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CPAN

Section: Perl Programmers Reference Guide (1)
Updated: 2017-08-16
Index Return to Main Contents

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 [-cfgimtTw] module_name [ module_name ... ]

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

        # without arguments, starts CPAN.pm shell
        cpan

        # force install modules (usually those that fail tests)
        cpan -f module_name [ module_name ... ]

        # install modules but without testing them
        cpan -T module_name [ module_name ... ]

        # 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.

-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.

-I

Load "local::lib" (think like "-I" for loading lib paths).

-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

List all installed modules with their versions

-L author [ author ... ]

List the modules by the specified authors.

-m

Make the specified modules.

-O

Show the out-of-date modules.

-p

Ping the configured mirrors

-P

Find the best mirrors you could be using (but doesn't configure them just yet)

-r

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

-t

Run a `make test` on the specified modules.

-T

Do not test modules. Simply install them.

-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.

-V

Print detailed information about the cpan client.

-w

UNIMPLEMENTED

Turn on cpan warnings. This checks various things, like directory permissions, and tells you about problems you might have.

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

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

There are several components in CPAN.pm that use environment variables. The build tools, ExtUtils::MakeMaker and Module::Build use some, while others matter to the levels above them. Some of these are specified by the Perl Toolchain Gang:

Lancaster Concensus: <https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/toolchain-site/blob/master/lancaster-consensus.md>

Oslo Concensus: <https://github.com/Perl-Toolchain-Gang/toolchain-site/blob/master/oslo-consensus.md>

CPAN_OPTS: "cpan" splits this variable on whitespace and prepends that list to @ARGV before it processes the command-line arguments. For instance, if you always want to use "local:lib", you can set "CPAN_OPTS" to "-I".
CPANSCRIPT_LOGLEVEL: The log level to use, with either the embedded, minimal logger or Log::Log4perl if it is installed. Possible values are the same as the "Log::Log4perl" levels: "TRACE", "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", "ERROR", and "FATAL". The default is "INFO".
GIT_COMMAND: The path to the "git" binary to use for the Git features. The default is "/usr/local/bin/git".
NONINTERACTIVE_TESTING: Assume no one is paying attention and skips prompts for distributions that do that correctly. cpan(1) sets this to 1 unless it already has a value (even if that value is false).
PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT: Use the default answer for a prompted questions. cpan(1) sets this to 1 unless it already has a value (even if that value is false).

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