From 5.6.1 to 5.8.2: how preserve installed modules?

[mcdavis941@netscape.net]

Hi, I'm considering upgrading from ActiveState Perl 5.6.1 to 5.8.2 (in order to use the latest Apache and mod_perl, although that's kind of beside the point).

Unfortunately, being a Perl beginner, I've installed CPAN modules by a variety of methods including:
- manually downloading the .zip from CPAN and running its make
- manually downloading the .zip from ActiveState and running its install
- using PPM to download and install from ActiveState
- downloading just the Perl source (!!!) from single .pm files *(!!!) on CPAN and placing it by hand. (Honest, that was at the very beginning of learning Perl.)

Now I'm ready to "get religion" and start managing all my packages the right way. *So my question is: what is the right way? *How do *you* go about managing all your downloaded modules?

Questions:

- I see that CPAN.pm is available to install packages and prerequisites. *Does it play well with PPM? *When you have a choice, is it preferable to use PPM or CPAN.pm?
- How can I get PPM to tell me everything that's installed?

And specific to the Perl version upgrade:

- Is there any way to say "take everything added to 5.6.1, and add it again to 5.8.2"? *(I'm not doing an inplace upgrade, if that's even possible, because I want to test everything with 5.8.2 before I commit to getting rid of 5.6.1.)
- How can I tell whether a module contains compiled binary code (these being modules likely to need downloading from scratch for 5.8.2)? *
- Can anyone say what I would "break" by upgrading to 5.8.2? *Are there major CPAN modules known to become incompatible when moving to 5.8.2?

I'm facing a look of work to get all this straight, and I'd really appreciate any pointers. *TIA.




__________________________________________________ ________________
New! Unlimited Netscape Internet Service.
Only $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at [url]http://isp.netscape.com/register[/url]
Act now to get a personalized email address!

Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

[Wolf Blaum]

Hi,

i ont want to get involved in the religios questions: for the rest:

> use PPM or CPAN.pm? - How can I get PPM to tell me everything that's
> installed?

ppm> query * #gives you the list of installed modules
ppm> properties Mo::Dule #gives you a detailed discriptio of that installed
module

> Can anyone say what I would "break" by upgrading to 5.8.2? *Are there major
> CPAN modules known to become incompatible when moving to 5.8.2?

Not from the top of my head.
However, if you check
[url]http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Modules/[/url]

and look for the ppm module status, youll find a nice table telling you which
modules work in which version of activestate perl.
There is a lot of modules that dont work with 5.8. yet (like
Mail::POP3Client).

Good luck, Wolf