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
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.
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".
Return value: path to the written file.
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.
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.
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.
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 "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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
file://localhost/whatever/ftp/pub/CPAN/
or
file:///home/ftp/pub/CPAN/
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.
To get some interesting statistics, it is recommended that "randomize_urllist" be set; this introduces some amount of randomness into the URL selection.
"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
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.
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.
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.
---
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
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>
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
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.
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.
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.
perl -MExtUtils::MakeMaker -le \
'print MM->parse_version(shift)' filename
If you are author of a package and wonder if your $VERSION can be parsed, please try the above method.
For debugging the code of CPAN.pm itself in interactive mode, some debugging aid can be turned on for most packages within CPAN.pm with one of
which sets the debugging packages directly. Note that "o debug 0" turns debugging off.
What seems a successful strategy is the combination of "reload cpan" and the debugging switches. Add a new debug statement while running in the shell and then issue a "reload cpan" and see the new debugging messages immediately without losing the current context.
"o debug" without an argument lists the valid package names and the current set of packages in debugging mode. "o debug" has built-in completion support.
For debugging of CPAN data there is the "dump" command which takes the same arguments as make/test/install and outputs each object's Data::Dumper dump. If an argument looks like a perl variable and contains one of "$", "@" or "%", it is eval()ed and fed to Data::Dumper directly.
cpan> o conf dontload_list push YAML
See the source for details.
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.
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.
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.
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.
/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"
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'
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
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.
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.
See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>
melezhik (Alexey) sent me a link where he published a chef recipe to work with CPAN.pm: http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/cpan.