I'm not sure how, but I believe that my perl installation (Mac OS X 10.5.7) is broken. In particular, I cannot get CPAN to work, as I am unable to install even the most basic modules. Is there a way to restore my CPAN installation to the default? To illustrate, this is output I get when I try updating CPAN. The first line is the install command. 
cpan[1]> install Bundle::CPAN  
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.15)
Going to read /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: File::Which loaded ok (v0.05)
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /Library/
+Perl/Updates/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Scalar/Util.pm line 30.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /Library/
+Perl/Updates/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Scalar/Util.pm line 30.

gzip: /Users/markwellons/Library/Application: not in gzip format
gzip: Support/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz: No such file or d
+irectory
DONE
Going to read /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /Library/
+Perl/Updates/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Scalar/Util.pm line 30.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /Library/
+Perl/Updates/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Scalar/Util.pm line 30.

gzip: /Users/markwellons/Library/Application: not in gzip format
gzip: Support/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz: No such
+ file or directory
Warning: Your /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz does not contain a Line-Count 
+header.
Please check the validity of the index file by comparing it to more
than one CPAN mirror. I'll continue but problems seem likely to
happen.
CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.86)
Warning: Your /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz does not contain a Last-Update
+d header.
Please check the validity of the index file by comparing it to more
than one CPAN mirror. I'll continue but problems seem likely to
happen.
DONE
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v5.823)
Fetching with LWP:
  http://cpan.uchicago.edu/pub/CPAN/modules/03modlist.data.gz
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /Library/
+Perl/Updates/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Scalar/Util.pm line 30.
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v0.68)
Going to read /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/modules/03modlist.data.gz
Catching error: "Undefined subroutine &Compress::Zlib::gzopen called a
+t /Library/Perl/Updates/5.8.8/CPAN/Tarzip.pm line 122.\cJ" at /Librar
+y/Perl/Updates/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 359
    CPAN::shell() called at -e line 1
Going to read /Users/markwellons/Library/Application Support/.cpan/sou
+rces/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
No history written (no histfile specified).
Lockfile removed.
Undefined subroutine &Compress::Zlib::gzopen called at /Library/Perl/U
+pdates/5.8.8/CPAN/Tarzip.pm line 122.

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In reply to Broken perl installation on Mac OS X by NewRun

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