App::Cpan(3pm)                                  Perl Programmers Reference Guide                                  App::Cpan(3pm)



NAME
       App::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 [-cfFimt] module_name [ module_name ... ]

               # use local::lib
               cpan -l module_name [ module_name ... ]

               # with just the dot, install from the distribution in the
               # current directory
               cpan .

               # without arguments, starts CPAN.pm shell
               cpan

               # without arguments, but some switches
               cpan [-ahruvACDLO]

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 This prints one line for each out-of-date module (meaning, modules locally installed but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 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  Use "local::lib".

       -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.

       -r  Recompiles dynamically loaded modules with CPAN::Shell->recompile.

       -u  Upgrade all installed modules. Blindly doing this can really break things, so keep a backup.

       -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

               # upgrade all installed modules
               cpan -u

               # install modules ( sole -i is optional )
               cpan -i Netscape::Booksmarks Business::ISBN

               # force install modules ( must use -i )
               cpan -fi CGI::Minimal URI

   Methods
       run()
           Just do it.

           The "run" method returns 0 on success and a postive number on failure. See the section on EXIT CODES for details on
           the values.

           CPAN.pm sends all the good stuff either to STDOUT. I have to intercept that output so I can find out what happened.

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
       * There is initial support for Log4perl if it is available, but I haven't gone through everything to make the NullLogger
       work out correctly if Log4perl is not installed.

       * When I capture CPAN.pm output, I need to check for errors and report them to the user.

BUGS
       * none noted

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, "<bdfoyATcpan.org>"

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (c) 2001-2009, brian d foy, All Rights Reserved.

       You may redistribute this under the same terms as Perl itself.



perl v5.12.4                                               2011-06-01                                             App::Cpan(3pm)