CPAN shell problem on MacOS X

[Art Werschulz]

Hi.

I am running MacOS X 10.3.1 (Panther) on a G4 iMac. I am installing
some Perl modules using the CPAN shell, i.e., I issue the command
# perl -MCPAN -e shell
and then type commands to the cpan> prompt.

When I have done this on a Linux box, the .cpan directory is placed in
root's home directory /root, and the manified documentation goes
into /usr/share/man/man3. To me, this seems pretty reasonable.

However, when I do this on the Panther box, the .cpan directory is
placed in my personal home directory (~agw), and the manified
documentation goes into /man/man3. I find this somewhat odd, to say
the least.

Note that this happens when I am logged in as root, i.e., I have done
"su - root" or "login root" in the Terminal window where I'm working.

Any ideas as to why this is happening? More importantly, what can I
do to get the "more reasonable" behavior of putting .cpan in /root and
manpages in /usr/share/man/man3?

Thanks.

--
Art Werschulz (agw@comcast.net)
207 Stoughton Ave Cranford NJ 07016
(908) 272-1146

[cp]

In article <m21xrl5jcp.fsf@pcp02469339pcs.union01.nj.comcast. net>, Art
Werschulz <agw@comcast.net> wrote:

>
> Any ideas as to why this is happening? More importantly, what can I
> do to get the "more reasonable" behavior of putting .cpan in /root and
> manpages in /usr/share/man/man3?

I'm not sure why you find it more 'reasonable'. Perhaps, for you,
coming from Linux, you find it more familiar? Since I don't log to my
Mac as the true root user (I'm not sure why you'd want to in the first
place) I find it perfectly reasonable that my .cpan directory is in
$HOME/.cpan

If you're so hot to change it, use the CPAN shell.

>sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'

cpan> o conf

That will give you a list of configuration options. See perldoc CPAN
for instructions.

I'm not sure why the manpage directory is an issue either. If your not
finding your man pages, set $MANPATH in you ~/.tcshrc file. Or see man
manpath.

If you want to rebuild Perl with the more familiar *NIX paths, see this
article:

[url]http://developer.apple.com/internet/macosx/perl.html[/url]

--
cp

[Peter Hickman]

cp wrote:

> In article <m21xrl5jcp.fsf@pcp02469339pcs.union01.nj.comcast. net>, Art
> Werschulz <agw@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>

>>Any ideas as to why this is happening? More importantly, what can I
>>do to get the "more reasonable" behavior of putting .cpan in /root and
>>manpages in /usr/share/man/man3?

>
>
> I'm not sure why you find it more 'reasonable'. Perhaps, for you,
> coming from Linux, you find it more familiar? Since I don't log to my
> Mac as the true root user (I'm not sure why you'd want to in the first
> place) I find it perfectly reasonable that my .cpan directory is in
> $HOME/.cpan

It is more reasonable because CPAN is the only program in the entire Mac OS X
that uses that directory. Indeed it has to create it because by default it
does not exists. It would be 'resonable' for perl to use one of the existing
directories that the OS knows about, such as...

/opt/local/man
/usr/local/man
/usr/local/share/man
/usr/share/man
/usr/X11R6/man

Seems resonable to me.

[Art Werschulz]

Hi.

First of all, I think I understand why the cpan_home (etc.) is not a
subdirectory of root's home directory. Since the root user isn't
enabled by default, there would be no place to put same.

However, I'm missing something with the manpage directories.
Following the directions in the CPAN manpage, I did
o conf makepl_arg="INSTALLMAN1DIR=/usr/share/man/man1\
INSTALLMAN3DIR=/usr/share/man/man3"
and I committed my change. Doing "o conf" verifies that this is
indeed set properly.

However, CPAN still insists on installing manpages in /man, rather
than in /usr/share/man.

What am I missing here? Many thanks.

