You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl 5.8.4. View the latest version

CONTENTS

NAME

cpan - easily interact with CPAN from the command line

SYNOPSIS

# with arguments, installs specified modules
cpan module_name [ module_name ... ]

# with switches, installs modules with extra behavior
cpan [-cimt] module_name [ module_name ... ]

# without arguments, starts CPAN shell
cpan

# without arguments, but some switches
cpan [-ahrv]

DESCRIPTION

This script provides a command interface (not a shell) to CPAN.pm.

Meta Options

These options are mutually exclusive, and the script processes them in this order: [ahvr]. Once the script finds one, it ignores the others, and then exits after it finishes the task. The script ignores any other command line options.

-a

Creates the CPAN.pm autobundle with CPAN::Shell->autobundle.

-h

Prints a help message.

-r

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

-v

Print the script version and CPAN.pm version.

Module options

These options are mutually exclusive, and the script processes them in alphabetical order.

c

Runs a `make clean` in the specified module's directories.

i

Installed the specified modules.

m

Makes the specified modules.

t

Runs a `make test` on the specified modules.

Examples

# print a help message
cpan -h

# print the version numbers
cpan -v

# create an autobundle
cpan -a

# recompile modules
cpan -r 

# install modules
cpan -i Netscape::Booksmarks Business::ISBN

TO DO

* add options for other CPAN::Shell functions autobundle, clean, make, recompile, test

BUGS

* none noted

SEE ALSO

Most behaviour, including environment variables and configuration, comes directly from CPAN.pm.

AUTHOR

brian d foy <bdfoy@cpan.org>