, you need to know where the distribution file resides on CPAN relative to the authors/id/ directory. If the author is BAR, this might be BAR/Foo-1.23_90.tar.gz; so you would have to say
install BAR/Foo-1.23_90.tar.gz
The first example will be driven by an object of the class CPAN::Module, the second by an object of class CPAN::Distribution.
Note: this feature is still in alpha state and may change in future versions of CPAN.pm
Distribution objects are normally distributions from the CPAN, but there is a slightly degenerate case for Distribution objects, too, of projects held on the local disk. These distribution objects have the same name as the local directory and end with a dot. A dot by itself is also allowed for the current directory at the time CPAN.pm was used. All actions such as "make", "test", and "install" are applied directly to that directory. This gives the command "cpan ." an interesting touch: while the normal mantra of installing a CPAN module without CPAN.pm is one of
perl Makefile.PL perl Build.PL
( go and get prerequisites )
make ./Build
make test ./Build test
make install ./Build install
the command "cpan ." does all of this at once. It figures out which of the two mantras is appropriate, fetches and installs all prerequisites, takes care of them recursively, and finally finishes the installation of the module in the current directory, be it a CPAN module or not.
The typical usage case is for private modules or working copies of projects from remote repositories on the local disk.
The usual shell redirection symbols " | " and ">" are recognized by the cpan shell only when surrounded by whitespace. So piping to pager or redirecting output into a file works somewhat as in a normal shell, with the stipulation that you must type extra spaces.
Plugins are objects that implement any of currently eight methods:
pre_get post_get pre_make post_make pre_test post_test pre_install post_install
The "plugin_list" configuration parameter holds a list of strings of the form
Modulename=arg0,arg1,arg2,arg3,...
eg:
CPAN::Plugin::Flurb=dir,/opt/pkgs/flurb/raw,verbose,1
At run time, each listed plugin is instantiated as a singleton object by running the equivalent of this pseudo code:
my $plugin = <string representation from config>;
<generate Modulename and arguments from $plugin>;
my $p = $instance{$plugin} ||= Modulename->new($arg0,$arg1,...);
The generated singletons are kept around from instantiation until the end of the shell session. <plugin_list> can be reconfigured at any time at run time. While the cpan shell is running, it checks all activated plugins at each of the 8 reference points listed above and runs the respective method if it is implemented for that object. The method is called with the active CPAN::Distribution object passed in as an argument.
When the CPAN module is used for the first time, a configuration dialogue tries to determine a couple of site specific options. The result of the dialog is stored in a hash reference $CPAN::Config in a file CPAN/Config.pm.
Default values defined in the CPAN/Config.pm file can be overridden in a user specific file: CPAN/MyConfig.pm. Such a file is best placed in "$HOME/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm", because "$HOME/.cpan" is added to the search path of the CPAN module before the use() or require() statements. The mkmyconfig command writes this file for you.
The "o conf" command has various bells and whistles:
Example:
o conf shell
If KEY starts and ends with a slash, the string in between is treated as a regular expression and only keys matching this regexp are displayed
Example:
o conf /color/
Example:
o conf wget /usr/bin/wget
Likewise, "o conf KEY splice LIST" passes the LIST to the corresponding splice command.
Finally, any other list of arguments is taken as a new list value for the KEY variable discarding the previous value.
Examples:
o conf urllist unshift http://cpan.dev.local/CPAN
o conf urllist splice 3 1
o conf urllist http://cpan1.local http://cpan2.local ftp://ftp.perl.org
The configuration dialog can be started any time later again by issuing the command " o conf init " in the CPAN shell. A subset of the configuration dialog can be run by issuing "o conf init WORD" where WORD is any valid config variable or a regular expression.
The following keys in the hash reference $CPAN::Config are currently defined:
allow_installing_module_downgrades
allow or disallow installing module downgrades
allow_installing_outdated_dists
allow or disallow installing modules that are
indexed in the cpan index pointing to a distro
with a higher distro-version number
applypatch path to external prg
auto_commit commit all changes to config variables to disk
build_cache size of cache for directories to build modules
build_dir locally accessible directory to build modules
build_dir_reuse boolean if distros in build_dir are persistent
build_requires_install_policy
to install or not to install when a module is
only needed for building. yes|no|ask/yes|ask/no
bzip2 path to external prg
cache_metadata use serializer to cache metadata
check_sigs if signatures should be verified
cleanup_after_install
remove build directory immediately after a
successful install and remember that for the
duration of the session
colorize_debug Term::ANSIColor attributes for debugging output
colorize_output boolean if Term::ANSIColor should colorize output
colorize_print Term::ANSIColor attributes for normal output
colorize_warn Term::ANSIColor attributes for warnings
commandnumber_in_prompt
boolean if you want to see current command number
commands_quote preferred character to use for quoting external
commands when running them. Defaults to double
quote on Windows, single tick everywhere else;
can be set to space to disable quoting
connect_to_internet_ok
whether to ask if opening a connection is ok before
urllist is specified
cpan_home local directory reserved for this package
curl path to external prg
dontload_hash DEPRECATED
dontload_list arrayref: modules in the list will not be
loaded by the CPAN::has_inst() routine
ftp path to external prg
ftp_passive if set, the environment variable FTP_PASSIVE is set
for downloads
ftp_proxy proxy host for ftp requests
ftpstats_period max number of days to keep download statistics
ftpstats_size max number of items to keep in the download statistics
getcwd see below
gpg path to external prg
gzip location of external program gzip
halt_on_failure stop processing after the first failure of queued
items or dependencies
histfile file to maintain history between sessions
histsize maximum number of lines to keep in histfile
http_proxy proxy host for http requests
inactivity_timeout breaks interactive Makefile.PLs or Build.PLs
after this many seconds inactivity. Set to 0 to
disable timeouts.
