The Perl Toolchain Summit needs more sponsors. If your company depends on Perl, please support this very important event.
 / 
App-EPAN-0.002
River stage zero No dependents
2 ++
/ epan

NAME

epan - Exclusive Perl Archive Nook

VERSION

Ask the version number to the script itself, calling:

   shell$ epan --version

USAGE

   epan [--usage] [--help] [--man] [--version]

   # "create" demands that dirname is not present, to create it
   epan create
      [-1|-m|--mailrc path]
      [-2|-o|--output path]
      [-3|-l|--modlist path]
      [-t|--target dirname]
      Module1 [Module2...]

   # "index" is also "idx"
   epan index
      [-1|-m|--mailrc path]
      [-2|-o|--output path]
      [-3|-l|--modlist path]
      [-t|--target dirname]

   # "inject" adds local distribution archives available as files
   epan inject
      [-1|-m|--mailrc path]
      [-2|-o|--output path]
      [-3|-l|--modlist path]
      [-a|--author name]
      [-t|--target dirname]
      File1 [File2...]

   # "list-actions" is also "list_actions"
   epan list-actions

   # "list-obsoletes" is also "list_obsoletes"
   epan list-obsoletes [-t|--target dirname]

   # "purge-obsoletes" is also "purge_obsoletes"
   epan purge-obsoletes [-t|--target dirname]

   # "update" is also "add" and "install"
   epan update
      [-1|-m|--mailrc path]
      [-2|-o|--output path]
      [-3|-l|--modlist path]
      [-t|--target dirname]
      Module1 [Module2...]

EXAMPLES

   # collects all what's needed to install Template::Perlish somewhere
   shell$ epan create -t mymodules Template::Perlish

   # regenerate index in ./modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
   shell$ epan idx -t mymodules

   # prints index on standard output, works on /path/to/minicpan
   shell$ epan index -o - -t /path/to/minicpan

DESCRIPTION

This program helps you creating and managing an EPAN - a version of the CPAN that is trimmed down to your needs for installing specific stuff.

To start with an example, suppose you have to install Mojolicious and a couple of its plugins in a machine that - for good reasons - is not connected to the Internet. It's easy to get the distribution files for Dancer and the plugins... but what about the dependencies? It can easily become a nightmare, forcing you to go back and forth with new modules as soon as you discover the need to install them.

Thanks to cpanm, this is quite easier these days: it can actually do what's needed with a single command:

   # on the machine connected to the Internet or to a minicpan
   $ cpanm -L xxx --scandeps --save-dists dists \
        Mojolicious Mojolicious::Plugin::Authentication IO::Socket::SSL ...

which places all the modules in subdirectory dists (thanks to option --save-dists) with an arrangement similar to what you would expect from a CPAN mirror.

On the target machine, you still have to make some work - e.g. you should collect the output from the invocation of cpanm above to figure out the order to use for installing the distribution files. Additionally, the directory structure that is generated lacks a proper index file (located in modules/02package.details.txt.gz) so it would be difficult to use the normal toolchain.

epan aims at filling up the last mile to get the job done, providing you with a subdirectory that is ready for deployment, with all the bits in place to push automation as much as possible. So you can do this:

   # on the machine connected to the Internet or to a minicpan
   $ epan create Mojolicious Mojolicious::Plugin::Authentication \
       IO::Socket::SSL ...
   $ tar cvzf epan.tar.gz epan

transfer dists.tar.gz to the target machine and...

   # on the target machine
   $ tar xvzf epan.tar.gz
   $ cd epan
   $ ./install.sh

optionally providing an installation target directory:

   $ ./install.sh /path/to/local/perl

The program epan is actually a unified access point to several different tools for manipulating your exclusive Perl archive nook. Most of these commands operate upon a target directory that is where your EPAN is stored; this can be specified via option -t or its longer version --target. By default, the target directory is assumed to be epan in the current directory.

add, install and update

These commands are synonimous in epan, and all help you pull a module and its dependencies from a CPAN mirror right into your EPAN, regenerating the index at the end of the process. The syntax is:

   epan add # or install or update \
      [-t|--target directory]
      Module1 [Module2...]