--
Art Werschulz (agw@comcast.net)
207 Stoughton Ave Cranford NJ 07016
(908) 272-1146

[Peter Hickman]

Art Werschulz wrote:

> Hi.
>
> First of all, I think I understand why the cpan_home (etc.) is not a
> subdirectory of root's home directory. Since the root user isn't
> enabled by default, there would be no place to put same.
>
> However, I'm missing something with the manpage directories.
> Following the directions in the CPAN manpage, I did
> o conf makepl_arg="INSTALLMAN1DIR=/usr/share/man/man1\
> INSTALLMAN3DIR=/usr/share/man/man3"
> and I committed my change. Doing "o conf" verifies that this is
> indeed set properly.
>
> However, CPAN still insists on installing manpages in /man, rather
> than in /usr/share/man.
>
> What am I missing here? Many thanks.
>

I will try and see what is happening this weekend.

[cp]

In article <m2brqne0sy.fsf@pcp02469339pcs.union01.nj.comcast. net>, Art
Werschulz <agw@comcast.net> wrote:

> However, CPAN still insists on installing manpages in /man, rather
> than in /usr/share/man.
>
> What am I missing here? Many thank

not knowing how you compiled Perl in the first place, I can't be much
help. All of my man pages are installed in /usr/share/man (on both home
and work machines). I note that that /usr/share is owned by root, so
you must be the super user to install directories under that path.

Is it possible that you have not invoked Super-User rights before doing
the install? i.e.:

:~> sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install module_name'

I often find it easier, if I am doing a number of installs to become
the super user with:

:~> sudo /bin/sh

or which ever shell you prefer. Now, if you install modules by hand,
you can run perl Makefile.PL and not have to worry that the man path is
not writable.

--
cp

[Art Werschulz]

Hi.

cp <cpryce@nospam.pryce.net> writes:

> In article <m2brqne0sy.fsf@pcp02469339pcs.union01.nj.comcast. net>, Art
> Werschulz <agw@comcast.net> wrote:
>

> > However, CPAN still insists on installing manpages in /man, rather
> > than in /usr/share/man.
> >
> > What am I missing here? Many thank

>
> not knowing how you compiled Perl in the first place, I can't be much
> help.

I'm using the version of Perl that comes with MacOS X 10.3.

> Is it possible that you have not invoked Super-User rights before doing
> the install?

No, I did "su - root" before starting the install.

--
Art Werschulz (agw@comcast.net)
207 Stoughton Ave Cranford NJ 07016
(908) 272-1146

[Peter Hickman]

Peter Hickman wrote:

> Art Werschulz wrote:
>

>> Hi.
>>
>> First of all, I think I understand why the cpan_home (etc.) is not a
>> subdirectory of root's home directory. Since the root user isn't
>> enabled by default, there would be no place to put same.
>>
>> However, I'm missing something with the manpage directories.
>> Following the directions in the CPAN manpage, I did
>> o conf makepl_arg="INSTALLMAN1DIR=/usr/share/man/man1\
>> INSTALLMAN3DIR=/usr/share/man/man3"
>> and I committed my change. Doing "o conf" verifies that this is
>> indeed set properly.
>>
>> However, CPAN still insists on installing manpages in /man, rather
>> than in /usr/share/man.
>>
>> What am I missing here? Many thanks.
>>

>
> I will try and see what is happening this weekend.
>

Well I put the makepl_arg stuff in the the config file and that didn't work. I
even tried adding the INSTALLMAN1DIR=/usr/share/man/man1
INSTALLMAN3DIR=/usr/share/man/man3 stuff to a command line install

perl Makefile.PL INSTA....etc

Didn't work either, still writes to /man

Any other ideas

[cp]

In article <m2wu96g441.fsf@pcp02469339pcs.union01.nj.comcast. net>, Art
Werschulz <agw@comcast.net> wrote:

> > not knowing how you compiled Perl in the first place, I can't be much
> > help.

>
> I'm using the version of Perl that comes with MacOS X 10.3.
>

> > Is it possible that you have not invoked Super-User rights before doing
> > the install?

>
> No, I did "su - root" before starting the install.

I thought you mentioned that you did not have root access turned on. If
so, su - root will fail.

To invoke super user rights, preceed a command with sudo, as in

:~> sudo perl Makefile.PL

If you have root user access turned out (yikes), then ignore the above,
and my next step would be to reinstall Perl with a directory structure
more like the *Nix flavors that you are used to. The article referenced
in an earlier post gives excellent step-by-step instructions on how to
do just that.

--
cp