index_expire refetch index files after this many days
inhibit_startup_message
if true, suppress the startup message
keep_source_where directory in which to keep the source (if we do)
load_module_verbosity
report loading of optional modules used by CPAN.pm
lynx path to external prg
make location of external make program
make_arg arguments that should always be passed to 'make'
make_install_make_command
the make command for running 'make install', for
example 'sudo make'
make_install_arg same as make_arg for 'make install'
makepl_arg arguments passed to 'perl Makefile.PL'
mbuild_arg arguments passed to './Build'
mbuild_install_arg arguments passed to './Build install'
mbuild_install_build_command
command to use instead of './Build' when we are
in the install stage, for example 'sudo ./Build'
mbuildpl_arg arguments passed to 'perl Build.PL'
ncftp path to external prg
ncftpget path to external prg
no_proxy don't proxy to these hosts/domains (comma separated list)
pager location of external program more (or any pager)
password your password if you CPAN server wants one
patch path to external prg
patches_dir local directory containing patch files
perl5lib_verbosity verbosity level for PERL5LIB additions
plugin_list list of active hooks (see Plugin support above
and the CPAN::Plugin module)
prefer_external_tar
per default all untar operations are done with
Archive::Tar; by setting this variable to true
the external tar command is used if available
prefer_installer legal values are MB and EUMM: if a module comes
with both a Makefile.PL and a Build.PL, use the
former (EUMM) or the latter (MB); if the module
comes with only one of the two, that one will be
used no matter the setting
prerequisites_policy
what to do if you are missing module prerequisites
('follow' automatically, 'ask' me, or 'ignore')
For 'follow', also sets PERL_AUTOINSTALL and
PERL_EXTUTILS_AUTOINSTALL for "--defaultdeps" if
not already set
prefs_dir local directory to store per-distro build options
proxy_user username for accessing an authenticating proxy
proxy_pass password for accessing an authenticating proxy
randomize_urllist add some randomness to the sequence of the urllist
recommends_policy whether recommended prerequisites should be included
scan_cache controls scanning of cache ('atstart', 'atexit' or 'never')
shell your favorite shell
show_unparsable_versions
boolean if r command tells which modules are versionless
show_upload_date boolean if commands should try to determine upload date
show_zero_versions boolean if r command tells for which modules $version==0
suggests_policy whether suggested prerequisites should be included
tar location of external program tar
tar_verbosity verbosity level for the tar command
term_is_latin deprecated: if true Unicode is translated to ISO-8859-1
(and nonsense for characters outside latin range)
term_ornaments boolean to turn ReadLine ornamenting on/off
test_report email test reports (if CPAN::Reporter is installed)
trust_test_report_history
skip testing when previously tested ok (according to
CPAN::Reporter history)
unzip location of external program unzip
urllist arrayref to nearby CPAN sites (or equivalent locations)
urllist_ping_external
use external ping command when autoselecting mirrors
urllist_ping_verbose
increase verbosity when autoselecting mirrors
use_prompt_default set PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT for configure/make/test/install
use_sqlite use CPAN::SQLite for metadata storage (fast and lean)
username your username if you CPAN server wants one
version_timeout stops version parsing after this many seconds.
Default is 15 secs. Set to 0 to disable.
wait_list arrayref to a wait server to try (See CPAN::WAIT)
wget path to external prg
yaml_load_code enable YAML code deserialisation via CPAN::DeferredCode
yaml_module which module to use to read/write YAML files
You can set and query each of these options interactively in the cpan shell with the "o conf" or the "o conf init" command as specified below.
Examples:
o conf init ftp_passive ftp_proxy
o conf init /color/
Note: this method of setting config variables often provides more explanation about the functioning of a variable than the manpage.