So, in addition to the common option -t for setting the right target directory, it accepts a list of module names to install (with their dependencies).

create

This command is almost the same as add and its aliases, with the exception that the target directory MUST NOT already exist when called.

index

Regenerate the index so that tools like cpanm are happy about what they find and treat your target directory as a real CPAN sort-of mirror. The syntax is the following:

   epan index [-t|--target dirname]

Note that other commands (e.g. add or create) already do the indexing. This command can be useful when you have a starting base (i.e. a compound of modules coming from CPAN and your own distribution) already arranged in the right directory tree, but you need to generate an index. For example, this happens when you collect some distribution files using cpanm:

   shell$ cpanminus -L xxx --save-dists dists Mod1 Mod2...

because it saves the needed distributions in dists but it does not generate the index. The same happens when using carton.

In these cases, if you want to prepare a pack of modules to carry with your application, you can do like this:

   $ figure_out_modules > modlist
   $ cpanm -L xxx --save-dists dists $(<modlist)
   $ epan index -t dists
   $ tar cvf dists.tar dists

Well, put like this the second and third lines can just be synthesized as:

   $ epan add -t dists $(<modlist)

but you get the idea. The directory with the modules might be the byproduct of invoking carton instead (in which case you would end up with a sub-directory cache).

Anyway, you can then carry dists.tar with you, at which point you can:

   $ cpanm --mirror file://$YOURPATH --mirror-only Mod1 Mod2 ...

This command expects the target directory to exist and will complain otherwise.

inject

If you have some local distribution files, e.g. generated by yourself and not (yet) uploaded to CPAN, you can inject them into a local EPAN. The syntax is straightforward:

   epan inject \ 
      [-a|--author author-name] \
      [-t|--target dirname] File1 [File2...]

As for many other commands, you can also set the different output filenames, but that would be hardly useful.

list-actions and list_actions

Prints out the list of available commands.

list-obsoletes and list_obsoletes

   epan list-obsoletes [-t|--target dirname]

Prints out a list of obsolete distributions in the EPAN. A distribution is considered obsolete if there is a newer corresponding version in the EPAN. E.g. suppose that you work on Acme::Whatever and inject version 0.2:

   epan inject Acme-Whatever-0.2.tar.gz
   # ...

then you work on it some more time, and inject version 0.3:

   epan inject Acme-Whatever-0.2.tar.gz
   # ...

Now your EPAN contains two distribution packages for Acme::Whatever, one for release 0.2 (which is the obsolete one) and one for the newest version 0.3.

purge-obsoletes and purge_obsoletes

   epan purge-obsoletes [-t|--target dirname]

Remove (purge) obsolete distribution packages from the EPAN. See above for what obsolete means.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported, even though not all actions use them all:

-1 | -m | --mailrc

path to the file 01mailrc.txt.gz, defaults to authors/01mailrc.txt.gz inside the target directory. You hardly want to change this.

-2 | -o | --output | --package-details

path to the file for 02packages.details.txt.gz, defaults to modules/02packages.details.txt.gz inside the target directory. Yes, you can use - with the usual meaning, although this might not help you much.

-3 | -l | --modlist | --modlist-data

path to the file 03modlist.data.gz, defaults to modules/03modlist.data.gz inside the target directory. You hardly want to change this.

-a | --author author-name

module author to use when doing injection of local distribution packages.

--help

print a somewhat more verbose help, showing usage, this description of the options and some examples.

--man

print out the full documentation for the script.

-t | --target dirname

set the directory of the root for the EPAN to work on. Defaults to the sub-directory epan in the current directory. This option applies to all commands except list-actions.

The default value is epan as a sub-directory in the current directory.

Some commands demand that the target directory already exists; in case it does not, they will complain that you're probably using this option in the wrong way (or not using it at all).

--usage

print a concise usage line and exit.

--version

print the version of the script.

CONFIGURATION AND ENVIRONMENT

epan requires no configuration files. The following environment variable is honored:

EPAN_AUTHOR

set the name of the pause account to use for indexing. Defaults to LOCAL. It is overridden by --author.

DEPENDENCIES

Runs on perl 5.012, adapt it if you want to run on something older :-)

The following non-core modules are used:

  • Dist::Metadata

  • Path::Class

  • File::Find::Rule

  • Log::Log4perl::Tiny

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

No bugs have been reported.

Please report any bugs or feature requests through https://github.com/polettix/epan/issues.

AUTHOR

Flavio Poletti polettix@cpan.org

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2011-2021 by Flavio Poletti polettix@cpan.org.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.