ppm rep describe

[QM]

I was running my script at Re^2: Script to update your PPM Repositories on my home system (XP Pro), and noticed that:

my $rep_describe = `ppm rep describe $name`;

returns nothing, doesn't cause an error, etc. (at least, as far as I can tell). I looked at it in the debugger, like so:

.main::(C:\Perl\perl\ppm_update_4.pl:36):
36:     my $rep_describe = `ppm rep describe $name`;
  DB<4> p $name
ActiveState PPM2 Repository

(I had to change line 17 to invoke the debugger on the system call.)

This was working on my work machine (Win2K). On the other hand, the rest of the "ppm" calls seem to work, so I suspect something weird with XP-Pro, possibly the XP shell, and ppm3-bin (which is what ppm ultimately calls).

Any ideas?

My XP-Pro Perl install is:

C:\>perl -V
Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 8 subversion 0) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=MSWin32, osvers=4.0, archname=MSWin32-x86-multi-thread
    uname=''
    config_args='undef'
    hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=undef
    usethreads=undef use5005threads=undef useithreads=define usemultip
+licity=define
    useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef
    use64bitint=undef use64bitall=undef uselongdouble=undef
    usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cl', ccflags ='-nologo -Gf -W3 -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1 -DWIN32 -D
+_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT -DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT  -DPERL_IMP
LICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -DPERL_MSVCRT_READFIX',
    optimize='-MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1',
    cppflags='-DWIN32'
    ccversion='', gccversion='', gccosandvers=''
    intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8, byteorder=1234
    d_longlong=undef, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=10
    ivtype='long', ivsize=4, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='__int64
+', lseeksize=8
    alignbytes=8, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='link', ldflags ='-nologo -nodefaultlib -debug -opt:ref,icf  -l
+ibpath:"C:\Perl\lib\CORE"  -machine:x86'
    libpth="C:\Perl\lib\CORE"
    libs=  oldnames.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool.lib
+  comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib
oleaut32.lib  netapi32.lib uuid.lib wsock32.lib mpr.lib winmm.lib  ver
+sion.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib msvcrt.lib
    perllibs=  oldnames.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool
+.lib  comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.
lib oleaut32.lib  netapi32.lib uuid.lib wsock32.lib mpr.lib winmm.lib 
+ version.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib msvcrt.lib
    libc=msvcrt.lib, so=dll, useshrplib=yes, libperl=perl58.lib
    gnulibc_version='undef'
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_win32.xs, dlext=dll, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
    cccdlflags=' ', lddlflags='-dll -nologo -nodefaultlib -debug -opt:
+ref,icf  -libpath:"C:\Perl\lib\CORE"  -machine:x86
'


Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
  Compile-time options: MULTIPLICITY USE_ITHREADS USE_LARGE_FILES PERL
+_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT PERL_IMPLICIT_SYS
  Locally applied patches:
        ActivePerl Build 806
  Built under MSWin32
  Compiled at Mar 31 2003 00:45:44
  @INC:
    c:/Perl/lib
    c:/Perl/site/lib
    .

I'll have to get the Win2K Perl details on Monday.

[randyk]

I also find the same problem on XP. What you might try instead is accessing the information directly from PPM::UI:

use strict;
use warnings;
use PPM::UI;
my $name = q{ActiveState PPM2 Repository};
my $results = PPM::UI::repository_info($name);
my $result = $results->{result};
print <<"END";

Name: $result->[0]
Location: $result->[1]
Type: $result->[2]

END

[QM]

Thanks! That fixed it.

I must have run out of steam, because I didn't think to look into how ppm3-bin was doing it.

You gotta love the fact that PPM::UI doesn't seem to exist on CPAN, or the fact that the file on my local disk doesn't have POD. (Or did I miss something there too?)

[randyk]

You didn't miss anything - the pod is minimal (non-existent :) for PPM::UI. There is a PPM package on CPAN, but this is only version 2, used in ActivePerl 6xx; the interface to version 3 of ppm, used in 8xx, has changed quite a bit.

[planetscape]

Specifically,

my $rep_describe = `ppm rep describe $name`;

returns undef:

.main::(updateWorkingRepositories3.pl:41):
41:                     my $rep_describe = `ppm rep describe $name`;
  DB<1> x $name
0  'ActiveState PPM2 Repository'
  DB<2> x $rep_describe
0  undef

Although if I type ppm rep describe ActiveState PPM2 Repository manually into a command prompt:

Describing Active Repository 1:
    Name: ActiveState PPM2 Repository
Location:
http://ppm.ActiveState.com/cgibin/PPM/ppmserver-5.8-windows.pl?urn:/PP
+MServer
    Type: PPMServer 2.0

Details of my WinXP Pro SP2 install:

Read more... (4 kB)

Otherwise, as you say, it seems to work just fine...

HTH,

[PodMaster]

Try something like

# escape shell metachars, search around for something complete
$name =~ s/([&"])/^$1/g;
my $rep_describe = `ppm rep describe "$name"`;

See when you use ``, you're subject to the shell (like the pod says).