CPAN and make test

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

Fellow monks:

On some modules, I now get a CPAN barf, for example:

cpan> install HTML::Embperl
Running install for module HTML::Embperl
Running make for G/GR/GRICHTER/Embperl-2.0rc2.tar.gz
  Is already unwrapped into directory /root/.cpan/build/Embperl-2.0rc2
  Has already been processed within this session
Running make test
  Can't test without successful make
Running make install
  make had returned bad status, install seems impossible
[download]

Some modules (including Bundle::CPAN) install correctly, but this is strangeness. I verified that /usr/bin/make works fine. FreeBSD 4.11-STABLE#2, Perl 5.8.5. Couldn't find ref in Supersearch, would appreciate it if anybody's seen this, and thanks in advance! -- Don

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Re: CPAN and make test by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Mar 02, 2005 at 17:23 UTC
Often this will happen if you go to install a module and the `make test` fails due to missing dependencies (or the dependencies of dependencies) which are not indicated in the Makefile.PL - even if, in the same CPAN shell session, you install succesfully the missing dependencies you will get this message. I have never investigated further but exiting from the CPAN shell and restarting it fixes the problem. /J\	[reply] [d/l]
Re: CPAN and make test by Joost (Canon) on Mar 02, 2005 at 17:25 UTC
CPAN sometimes gets confused when a build fails half-way. Do `cpan> clean HTML::Embperl` [download] and then try to install again. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l]
Re: CPAN and make test by gaal (Parson) on Mar 02, 2005 at 17:27 UTC
I'm not sure why this happens (possibly modules failing tests due to insufficient prereqs?). To fix it, leave the CPAN.pm shell, and try installing this module manually. `cd /root/.cpan/build/Embperl-2.0rc2 perl Makefile.PL && make && make test && make install` [download] Then go back to the CPAN shell and install whatever else you wanted in this session.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: CPAN and make test by samizdat (Vicar) on Mar 02, 2005 at 17:39 UTC
There are two glitches in the promary make (this is prior to make test): libxml2 doesn't support DOCBparser, #warning "The DOCBparser module has been deprecated in libxml2-2.6.0" and a created file typemap was not located in the proper place. However, still have bugs even after fixing that. It appears that the module is motheaten relative to something in the rest of my system. Thanks, all! Update: The FreeBSD ports version installs correctly. Thanks for your tips which helped further my understanding of the CPAN process!! :D	[reply]