[MacPerl] Calling CPAN Testers

[Chris Nandor <pudge@pobox.com>]

As a reminder, here is a recap of what you need to do to be a CPAN Tester.
There really isn't much to do.  The first four steps are what you need to
do to get set up.  Then below are the instructions for testing.

If you want to help, here is what you do:

1.  Go to the CPAN Testers site and familiarize yourself, and join
    the mailing list.  Note that this is a high-volume list (every
    upload to CPAN is sent to the list).

    http://www.connect.net/gbarr/cpan-test/

2.  Get the cpan-mac stuff, if you want to use it to aid in installing
    and fetching modules and distributions.

    http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/CNANDOR/

3.  Get the cpan-test script from me.  Version 0.91 is on the site above,
    I just submitted a 0.92 that makes it easier to use with MacPerl.
    You can just drag and drop a .tar.gz or .tgz file or unpacked folder
    on the droplet (or just launch it and type in the package name).

4.  Start testing!

If we have multiple volunteers (we had multiple volunteers before), it
should go much more smoothly.  The volunteers might want to work amongst
themselves to decide what each will test.  If we have enough testers, we
can test the same thing under various OS versions and MacPerl versions The
general procedure for testing might go like this (though you should adjust
it to what suits you best):

1.  See a new module on CPAN.

2.  Decide if you want to test it.  If not, stop here.  :)  Well,
    if you know that it won't work on a Mac, you can run the cpan-test
    program with "NA".

3.  Launch the CPAN-shell program.

4.  Type "get Some::Module" and/or "readme Some::Module" at the prompt
    (note: you should ftp.funet.fi or some other very quickly updating
    mirror if you want to test most recently updated stuff quickly).

5.  Decide if the module should be installed and tested.  If it is
    platform-specific and won't run, the module is "NA".  If it might
    be able to run under MacPerl but has XS that needs compiling, then
    you can check it in to the MacPerl Module Porters page for someone
    to pick up (CPAN Testers who want to check things in to the MMP
    page can get a username and password to do that).

6.  Test.  This may require some extra work in MacPerl; if you don't
    want to install first, you need to work with the use lib pragma
    in the test scripts, and you may need to deal with paths, and
    even calls to `perl` or system().  It can be hairy.  It can be
    simple.  I normally start by installing the module, then just
    dragging the test.pl or .t files individually to the MacPerl app.

6.  If at testing it does not work properly despite your best efforts,
    give it a "FAIL" and cc: the author of the module, giving them all
    the information you can about the problems.  If the author fixes
    the problem, great.  If it can be fixed but the author does not
    or cannot, consider checking it in to the MMP page.

7.  If it passes, give it a "PASS".


Not too tough, right?  Let me know if you are interested, and if there
is anything you want to discuss, we can discuss it on this list for
now.

--
Chris Nandor          mailto:pudge@pobox.com         http://pudge.net/
%PGPKey = ('B76E72AD', [1024, '0824090B CE73CA10  1FF77F13 8180B6B6'])

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