App::cpanminus - get, unpack, build and install modules from CPAN
cpanm Module
Run cpanm -h for more options.
cpanm -h
cpanminus is a script to get, unpack, build and install modules from CPAN.
Why? It's dependency free, requires zero configuration, and stands alone. When running, it requires only 10MB of RAM.
There are Debian packages, RPMs, FreeBSD ports, and packages for other operation systems available. If you want to use the package management system, search for cpanminus and use the appropriate command to install. This makes it easy to install cpanm to your system without thinking about where to install, and later upgrade.
cpanm
You can also use the latest cpanminus to install cpanminus itself:
curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo App::cpanminus
This will install cpanm to your bin directory like /usr/local/bin (unless you configured INSTALL_BASE with local::lib), so you might need the --sudo option.
/usr/local/bin
INSTALL_BASE
--sudo
Later you can say cpanm --self-upgrade --sudo to upgrade to the latest version.
cpanm --self-upgrade --sudo
Otherwise,
cd ~/bin curl -LO http://xrl.us/cpanm chmod +x cpanm # edit shebang if you don't have /usr/bin/env
just works, but be sure to grab the new version manually when you upgrade (--self-upgrade might not work).
--self-upgrade
perl 5.8 or later.
'tar' executable (bsdtar or GNU tar version 1.22 are rcommended) or Archive::Tar to unpack files.
C compiler, if you want to build XS modules.
make
Module::Build (core in 5.10)
OK, the first motivation was this: the CPAN shell runs out of memory (or swaps heavily and gets really slow) on Slicehost/linode's most affordable plan with only 256MB RAM. Should I pay more to install perl modules from CPAN? I don't think so.
First of all, I have no intention to dis CPAN or CPANPLUS developers. Don't get me wrong. They're great tools I've used for literally years (you know how many modules I have on CPAN, right?). I really respect their efforts of maintaining the most important tools in the CPAN toolchain ecosystem.
However, for less experienced users (mostly from outside the Perl community), or even really experienced Perl developers who know how to shoot themselves in their feet, setting up the CPAN toolchain often feels like yak shaving, especially when all they want to do is just install some modules and start writing code.
It queries the CPAN Meta DB site running on Google AppEngine at http://cpanmetadb.appspot.com/. The site is updated every hour to reflect the latest changes from fast syncing mirrors. The script then also falls back to the site http://search.cpan.org/. I've been talking to and working with with the QA/toolchain people for building a more reliable CPAN DB website.
Fetched files are unpacked in ~/.cpanm. You can configure this with the PERL_CPANM_HOME environment variable.
~/.cpanm
PERL_CPANM_HOME
It installs to wherever ExtUtils::MakeMaker and Module::Build are configured to (via PERL_MM_OPT and MODULEBUILDRC). So if you're using local::lib, then it installs to your local perl5 directory. Otherwise it installs to the siteperl directory.
PERL_MM_OPT
MODULEBUILDRC
cpanminus at a boot time checks whether you have configured local::lib, or have the permission to install modules to the sitelib directory. If neither, it automatically sets up local::lib compatible installation path in a perl5 directory under your home directory. To avoid this, run the script as the root user, with --sudo option or with --local-lib option.
perl5
--local-lib
Copyright 2010- Tatsuhiko Miyagawa
The standalone executable contains the following modules embedded.
Same as Perl.
Patches and code improvements were contributed by:
Goro Fuji, Kazuhiro Osawa, Tokuhiro Matsuno, Kenichi Ishigaki, Ian Wells, Pedro Melo, Masayoshi Sekimura, Matt S Trout, squeeky, horus and Ingy dot Net.
Bug reports, suggestions and feedbacks were sent by, or general acknowledgement goes to:
Jesse Vincent, David Golden, Andreas Koenig, Jos Boumans, Chris Williams, Adam Kennedy, Audrey Tang, J. Shirley, Chris Prather, Jesse Luehrs, Marcus Ramberg, Shawn M Moore, chocolateboy, Chirs Nehren, Jonathan Rockway, Leon Brocard, Simon Elliott, Ricardo Signes, AEvar Arnfjord Bjarmason, Eric Wilhelm, Florian Ragwitz and xaicron.
This software is provided "as-is," without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of the software.
CPAN CPANPLUS pip
To install App::cpanminus, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm App::cpanminus
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install App::cpanminus
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.