CPAN.pm changes the current working directory often and needs to determine its own current working directory. By default it uses Cwd::cwd, but if for some reason this doesn't work on your system, configure alternatives according to the following table:
urllist parameters are URLs according to RFC 1738. We do a little guessing if your URL is not compliant, but if you have problems with "file" URLs, please try the correct format. Either:
file://localhost/whatever/ftp/pub/CPAN/
or
file:///home/ftp/pub/CPAN/
The "urllist" parameter of the configuration table contains a list of URLs used for downloading. If the list contains any "file" URLs, CPAN always tries there first. This feature is disabled for index files. So the recommendation for the owner of a CD-ROM with CPAN contents is: include your local, possibly outdated CD-ROM as a "file" URL at the end of urllist, e.g.
o conf urllist push file://localhost/CDROM/CPAN
CPAN.pm will then fetch the index files from one of the CPAN sites that come at the beginning of urllist. It will later check for each module to see whether there is a local copy of the most recent version.
Another peculiarity of urllist is that the site that we could successfully fetch the last file from automatically gets a preference token and is tried as the first site for the next request. So if you add a new site at runtime it may happen that the previously preferred site will be tried another time. This means that if you want to disallow a site for the next transfer, it must be explicitly removed from urllist.
If you have YAML.pm (or some other YAML module configured in "yaml_module") installed, CPAN.pm collects a few statistical data about recent downloads. You can view the statistics with the "hosts" command or inspect them directly by looking into the "FTPstats.yml" file in your "cpan_home" directory.
To get some interesting statistics, it is recommended that "randomize_urllist" be set; this introduces some amount of randomness into the URL selection.
Since CPAN.pm version 1.88_51 modules declared as "build_requires" by a distribution are treated differently depending on the config variable "build_requires_install_policy". By setting "build_requires_install_policy" to "no", such a module is not installed. It is only built and tested, and then kept in the list of tested but uninstalled modules. As such, it is available during the build of the dependent module by integrating the path to the "blib/arch" and "blib/lib" directories in the environment variable PERL5LIB. If "build_requires_install_policy" is set to "yes", then both modules declared as "requires" and those declared as "build_requires" are treated alike. By setting to "ask/yes" or "ask/no", CPAN.pm asks the user and sets the default accordingly.
The "allow_installing_*" parameters are evaluated during the "make" phase. If set to "yes", they allow the testing and the installation of the current distro and otherwise have no effect. If set to "no", they may abort the build (preventing testing and installing), depending on the contents of the "blib/" directory. The "blib/" directory is the directory that holds all the files that would usually be installed in the "install" phase.
"allow_installing_outdated_dists" compares the "blib/" directory with the CPAN index. If it finds something there that belongs, according to the index, to a different dist, it aborts the current build.
"allow_installing_module_downgrades" compares the "blib/" directory with already installed modules, actually their version numbers, as determined by ExtUtils::MakeMaker or equivalent. If a to-be-installed module would downgrade an already installed module, the current build is aborted.
An interesting twist occurs when a distroprefs document demands the installation of an outdated dist via goto while "allow_installing_outdated_dists" forbids it. Without additional provisions, this would let the "allow_installing_outdated_dists" win and the distroprefs lose. So the proper arrangement in such a case is to write a second distroprefs document for the distro that "goto" points to and overrule the "cpanconfig" there. E.g.:
---
match:
distribution: "^MAUKE/Keyword-Simple-0.04.tar.gz"
goto: "MAUKE/Keyword-Simple-0.03.tar.gz"
---
match:
distribution: "^MAUKE/Keyword-Simple-0.03.tar.gz"
cpanconfig:
allow_installing_outdated_dists: yes
(Note: This feature has been introduced in CPAN.pm 1.8854)
Distributions on CPAN usually behave according to what we call the CPAN mantra. Or since the advent of Module::Build we should talk about two mantras:
perl Makefile.PL perl Build.PL
make ./Build
make test ./Build test
make install ./Build install
But some modules cannot be built with this mantra. They try to get some extra data from the user via the environment, extra arguments, or interactively--thus disturbing the installation of large bundles like Phalanx100 or modules with many dependencies like Plagger.
The distroprefs system of "CPAN.pm" addresses this problem by allowing the user to specify extra informations and recipes in YAML files to either
See the YAML and Data::Dumper files that come with the "CPAN.pm" distribution in the "distroprefs/" directory for examples.
The YAML files themselves must have the ".yml" extension; all other files are ignored (for two exceptions see Fallback Data::Dumper and Storable below). The containing directory can be specified in "CPAN.pm" in the "prefs_dir" config variable. Try "o conf init prefs_dir" in the CPAN shell to set and activate the distroprefs system.
Every YAML file may contain arbitrary documents according to the YAML specification, and every document is treated as an entity that can specify the treatment of a single distribution.
Filenames can be picked arbitrarily; "CPAN.pm" always reads all files (in alphabetical order) and takes the key "match" (see below in Language Specs) as a hashref containing match criteria that determine if the current distribution matches the YAML document or not.
