I've noticed a problem that seems to have gone from bad to worse lately. ActiveState's "ppm" (Perl Package Manager) utility seems to have a couple of problems.

I frequently grab a list of module upgrade candidates like this: 

perl -e "print grep !/up to date/, `ppm upgrade`" > upgrade.txt

[download]

That creates a text file containing a list only of those modules that are considered not up-to-date; those modules for which PPM recognizes a newer version available. But therein exists the first problem. In many cases, the modules identified are reported like this: 

CGI-Enurl 1.07: new version 1.07 available in ActiveState Package Repo
+sitory

[download]

See a problem there? Note the version numbers. This problem exists for at least five of the modules I have installed.

But wait, that's not all. The next problem is that even those modules that are correctly identified as needing to be upgraded (those for which there is a newer version available) sometimes don't get upgraded, even if I use the -precious option. To upgrade all modules with newer versions available I'll type this command: 

ppm upgrade -install -precious

[download]

I do have to pay attention to the prompts since some modules appear on multiple servers, but I'm careful to always select the server displaying the most up-to-date version. But even after running this command, I'll find that some of the modules haven't been upgraded. Here's a dump of what PPM considers to be "in need of upgrade" after having executed a ppm upgrade -install -precious command: 

Acme-Time-Baby 2.106: new version 2.106 available in ActiveState Packa
+ge Repository
CGI-Application 4.01: new version 4.03 available in ActiveState Packag
+e Repository
CGI-Enurl 1.07: new version 1.07 available in ActiveState Package Repo
+sitory
Class-Accessor 0.19: new version 0.22 available in ActiveState Package
+ Repository
Class-DBI 0.96: new version v3.6 available in ActiveState Package Repo
+sitory
Class-Trigger 0.09: new version 0.10 available in ActiveState Package 
+Repository
Compress-Zlib 1.34: new version 1.41 available in BdP
HTML-Strip 1.02: new version 1.04 available in ActiveState Package Rep
+ository
HTML-Template 2.7: new version 2.7 available in ActiveState Package Re
+pository
HTML-Tidy 1.05_02: new version 1.06 available in BdP
Heap-Simple 0.09: new version 0.09 available in ActiveState Package Re
+pository
Heap-Simple-Perl 0.09: new version 0.10 available in ActiveState Packa
+ge Repository
Ima-DBI 0.33: new version 0.34 available in ActiveState Package Reposi
+tory
Image-Magick 6.2: new version 6.2.4 available in BdP
Mail-POP3Client 2.15: new version 2.17 available in ActiveState Packag
+e Repository
Net-DNS 0.51: new version 0.53 available in ActiveState Package Reposi
+tory
Net-SCP 0.06: new version 0.07 available in ActiveState Package Reposi
+tory
Net-SSH 0.07: new version 0.08 available in ActiveState Package Reposi
+tory
PadWalker 0.10: new version 0.13 available in ActiveState Package Repo
+sitory
String-ShellQuote 1.02: new version 1.03 available in ActiveState Pack
+age Repository
Tree-Binary 0.06: new version 0.07 available in ActiveState Package Re
+pository
UNIVERSAL-moniker 0.08: new version 0.08 available in ActiveState Pack
+age Repository
WWW-Mechanize 0.72: new version 1.14 available in ActiveState Package 
+Repository
WWW-Mechanize-Shell 0.19: new version 0.34 available in ActiveState Pa
+ckage Repository

[download]

Am I the only one experiencing this, or am I just the only one frustrated enough to post a SoPW on the subject? ;) Any suggestions would be appreciated.

By the way, I'm using PPM version 3.2. And ActivePerl 5.8.7 build 813 for Win32. I believe those are the most current versions of each.


Dave

In reply to PPM mis-identifying / failing to upgrade some module upgrade candidates by davido

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