view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

lib/App/cpanminus.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

=back

=head1 QUESTIONS

=head2 How does cpanm get/parse/update the CPAN index?

It queries the CPAN Meta DB site at L<http://cpanmetadb.plackperl.org/>.
The site is updated at least every hour to reflect the latest changes
from fast syncing mirrors. The script then also falls back to query the
module at L<http://metacpan.org/> using its search API.

Upon calling these API hosts, cpanm (1.6004 or later) will send the
local perl versions to the server in User-Agent string by default. You
can turn it off with C<--no-report-perl-version> option. Read more
about the option with L<cpanm>, and read more about the privacy policy
about this data collection at L<http://cpanmetadb.plackperl.org/#privacy>

Fetched files are unpacked in C<~/.cpanm> and automatically cleaned up
periodically.  You can configure the location of this with the
C<PERL_CPANM_HOME> environment variable.

=head2 Where does this install modules to? Do I need root access?

It installs to wherever ExtUtils::MakeMaker and Module::Build are
configured to (via C<PERL_MM_OPT> and C<PERL_MB_OPT>).

By default, it installs to the site_perl directory that belongs to
your perl. You can see the locations for that by running C<perl -V>
and it will be likely something under C</opt/local/perl/...> if you're
using system perl, or under your home directory if you have built perl
yourself using perlbrew or plenv.

If you've already configured local::lib on your shell, cpanm respects
that settings and modules will be installed to your local perl5
directory.

At a boot time, cpanminus checks whether you have already configured
local::lib, or have a permission to install modules to the site_perl
directory.  If neither, i.e. you're using system perl and do not run
cpanm as a root, it automatically sets up local::lib compatible
installation path in a C<perl5> directory under your home
directory.

To avoid this, run C<cpanm> either as a root user, with C<--sudo>
option, or with C<--local-lib> option.

=head2 cpanminus can't install the module XYZ. Is it a bug?

It is more likely a problem with the distribution itself. cpanminus
doesn't support or may have issues with distributions such as follows:

=over 4

=item *

Tests that require input from STDIN.

=item *

Build.PL or Makefile.PL that prompts for input even when
C<PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT> is enabled.

=item *

Modules that have invalid numeric values as VERSION (such as C<1.1a>)

=back

These failures can be reported back to the author of the module so
that they can fix it accordingly, rather than to cpanminus.

=head2 Does cpanm support the feature XYZ of L<CPAN> and L<CPANPLUS>?

Most likely not. Here are the things that cpanm doesn't do by
itself.

If you need these features, use L<CPAN>, L<CPANPLUS> or the standalone
tools that are mentioned.

=over 4

=item *

CPAN testers reporting. See L<App::cpanminus::reporter>

=item *

Building RPM packages from CPAN modules

=item *

Listing the outdated modules that needs upgrading. See L<App::cpanoutdated>

=item *

Showing the changes of the modules you're about to upgrade. See L<cpan-listchanges>

=item *

Patching CPAN modules with distroprefs.

=back

See L<cpanm> or C<cpanm -h> to see what cpanminus I<can> do :)

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2010- Tatsuhiko Miyagawa

The standalone executable contains the following modules embedded.

=over 4

=item L<CPAN::DistnameInfo> Copyright 2003 Graham Barr

=item L<local::lib> Copyright 2007-2009 Matt S Trout

=item L<HTTP::Tiny> Copyright 2011 Christian Hansen

=item L<Module::Metadata> Copyright 2001-2006 Ken Williams. 2010 Matt S Trout