If neither your configured "yaml_module" nor YAML.pm is installed, CPAN.pm falls back to using Data::Dumper and Storable and looks for files with the extensions ".dd" or ".st" in the "prefs_dir" directory. These files are expected to contain one or more hashrefs. For Data::Dumper generated files, this is expected to be done with by defining $VAR1, $VAR2, etc. The YAML shell would produce these with the command
ysh < somefile.yml > somefile.dd
For Storable files the rule is that they must be constructed such that "Storable::retrieve(file)" returns an array reference and the array elements represent one distropref object each. The conversion from YAML would look like so:
perl -MYAML=LoadFile -MStorable=nstore -e '
@y=LoadFile(shift);
nstore(\@y, shift)' somefile.yml somefile.st
In bootstrapping situations it is usually sufficient to translate only a few YAML files to Data::Dumper for crucial modules like "YAML::Syck", "YAML.pm" and "Expect.pm". If you prefer Storable over Data::Dumper, remember to pull out a Storable version that writes an older format than all the other Storable versions that will need to read them.
The following example contains all supported keywords and structures with the exception of "eexpect" which can be used instead of "expect".
---
comment: "Demo"
match:
module: "Dancing::Queen"
distribution: "^CHACHACHA/Dancing-"
not_distribution: "\.zip$"
perl: "/usr/local/cariba-perl/bin/perl"
perlconfig:
archname: "freebsd"
not_cc: "gcc"
env:
DANCING_FLOOR: "Shubiduh"
disabled: 1
cpanconfig:
make: gmake
pl:
args:
- "--somearg=specialcase"
env: {}
expect:
- "Which is your favorite fruit"
- "apple\n"
make:
args:
- all
- extra-all
env: {}
expect: []
commandline: "echo SKIPPING make"
test:
args: []
env: {}
expect: []
install:
args: []
env:
WANT_TO_INSTALL: YES
expect:
- "Do you really want to install"
- "y\n"
patches:
- "ABCDE/Fedcba-3.14-ABCDE-01.patch"
depends:
configure_requires:
LWP: 5.8
build_requires:
Test::Exception: 0.25
requires:
Spiffy: 0.30
Every YAML document represents a single hash reference. The valid keys in this hash are as follows:
Supported are: "build_requires_install_policy", "check_sigs", "make", "make_install_make_command", "prefer_installer", "test_report". Please report as a bug when you need another one supported.
The corresponding values are interpreted as regular expressions. The "distribution" related one will be matched against the canonical distribution name, e.g. "AUTHOR/Foo-Bar-3.14.tar.gz".
The "module" related one will be matched against all modules contained in the distribution until one module matches.
The "perl" related one will be matched against $^X (but with the absolute path).
The value associated with "perlconfig" is itself a hashref that is matched against corresponding values in the %Config::Config hash living in the "Config.pm" module. Keys prefixed with "not_" negates the corresponding match.
The value associated with "env" is itself a hashref that is matched against corresponding values in the %ENV hash. Keys prefixed with "not_" negates the corresponding match.
If more than one restriction of "module", "distribution", etc. is specified, the results of the separately computed match values must all match. If so, the hashref represented by the YAML document is returned as the preference structure for the current distribution.
Note: if the "applypatch" program is installed and "CPAN::Config" knows about it and a patch is written by the "makepatch" program, then "CPAN.pm" lets "applypatch" apply the patch. Both "makepatch" and "applypatch" are available from CPAN in the "JV/makepatch-*" distribution.
You must install the "Expect" module to use "eexpect". CPAN.pm does not install it for you.
"mode" may have the values "deterministic" for the case where all questions come in the order written down and "anyorder" for the case where the questions may come in any order. The default mode is "deterministic".
"timeout" denotes a timeout in seconds. Floating-point timeouts are OK. With "mode=deterministic", the timeout denotes the timeout per question; with "mode=anyorder" it denotes the timeout per byte received from the stream or questions.
"talk" is a reference to an array that contains alternating questions and answers. Questions are regular expressions and answers are literal strings. The Expect module watches the stream from the execution of the external program ("perl Makefile.PL", "perl Build.PL", "make", etc.).
For "mode=deterministic", the CPAN.pm injects the corresponding answer as soon as the stream matches the regular expression.
For "mode=anyorder" CPAN.pm answers a question as soon as the timeout is reached for the next byte in the input stream. In this mode you can use the "reuse" parameter to decide what will happen with a question-answer pair after it has been used. In the default case (reuse=0) it is removed from the array, avoiding being used again accidentally. If you want to answer the question "Do you really want to do that" several times, then it must be included in the array at least as often as you want this answer to be given. Setting the parameter "reuse" to 1 makes this repetition unnecessary.
"expect: <array>" is a short notation for this "eexpect":
eexpect:
mode: deterministic
timeout: 15
talk: <array>
If you have the "Kwalify" module installed (which is part of the Bundle::CPANxxl), then all your distroprefs files are checked for syntactic correctness.
