What did you mean by non-command line? As in .. Did you mean you want a perl API ish way to go about this? If you're on posix/unixy variants, why would you want to avoid systemy calls? "Purity"? One philosophy of *ix is many small programs working together to do wonderful things. I forget that a lot myself.

Maybe you are trying to keep some modules current?
If so, what makes you so sure that just because a module has been updated on cpan- you should upgrade? Just a thought..

I would imagine checking the test results *and* version numbers might be useful. If the current version on your machine shows 9/10 pass, and the new version shows 0/23- maybe upgrading is iffy.

(Maybe it's time for a auto perl module /cpan thingie update? Might be out there.)

Just throwing some thoughts out there..