new¶

  my $cmc = CPAN::Meta::Converter->new( $struct );

The constructor should be passed a valid metadata structure but invalid structures are accepted. If no meta-spec version is provided, version 1.0 will be assumed.

convert¶

  my $new_struct = $cmc->convert( version => "2" );

Returns a new hash reference with the metadata converted to a different form. "convert" will die if any conversion/standardization still results in an invalid structure.

Valid parameters include:

•

"version" -- Indicates the desired specification version (e.g. "1.0", "1.1" ... "1.4", "2"). Defaults to the latest version of the CPAN Meta Spec.

Conversion proceeds through each version in turn. For example, a version 1.2 structure might be converted to 1.3 then 1.4 then finally to version 2. The conversion process attempts to clean-up simple errors and standardize data. For example, if "author" is given as a scalar, it will converted to an array reference containing the item. (Converting a structure to its own version will also clean-up and standardize.)

When data are cleaned and standardized, missing or invalid fields will be replaced with sensible defaults when possible. This may be lossy or imprecise. For example, some badly structured META.yml files on CPAN have prerequisite modules listed as both keys and values:

  requires => { 'Foo::Bar' => 'Bam::Baz' }

These would be split and each converted to a prerequisite with a minimum version of zero.

When some mandatory fields are missing or invalid, the conversion will attempt to provide a sensible default or will fill them with a value of 'unknown'. For example a missing or unrecognized "license" field will result in a "license" field of 'unknown'. Fields that may get an 'unknown' include:

• abstract
• author
• license