cpan
(1)
Name
cpan - easily interact with CPAN from the command line
Synopsis
# with arguments and no switches, installs specified modules
cpan module_name [ module_name ... ]
# with switches, installs modules with extra behavior
cpan [-cfgimt] module_name [ module_name ... ]
# with just the dot, install from the distribution in the
# current directory
cpan .
# without arguments, starts CPAN.pm shell
cpan
# dump the configuration
cpan -J
# load a different configuration to install Module::Foo
cpan -j some/other/file Module::Foo
# without arguments, but some switches
cpan [-ahrvACDlLO]
Description
Perl Programmers Reference Guide CPAN(1)
NAME
cpan - easily interact with CPAN from the command line
SYNOPSIS
# with arguments and no switches, installs specified modules
cpan module_name [ module_name ... ]
# with switches, installs modules with extra behavior
cpan [-cfgimt] module_name [ module_name ... ]
# with just the dot, install from the distribution in the
# current directory
cpan .
# without arguments, starts CPAN.pm shell
cpan
# dump the configuration
cpan -J
# load a different configuration to install Module::Foo
cpan -j some/other/file Module::Foo
# without arguments, but some switches
cpan [-ahrvACDlLO]
DESCRIPTION
This script provides a command interface (not a shell) to
CPAN. At the moment it uses CPAN.pm to do the work, but it
is not a one-shot command runner for CPAN.pm.
Options
-a Creates a CPAN.pm autobundle with
CPAN::Shell->autobundle.
-A module [ module ... ]
Shows the primary maintainers for the specified modules.
-c module
Runs a `make clean` in the specified module's
directories.
-C module [ module ... ]
Show the Changes files for the specified modules
-D module [ module ... ]
Show the module details. This prints one line for each
out-of-date module (meaning, modules locally installed
but have newer versions on CPAN). Each line has three
columns: module name, local version, and CPAN version.
-f Force the specified action, when it normally would have
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failed. Use this to install a module even if its tests
fail. When you use this option, -i is not optional for
installing a module when you need to force it:
% cpan -f -i Module::Foo
-F Turn off CPAN.pm's attempts to lock anything. You should
be careful with this since you might end up with
multiple scripts trying to muck in the same directory.
This isn't so much of a concern if you're loading a
special config with "-j", and that config sets up its
own work directories.
-g module [ module ... ]
Downloads to the current directory the latest
distribution of the module.
-G module [ module ... ]
UNIMPLEMENTED
Download to the current directory the latest
distribution of the modules, unpack each distribution,
and create a git repository for each distribution.
If you want this feature, check out Yanick Champoux's
"Git::CPAN::Patch" distribution.
-h Print a help message and exit. When you specify "-h", it
ignores all of the other options and arguments.
-i Install the specified modules.
-j Config.pm
Load the file that has the CPAN configuration data. This
should have the same format as the standard
CPAN/Config.pm file, which defines $CPAN::Config as an
anonymous hash.
-J Dump the configuration in the same format that CPAN.pm
uses. This is useful for checking the configuration as
well as using the dump as a starting point for a new,
custom configuration.
-L author [ author ... ]
List the modules by the specified authors.
-m Make the specified modules.
-O Show the out-of-date modules.
-t Run a `make test` on the specified modules.
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-r Recompiles dynamically loaded modules with
CPAN::Shell->recompile.
-v Print the script version and CPAN.pm version then exit.
Examples
# print a help message
cpan -h
# print the version numbers
cpan -v
# create an autobundle
cpan -a
# recompile modules
cpan -r
# install modules ( sole -i is optional )
cpan -i Netscape::Booksmarks Business::ISBN
# force install modules ( must use -i )
cpan -fi CGI::Minimal URI
EXIT VALUES
The script exits with zero if it thinks that everything
worked, or a positive number if it thinks that something
failed. Note, however, that in some cases it has to divine a
failure by the output of things it does not control. For
now, the exit codes are vague:
1 An unknown error
2 The was an external problem
4 There was an internal problem with the script
8 A module failed to install
TO DO
* one shot configuration values from the command line
BUGS
* none noted
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
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+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | runtime/perl-512 |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
Most behaviour, including environment variables and
configuration, comes directly from CPAN.pm.
SOURCE AVAILABILITY
This code is in Github:
git://github.com/briandfoy/cpan_script.git
CREDITS
Japheth Cleaver added the bits to allow a forced install
(-f).
Jim Brandt suggest and provided the initial implementation
for the up-to-date and Changes features.
Adam Kennedy pointed out that exit() causes problems on
Windows where this script ends up with a .bat extension
AUTHOR
brian d foy, "<bdfoy@cpan.org>"
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2001-2009, brian d foy, All Rights Reserved.
You may redistribute this under the same terms as Perl
itself.
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.12.5.tar.bz2
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.perl.org/.
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