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On 21 May 2009, at 22:23, Tim Jones wrote: |
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> ... |
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> I was a little confused to learn of the existence of the g-cpan |
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> module, even at the presence of perl modules in Portage itself. |
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I don't know how other distros handle this. I'd imagine that most |
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package managers allow the installation of some Perl modules, but not |
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the entire range offered by cpan. (??) |
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> g-cpan is supposed to be a Portage wrapper for plain cpan? |
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Yes. |
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> If I use g-cpan to install a module, will it use the ebuild, if one |
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> exists? |
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I think you use Portage - e.g. `emerge dev-perl/libwww-perl` if the |
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package exists, otherwise g-cpan. |
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> Is there anything wrong with using plain cpan? (It would bother me |
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> if there was not agreement between my local Portage tree and what is |
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> actually installed on my system.) |
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That's exactly why you'd use g-cpan - Portage doesn't know the module |
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is installed on your system, otherwise, and can't apply updates to it. |
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> I guess I am just feeling that someone tried to fix something that |
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> wasn't broken. |
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The thing is that a package in Portage might depend on cpan modules. |
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Portage isn't able to itself automatically get stuff from cpan's |
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archive and so it's unable to fullfill the dependencies for that. |
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That's why Perl library packages exist within the portage tree. |
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I suspect the ideal situation would be for ANY Perl dependency to call |
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g-cpan, but g-cpan is relatively new, and probably not ready for that. |
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I would guess that most of the major Perl packages are already in the |
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main Portage tree, and g-cpan isn't much of a development priority. |
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I wouldn't use the standalone cpan tools myself, because they might |
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install things in non-Gentoo places, or Portage might delete them |
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without warning you. The whole point of the g-cpan wrapper is to avoid |
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this happening. |
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I hope this makes sense. I have to say that I've used g-cpan a couple |
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of times myself, but don't have a complete understanding of it. I |
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didn't know what cpan was before needing to use g-cpan. |
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Stroller. |
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