Re: CPAN corrupt after perl update

Hallo Matthias,

Matthias Keller wrote:
> I'm using SuSE 10.0 and keep all my modules up to date with CPAN
> Now SuSE released a perl update which smashes my CPAN....
> When i go into CPAN after the update and look at a module it reports the 
> installed version as it was before but in reality it was downgraded by 
> the suse-update.

Do Suse and cpan install the modules into the same directory? You 
probably know that Perl looks for modules in various locations. The 
paths to the libs can be found in the @INC variable at run-time. If Suse 
uses a different directory than CPAN, you could try deleting the modules 
in question from the Suse directory or remove that directory from the 
perl @INC alltogether (in Config.pm, I guess). This is a hack, though!

> Is there any way to re-initialize the internal database to reflect the 
> changes the update did? I tried to make a bundle but it doesn't work 
> since it decides it is still up2date when in reality it isn't.....

"reload index" might help, but I think that just reloads the three index 
files from the net.

> I'd love to install the suse update as it is a security patch but unless 
> i can fix cpan it's no good...

What security hole does it fix? If it's a module, are you confident that 
it's not fixed by a version from CPAN, too? If it's a hole in the 
interpreter (there was an issue recently), you're probably out of luck.

Also, you can try "force install MODULENAME" to force cpan to reinstall 
the module MODULENAME. Note, that if a hypothetical Suse path is in @INC 
before the lib cpan installs to, the Suse version will be loaded.

Others (like Andreas König) could give you a more thorough explanation, 
I'm sure.

Hope this helps,
Steffen