CPANM installs fail

[wrkrbeee]

Hi Perl Monks, looking for suggestions to manage an endless problem installing various CPANM modules. I'm struggling with the Perl language, and several Monks recommend installing the XXXX::YYYY module to solve the problems. More often than not, the modules do not install. I'm running an older version of Perl (5.14.2), perhaps a newer version would help? Where would I find a newer version? Somehow, I've ended up with Strawberry Perl, as well. Do I need both Perl, and Strawberry Perl? Any ideas are appreciated. Thank you.

[Athanasius]

Hello wrkrbeee,

Since you’re running Strawberry Perl, you must be on Windows. Now, you should be aware that some modules run only on Unix-based systems, so before attempting an install it’s a good idea to check the CPAN Testers Matrix to see whether the module is Windows-friendly. For example, the Expect module’s Matrix shows that Expect does not install under Windows.

In other cases, a module which previously installed without problem will be released in a new version which fails one or more of its tests under Windows (but not on other platforms). In such cases, you may need to do some detective work to ascertain whether the problem is with the module itself or only with the tests. In the latter case, you can safely force-install the module.

I'm running an older version of Perl (5.14.2), perhaps a newer version would help? Where would I find a newer version?

Very likely a newer version of Perl will help. My best advice is to install one of the Strawberry Perl PortableZIP editions, which are available for download from http://strawberryperl.com/releases.html. You can have any number of these installed on your system at the same time, because they won’t interfere with each other or with the system Perl. Then you can try installing the problem modules and see if the newer Perl version solves the problem.

Hope that helps,

[kevbot]

To go along with the advice of Anonymous Monk...

Please list the specific modules that you are having trouble with, along with the output you get when you try to install them with cpanm. Also, I recommend that you do not install any other versions of perl until you have a better idea of what is causing your current issues (as multiple versions may alter your path in ways that can cause trouble). I currently use Strawberry Perl with App::cpanminus and I rarely have trouble installing modules. So, I suspect there is something wrong with your setup. If you give us more information, we may be able to help.

Update: The suggestion from Athanasius to install one of the PortableZIP editions is a good one. You should be able to download one of those, unzip the archive, and then run the portableshell.bat file contained in the root folder. Other perl installations should not interfere with it, and you can simply delete the entire folder if you want to remove it from your system.

Update #2: When installing a module with cpanm I often find it useful to use the verbose and prompt options to get more information. For example, to install Path::Tiny,

cpanm -v --prompt Path::Tiny

In the event of an error or failure, this may give you more information to work with.

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi,

When you say things like that, you have to be more specific, , otherwise there is nothing to help with, except to say, there there, its ok, things can get better with details

"strawberry perl" is still just perl, just comes with some extra modules preloaded... http://strawberryperl.com/releases.html