"CPAN.pm" comes with a collection of example YAML files. Note that these are really just examples and should not be used without care because they cannot fit everybody's purpose. After all, the authors of the packages that ask questions had a need to ask, so you should watch their questions and adjust the examples to your environment and your needs. You have been warned:-)
If you do not enter the shell, shell commands are available both as methods ("CPAN::Shell->install(...)") and as functions in the calling package ("install(...)"). Before calling low-level commands, it makes sense to initialize components of CPAN you need, e.g.:
CPAN::HandleConfig->load; CPAN::Shell::setup_output; CPAN::Index->reload;
High-level commands do such initializations automatically.
There's currently only one class that has a stable interface - CPAN::Shell. All commands that are available in the CPAN shell are methods of the class CPAN::Shell. The arguments on the commandline are passed as arguments to the method.
So if you take for example the shell command
notest install A B C
the actually executed command is
CPAN::Shell->notest("install","A","B","C");
Each of the commands that produce listings of modules ("r", "autobundle", "u") also return a list of the IDs of all modules within the list.
# install everything that is outdated on my disk:
perl -MCPAN -e 'CPAN::Shell->install(CPAN::Shell->r)'
# install my favorite programs if necessary:
for $mod (qw(Net::FTP Digest::SHA Data::Dumper)) {
CPAN::Shell->install($mod);
}
# list all modules on my disk that have no VERSION number
for $mod (CPAN::Shell->expand("Module","/./")) {
next unless $mod->inst_file;
# MakeMaker convention for undefined $VERSION:
next unless $mod->inst_version eq "undef";
print "No VERSION in ", $mod->id, "\n";
}
# find out which distribution on CPAN contains a module:
print CPAN::Shell->expand("Module","Apache::Constants")->cpan_file
Or if you want to schedule a cron job to watch CPAN, you could list all modules that need updating. First a quick and dirty way:
perl -e 'use CPAN; CPAN::Shell->r;'
If you don't want any output should all modules be up to date, parse the output of above command for the regular expression "/modules are up to date/" and decide to mail the output only if it doesn't match.
If you prefer to do it more in a programmerish style in one single process, something like this may better suit you:
# list all modules on my disk that have newer versions on CPAN
for $mod (CPAN::Shell->expand("Module","/./")) {
next unless $mod->inst_file;
next if $mod->uptodate;
printf "Module %s is installed as %s, could be updated to %s from CPAN\n",
$mod->id, $mod->inst_version, $mod->cpan_version;
}
If that gives too much output every day, you may want to watch only for three modules. You can write
for $mod (CPAN::Shell->expand("Module","/Apache|LWP|CGI/")) {
as the first line instead. Or you can combine some of the above tricks:
# watch only for a new mod_perl module
$mod = CPAN::Shell->expand("Module","mod_perl");
exit if $mod->uptodate;
# new mod_perl arrived, let me know all update recommendations
CPAN::Shell->r;
cvs -d $cvs_root import -m $cvs_log $cvs_dir $userid v$version
there.
This install method only has the power to install the distribution if there are no dependencies in the way. To install an object along with all its dependencies, use CPAN::Shell->install.
Note that install() gives no meaningful return value. See uptodate().
Where the 'DSLIP' characters have the following meanings:
D - Development Stage (Note: *NO IMPLIED TIMESCALES*):
i - Idea, listed to gain consensus or as a placeholder
c - under construction but pre-alpha (not yet released)
a/b - Alpha/Beta testing
R - Released
M - Mature (no rigorous definition)
S - Standard, supplied with Perl 5
S - Support Level:
m - Mailing-list
d - Developer
u - Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.perl.modules
n - None known, try comp.lang.perl.modules
a - abandoned; volunteers welcome to take over maintenance
L - Language Used:
p - Perl-only, no compiler needed, should be platform independent
c - C and perl, a C compiler will be needed
h - Hybrid, written in perl with optional C code, no compiler needed
+ - C++ and perl, a C++ compiler will be needed
o - perl and another language other than C or C++
I - Interface Style
f - plain Functions, no references used
h - hybrid, object and function interfaces available
n - no interface at all (huh?)
r - some use of unblessed References or ties
O - Object oriented using blessed references and/or inheritance
P - Public License
p - Standard-Perl: user may choose between GPL and Artistic
g - GPL: GNU General Public License
l - LGPL: "GNU Lesser General Public License" (previously known as
"GNU Library General Public License")
b - BSD: The BSD License
a - Artistic license alone
2 - Artistic license 2.0 or later
o - open source: approved by www.opensource.org
d - allows distribution without restrictions
r - restricted distribution
n - no license at all
Currently the cache manager only keeps track of the build directory ($CPAN::Config->{build_dir}). It is a simple FIFO mechanism that deletes complete directories below "build_dir" as soon as the size of all directories there gets bigger than $CPAN::Config->{build_cache} (in MB). The contents of this cache may be used for later re-installations that you intend to do manually, but will never be trusted by CPAN itself. This is due to the fact that the user might use these directories for building modules on different architectures.
