[MacPerl] Re: CPAN

["Paul J. Schinder" <schinder@pobox.com>]

On Mon, Jun 28, 1999 at 04:22:29PM -0700, Marion Delgado wrote:
} Are there other MacPerl users having trouble with CPAN.pm? I have gotten
} it
} to work to a small degree both by itself and using cpan-mac from C.
} Nandor.

No, you're the only one having trouble :-)

I run CPAN on my wife's beige G3, and it works.

} 
} However, the LW and Net FTP don't work, basically because of a problem it
} has with Types.pm ("uninitialized values"). Furthermore, other actors in
} the bundling and installing don't work, i.e., whatever module has gzopen,
} and the Gestalt.pm module, which is called by several others in the CPAN
} world, and which MacPerl says doesn't work.

gzopen is part of Compress::Zlib.  The Types.pm warnings I see quite a
bit on the G3, but almost never on my 6400.  But they're just
warnings, and you can ignore them.

} 
} I could get CPAN to bundle *some* but not most files I downloaded using
} regular FTP. In the case of CPAN.pm, installing the newest CPAN.pm makes
} the cpan-mac version crash.

What do you mean by bundle?  You're not talking about CPAN bundles,
are you?  You should avoid them; I can't think of one that will
actually work.

} 
} I also tried using the glue module from the same site/person as cpan-mac,
} but it had similar problems creating glue functions - the Gestalt problem
} and several other "uninitialized values" problems.
} 
} My environment:
} 
} A desktop Mac G3 with OS 8.1, the version-before-latest of MPW, and
} MacPerl

Our G3 is running 8.6 now, and the MacPerl app only.  We don't have
MPW installed.  (If we need Unix, we reboot and hit the "Linux" button
when BootX pops up.)

} 5.2r4. My selected editor is BBEdit Lite 4.1, and I use PPP/MacTCP for
} ftping.
} 
} The process I have used:
} 
} (1) Installed Perl from scratch (MacPerl book CD, 5.2.0r4), first the app,
} then the tool.Gave MacPerl 32M to handle CPAN stuff.
} (2) Tried "use CPAN" and then "shell()" in a perl program. No luck.

Right, because if MacPerl ships with a CPAN.pm (don't remember if it
does or not), it's likely to be broken.

} (3) Set Perl's HOME and EDIT variables and put site-perl in the LIBS as
} first directory to search.
} (4) Installed cpan-mac (apparently successfully). It mainly seems to be a
} short program that sets environmental variables then shells CPAN.pm.

No, it installs a whole slew of files.  If it didn't, this may be
where the problem lies.

} (5) FTP didn't work during cpan configure - oddly enough one or two sites
} did seem to work eventually after several tries at configuring. Usually
} got, "uninitialized value" and "bad array {00xH45}"-type error messages
} during FTP attempts. After several tries at configuring I finally got some
} site lists to pick.
} (6) in CPAN shell, did an r to get module suggestions.
} (7) No new modules could be ported by cpan's FTP, either LW or net ftp.

"r" checks your local installation against a file that should have
been downloaded from the CPAN site you chose.  Something like
(although this is LinuxPPC rather than MacPerl):

[bin@schinder ~]$ perl -MCPAN -e shell
reload index

cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.50)
ReadLine support enabled

cpan> reload index
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok
Fetching with LWP:
  ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
Going to read /usr/local/src/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok
Fetching with LWP:
  ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Going to read /usr/local/src/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Scanning cache /usr/local/src/.cpan/build for sizes
Fetching with LWP:
  ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/modules/03modlist.data.gz
Going to read /usr/local/src/.cpan/sources/modules/03modlist.data.gz

cpan> r

Package namespace         installed    latest  in CPAN file
Apache::ExtUtils              undef      1.02  DOUGM/mod_perl-1.20.tar.gz
App::Manager                   0.02      0.03  MLEHMANN/App-Manager-0.03.tar.gz
AutoLoader                    undef      5.56  CHIPS/perl5.004_05.tar.gz
Text::CSV_XS                   0.18      0.20  JWIED/Text-CSV_XS-0.20.tar.gz
Text::Query::Advanced         undef      0.05  E/EB/EBOHLMAN/Text-Query-Advanced-0.05.tar.gz
Text::Query::Simple           undef      0.03  E/EB/EBOHLMAN/Text-Query-Simple-0.03.tar.gz
WWW::Search::Snap              1.07       1.4  JOHNH/WWW-Search-1.023.tar.gz
313 installed modules have no parseable version number

I have a lot of stuff installed, so I get lots of suggestions (most of
them bogus).

} (8) One or two downloaded modules could be gotten/made/installed by CPAN,
} but usually not.

There are occasional modules that fail for one reason or another.
Most everything I've ever tried has installed with no trouble.
There's one outstanding bug that I know of, but it's unlikely you'll
run into it.

} (9) downloaded latest CPAN was installed, but that was bad, CPAN shell
} went
} into fast infinite loop and MacPerl had to be aborted. This problem went
} away when older CPAN was reinstalled. In general, installing new versions
} of most of the recommended modules crashed cpan.

You *cannot* install XS modules (modules that require a compiler)
without following the directions you'll find (if I remember right,
because the site isn't responding) www.macperl.com website.  Arved
Sandstrom just posted a pointer to the exact URL to the list within
the last day or so.  Crashing, however, sounds like you may be running
MacPerl out of memory, but I don't know how one goes about fixing that
under MPW.

} 
} other modules:
} 
} The installme.plx that comes with cpan-mac works far better than cpan-mac
} or anything CPAN, so far. In particular, i installed glue apparently
} successfully with two passes through installme. It would take an app, say
} Finder, and indeed produce a pod with its Apple Events, but its other
} task,
} creating functions in the Glue.pm module, didn't work for similar reasons
} to some cpan problems. Gestalt and Types.pm don't seem to work well with
} these.
} 
} Has anyone gotten any of these to work, either CPAN.pm itself or cpan-mac
} or glue? Are there variables I need to set? Module versions that are
} incompatible?

cpan-mac comes with everything you need.  Don't try to improve on that
when you're just starting out.  In particular, stay away from modules
on CPAN that replace the stuff that comes with cpan-mac, execpt that
it's safe to upgrade the pure modules stuff like CPAN.pm, libwww-perl,
URI.

} 
} Sincerely
} M. Delgado
} 

-- 
Paul Schinder
schinder@pobox.com

===== Want to unsubscribe from this list?
===== Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to macperl-request@macperl.org