If the ppd is blank and causing the error, where is the search query getting it's version information from

That's a damn good question - and I look forward to seeing an answer provided by someone who knows. Like you, I expected the information would be retrieved from the ppd file - but the ppd file in question certainly doesn't contain that information. I've looked at the ConfigReader-Simple.ppd in both IE7 and Firefox, and done an LWP::Simple::get(). It always shows up as empty. A "view source" in IE7 shows up some html, but I think IE7 is just making it up. In any case, the html doesn't contain any useful info for ppm.

All I can think of is that either ppm finds another ConfigReader-Simple ppd file, or that ppm knows to look in the MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8 folder (where it will find the zip files - whose names incorporate the version info).

Neither alternative seems particularly likely to me ... but it's all I can think of. (And I don't feel like delving into the PPM source.)

Incidentally, using ppm4 on build 822 I get: 
C:\_32>ppm search ConfigReader-Simple
Downloading ActiveState Package Repository packlist...not modified
1: ConfigReader-Simple
   Simple configuration file parser
   Version: 1.23
   Repo: ActiveState Package Repository

2: ConfigReader-Simple
   Simple configuration file parser
   Version: 1.25
   Repo: trouchelle.com

C:\_32>ppm install http://trouchelle.com/ppm/ConfigReader-Simple.ppd
ppm install failed: No PPD found at http://trouchelle.com/ppm/ConfigRe
+ader-Simpl
e.ppd

[download]
I notice there's quite a few empty (0k) ppd files at trouchelle. You might like to 'ppm install' more of them and see if there actually is a correlation between empty ppd files and that error you're getting.

Cheers,
Rob
Update: When I added trouchelle to the ppm repo list I got the following output: 
C:\_32>ppm repo add http://trouchelle.com/ppm/
Downloading ActiveState Package Repository packlist...done
Updating ActiveState Package Repository database...done
Downloading trouchelle.com packlist...done
Updating trouchelle.com database...done
Repo 2 added.

[download]
I don't know where those packlists are kept ... but perhaps that's what 'ppm search' uses ?

In reply to Re: Problems with "PPM::PPD::init: not a PPD and not a file" by syphilis
in thread Problems with "PPM::PPD::init: not a PPD and not a file" by Casteele

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.