There is another directory ($CPAN::Config->{keep_source_where}) where the original distribution files are kept. This directory is not covered by the cache manager and must be controlled by the user. If you choose to have the same directory as build_dir and as keep_source_where directory, then your sources will be deleted with the same fifo mechanism.
A bundle is just a perl module in the namespace Bundle:: that does not define any functions or methods. It usually only contains documentation.
It starts like a perl module with a package declaration and a $VERSION variable. After that the pod section looks like any other pod with the only difference being that one special pod section exists starting with (verbatim):
=head1 CONTENTS
In this pod section each line obeys the format
Module_Name [Version_String] [- optional text]
The only required part is the first field, the name of a module (e.g. Foo::Bar, i.e. not the name of the distribution file). The rest of the line is optional. The comment part is delimited by a dash just as in the man page header.
The distribution of a bundle should follow the same convention as other distributions.
Bundles are treated specially in the CPAN package. If you say 'install Bundle::Tkkit' (assuming such a bundle exists), CPAN will install all the modules in the CONTENTS section of the pod. You can install your own Bundles locally by placing a conformant Bundle file somewhere into your @INC path. The autobundle() command which is available in the shell interface does that for you by including all currently installed modules in a snapshot bundle file.
The CPAN program is trying to depend on as little as possible so the user can use it in hostile environment. It works better the more goodies the environment provides. For example if you try in the CPAN shell
install Bundle::CPAN
or
install Bundle::CPANxxl
you will find the shell more convenient than the bare shell before.
If you have a local mirror of CPAN and can access all files with "file:" URLs, then you only need a perl later than perl5.003 to run this module. Otherwise Net::FTP is strongly recommended. LWP may be required for non-UNIX systems, or if your nearest CPAN site is associated with a URL that is not "ftp:".
If you have neither Net::FTP nor LWP, there is a fallback mechanism implemented for an external ftp command or for an external lynx command.
This module presumes that all packages on CPAN
perl -MExtUtils::MakeMaker -le \
'print MM->parse_version(shift)' filename
If you are author of a package and wonder if your $VERSION can be parsed, please try the above method.
Debugging this module is more than a bit complex due to interference from the software producing the indices on CPAN, the mirroring process on CPAN, packaging, configuration, synchronicity, and even (gasp!) due to bugs within the CPAN.pm module itself.
For debugging the code of CPAN.pm itself in interactive mode, some debugging aid can be turned on for most packages within CPAN.pm with one of
which sets the debugging packages directly. Note that "o debug 0" turns debugging off.
What seems a successful strategy is the combination of "reload cpan" and the debugging switches. Add a new debug statement while running in the shell and then issue a "reload cpan" and see the new debugging messages immediately without losing the current context.
"o debug" without an argument lists the valid package names and the current set of packages in debugging mode. "o debug" has built-in completion support.
For debugging of CPAN data there is the "dump" command which takes the same arguments as make/test/install and outputs each object's Data::Dumper dump. If an argument looks like a perl variable and contains one of "$", "@" or "%", it is eval()ed and fed to Data::Dumper directly.
CPAN.pm works nicely without network access, too. If you maintain machines that are not networked at all, you should consider working with "file:" URLs. You'll have to collect your modules somewhere first. So you might use CPAN.pm to put together all you need on a networked machine. Then copy the $CPAN::Config->{keep_source_where} (but not $CPAN::Config->{build_dir}) directory on a floppy. This floppy is kind of a personal CPAN. CPAN.pm on the non-networked machines works nicely with this floppy. See also below the paragraph about CD-ROM support.
cpan> o conf dontload_list push YAML
See the source for details.
There's no strong security layer in CPAN.pm. CPAN.pm helps you to install foreign, unmasked, unsigned code on your machine. We compare to a checksum that comes from the net just as the distribution file itself. But we try to make it easy to add security on demand:
Since release 1.77, CPAN.pm has been able to verify cryptographically signed module distributions using Module::Signature. The CPAN modules can be signed by their authors, thus giving more security. The simple unsigned MD5 checksums that were used before by CPAN protect mainly against accidental file corruption.
You will need to have Module::Signature installed, which in turn requires that you have at least one of Crypt::OpenPGP module or the command-line gpg tool installed.
You will also need to be able to connect over the Internet to the public key servers, like pgp.mit.edu, and their port 11731 (the HKP protocol).
The configuration parameter check_sigs is there to turn signature checking on or off.
Most functions in package CPAN are exported by default. The reason for this is that the primary use is intended for the cpan shell or for one-liners.
When the CPAN shell enters a subshell via the look command, it sets the environment CPAN_SHELL_LEVEL to 1, or increments that variable if it is already set.
When CPAN runs, it sets the environment variable PERL5_CPAN_IS_RUNNING to the ID of the running process. It also sets PERL5_CPANPLUS_IS_RUNNING to prevent runaway processes which could happen with older versions of Module::Install.
When running "perl Makefile.PL", the environment variable "PERL5_CPAN_IS_EXECUTING" is set to the full path of the "Makefile.PL" that is being executed. This prevents runaway processes with newer versions of Module::Install.
