My interactive CPAN config really doesn't understand continents

rschuler has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've searched, found and read the node My interactive CPAN config doesn't understand continents (how does one find the node_id anyway is it in the HTML source (i've not looked there yet)) I get no list of continents, and it does not like the numbers and continent names I've tried. Any hints/pointers on how to work around this?

Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 1
Use of uninitialized value in numeric gt (>) at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/c
+ygwin-multi/CPAN/FirstTime.pm line 530, <STDIN> line 48.
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 2
Use of uninitialized value in numeric gt (>) at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/c
+ygwin-multi/CPAN/FirstTime.pm line 530, <STDIN> line 49.
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 3
Use of uninitialized value in numeric gt (>) at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/c
+ygwin-multi/CPAN/FirstTime.pm line 530, <STDIN> line 50.
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 4
Use of uninitialized value in numeric gt (>) at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/c
+ygwin-multi/CPAN/FirstTime.pm line 530, <STDIN> line 51.
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 5
Use of uninitialized value in numeric gt (>) at /usr/lib/perl5/5.6.1/c
+ygwin-multi/CPAN/FirstTime.pm line 530, <STDIN> line 52.
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] North America
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] Europe
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] Africa
invalid items entered, try again
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] Asia
invalid items entered, try again
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Re: My interactive CPAN config really doesn't understand continents by theguvnor (Chaplain) on Jan 26, 2002 at 09:57 UTC
For the node id - look in the address bar (at the URL) in your browser. It's in the query string, e.g. http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=xxxxx where xxxxx is the node id.	[reply]
Re: My interactive CPAN config really doesn't understand continents by rschuler (Beadle) on Jan 28, 2002 at 20:25 UTC
After much meditation upon the CPAN code I solved my own problem. I'll record the answer here in case anybody should ever have the same problem and find this node seeking the solution. My local mirrors database was empty/corrupt. I ran through the config again, and when asked 'Shall I use the local database in ..mumble../.cpan/sources/MIRRORED.BY' I answered no. Then all was well. Of course I CPAN still uses the pick a number interface. Maybe someday I should try to alter the CPAN module so that it can also accept text answers to the continent and country questions, and avoid confusing newbies like myself :)	[reply]