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 This prints one line for each out-of-date module (meaning, modules locally installed but have newer versions on CPAN).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Show the out-of-date modules.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.