When the config variable ftp_passive is set, all downloads will be run with the environment variable FTP_PASSIVE set to this value. This is in general a good idea as it influences both Net::FTP and LWP based connections. The same effect can be achieved by starting the cpan shell with this environment variable set. For Net::FTP alone, one can also always set passive mode by running libnetcfg.
Populating a freshly installed perl with one's favorite modules is pretty easy if you maintain a private bundle definition file. To get a useful blueprint of a bundle definition file, the command autobundle can be used on the CPAN shell command line. This command writes a bundle definition file for all modules installed for the current perl interpreter. It's recommended to run this command once only, and from then on maintain the file manually under a private name, say Bundle/my_bundle.pm. With a clever bundle file you can then simply say
cpan> install Bundle::my_bundle
then answer a few questions and go out for coffee (possibly even in a different city).
Maintaining a bundle definition file means keeping track of two things: dependencies and interactivity. CPAN.pm sometimes fails on calculating dependencies because not all modules define all MakeMaker attributes correctly, so a bundle definition file should specify prerequisites as early as possible. On the other hand, it's annoying that so many distributions need some interactive configuring. So what you can try to accomplish in your private bundle file is to have the packages that need to be configured early in the file and the gentle ones later, so you can go out for coffee after a few minutes and leave CPAN.pm to churn away unattended.
Thanks to Graham Barr for contributing the following paragraphs about the interaction between perl, and various firewall configurations. For further information on firewalls, it is recommended to consult the documentation that comes with the ncftp program. If you are unable to go through the firewall with a simple Perl setup, it is likely that you can configure ncftp so that it works through your firewall.
Firewalls can be categorized into three basic types.
To access servers outside these types of firewalls with perl (even for ftp), you need LWP or HTTP::Tiny.
To access servers outside these type of firewalls with perl, you need Net::FTP.
There are two that I can think off.
For accessing ftp servers behind such firewalls you usually need to set the environment variable "FTP_PASSIVE" or the config variable ftp_passive to a true value.
If you can go through your firewall with e.g. lynx, presumably with a command such as
/usr/local/bin/lynx -pscott:tiger
then you would configure CPAN.pm with the command
o conf lynx "/usr/local/bin/lynx -pscott:tiger"
That's all. Similarly for ncftp or ftp, you would configure something like
o conf ncftp "/usr/bin/ncftp -f /home/scott/ncftplogin.cfg"
Your mileage may vary...
Probably you do have the old version installed. This can happen if a module installs itself into a different directory in the @INC path than it was previously installed. This is not really a CPAN.pm problem, you would have the same problem when installing the module manually. The easiest way to prevent this behaviour is to add the argument "UNINST=1" to the "make install" call, and that is why many people add this argument permanently by configuring
o conf make_install_arg UNINST=1
Because there are people who have their precise expectations about who may install where in the @INC path and who uses which @INC array. In fine tuned environments "UNINST=1" can cause damage.
Run the autobundle command for your old perl and optionally rename the resulting bundle file (e.g. Bundle/mybundle.pm), install the new perl with the Configure option prefix, e.g.
./Configure -Dprefix=/usr/local/perl-5.6.78.9
Install the bundle file you produced in the first step with something like
cpan> install Bundle::mybundle
and you're done.
You may want to configure something like
o conf make_arg "| tee -ai /root/.cpan/logs/make.out"
o conf make_install_arg "| tee -ai /root/.cpan/logs/make_install.out"
so that STDOUT is captured in a file for later inspection.
As of CPAN 1.9463, if you do not have permission to write the default perl library directories, CPAN's configuration process will ask you whether you want to bootstrap <local::lib>, which makes keeping a personal perl library directory easy.
Another thing you should bear in mind is that the UNINST parameter can be dangerous when you are installing into a private area because you might accidentally remove modules that other people depend on that are not using the private area.
Have a look at the "look" (!) command.
The reason for this is that CPAN does not know the dependencies of all modules when it starts out. To decide about the additional items to install, it just uses data found in the META.yml file or the generated Makefile. An undetected missing piece breaks the process. But it may well be that your Bundle installs some prerequisite later than some depending item and thus your second try is able to resolve everything. Please note, CPAN.pm does not know the dependency tree in advance and cannot sort the queue of things to install in a topologically correct order. It resolves perfectly well if all modules declare the prerequisites correctly with the PREREQ_PM attribute to MakeMaker or the "requires" stanza of Module::Build. For bundles which fail and you need to install often, it is recommended to sort the Bundle definition file manually.
Have a look at the CPAN::Site module.
These are readline issues and can only be fixed by studying readline configuration on your architecture and adjusting the referenced file accordingly. Please make a backup of the "/etc/inputrc" or "~/.inputrc" and edit them. Quite often harmless changes like uppercasing or lowercasing some arguments solves the problem.
Internally CPAN.pm uses the UTF-8 charset. If your terminal is expecting ISO-8859-1 charset, a converter can be activated by setting term_is_latin to a true value in your config file. One way of doing so would be
cpan> o conf term_is_latin 1
If other charset support is needed, please file a bug report against CPAN.pm at rt.cpan.org and describe your needs. Maybe we can extend the support or maybe UTF-8 terminals become widely available.
Note: this config variable is deprecated and will be removed in a future version of CPAN.pm. It will be replaced with the conventions around the family of $LANG and $LC_* environment variables.
Use the force pragma like so
force install Foo::Bar
Or you can use
look Foo::Bar
and then "make install" directly in the subshell.
By default, CPAN will install the latest non-developer release of a module. If you want to install a dev release, you have to specify the partial path starting with the author id to the tarball you wish to install, like so:
cpan> install KWILLIAMS/Module-Build-0.27_07.tar.gz
Note that you can use the "ls" command to get this path listed.
CPAN uses ExtUtils::MakeMaker's prompt() function to ask its questions, so if you set the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment variable, you shouldn't be asked any questions at all (assuming the modules you are installing are nice about obeying that variable as well):
% PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 perl -MCPAN -e 'install My::Module'
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Build-Convert/
CPAN can now help you select a "good" mirror, based on which ones have the lowest 'ping' round-trip times. From the shell, use the command 'o conf init urllist' and allow CPAN to automatically select mirrors for you.
Beyond that help, the urllist config parameter is yours. You can add and remove sites at will. You should find out which sites have the best up-to-dateness, bandwidth, reliability, etc. and are topologically close to you. Some people prefer fast downloads, others up-to-dateness, others reliability. You decide which to try in which order.
Henk P. Penning maintains a site that collects data about CPAN sites:
http://mirrors.cpan.org/
Also, feel free to play with experimental features. Run
o conf init randomize_urllist ftpstats_period ftpstats_size
and choose your favorite parameters. After a few downloads running the "hosts" command will probably assist you in choosing the best mirror sites.
You can make your configuration changes permanent by calling the command "o conf commit". Alternatively set the "auto_commit" variable to true by running "o conf init auto_commit" and answering the following question with yes.
The random characters are provided by File::Temp and ensure that each module's individual build directory is unique. This makes running CPAN.pm in concurrent processes simultaneously safe.
You have the choice to set the config variable "scan_cache" to "never". Then you must clean it up yourself. The other possible values, "atstart" and "atexit" clean up the build directory when you start (or more precisely, after the first extraction into the build directory) or exit the CPAN shell, respectively. If you never start up the CPAN shell, you probably also have to clean up the build directory yourself.
The following 5 environment veriables need to be reset to the previous values: PATH, PERL5LIB, PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT, PERL_MB_OPT, PERL_MM_OPT; and these two CPAN.pm config variables must be reconfigured: make_install_make_command and mbuild_install_build_command. The five env variables have probably been overwritten in your $HOME/.bashrc or some equivalent. You either find them there and delete their traces and logout/login or you override them temporarily, depending on your exact desire. The two cpanpm config variables can be set with:
o conf init /install_.*_command/
probably followed by
o conf commit
CPAN.pm is regularly tested to run under 5.005 and assorted newer versions. It is getting more and more difficult to get the minimal prerequisites working on older perls. It is close to impossible to get the whole Bundle::CPAN working there. If you're in the position to have only these old versions, be advised that CPAN is designed to work fine without the Bundle::CPAN installed.
To get things going, note that GBARR/Scalar-List-Utils-1.18.tar.gz is compatible with ancient perls and that File::Temp is listed as a prerequisite but CPAN has reasonable workarounds if it is missing.
This module and its competitor, the CPANPLUS module, are both much cooler than the other. CPAN.pm is older. CPANPLUS was designed to be more modular, but it was never intended to be compatible with CPAN.pm.
In the year 2010 App::cpanminus was launched as a new approach to a cpan shell with a considerably smaller footprint. Very cool stuff.
This software enables you to upgrade software on your computer and so is inherently dangerous because the newly installed software may contain bugs and may alter the way your computer works or even make it unusable. Please consider backing up your data before every upgrade.
Please report bugs via <http://rt.cpan.org/>
Before submitting a bug, please make sure that the traditional method of building a Perl module package from a shell by following the installation instructions of that package still works in your environment.
Andreas Koenig "<andk@cpan.org>"
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>
Kawai,Takanori provides a Japanese translation of a very old version of this manpage at <http://homepage3.nifty.com/hippo2000/perltips/CPAN.htm>
Many people enter the CPAN shell by running the cpan utility program which is installed in the same directory as perl itself. So if you have this directory in your PATH variable (or some equivalent in your operating system) then typing "cpan" in a console window will work for you as well. Above that the utility provides several commandline shortcuts.
melezhik (Alexey) sent me a link where he published a chef recipe to work with CPAN.pm: http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/cpan.
| 2022-02-19 | perl v5.34.1 |