Hm.  So have the "makepl_arg" (or "mbuildpl_arg") options you specified in fact been stored persistently in your personal config file ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm?  Do they actually appear in the "perl Makefile.PL ..." (or "perl Build.PL ...") command line that's being issued by CPAN.pm?  Are you using LIB=... or PREFIX=..., or which other config setting?  Does the installation only fail for perllocal.pod, or is nothing at all being installed?

Hm. So have the "makepl_arg" (or "mbuildpl_arg") options you specified in fact been stored persistently in your personal config file ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm?

Yes. I've listed MyConfig.pm below. It's probably not optimal/correct but ...

Do they actually appear in the "perl Makefile.PL ..." (or "perl Build.PL ...") command line that's being issued by CPAN.pm?

I don't know how to extract that information from cpan?

But - your question was enough to solve the problem. Thanks!

Oh, you want to know what the problem was? :) Your question prompted me to think about what was happening. First, I tried an install and it failed. Then I read up on CPAN.pm and found FAQ 5 as previously mentioned, so I edited my config. Then I reran the install. Or rather I ran 'force install'. And I did notice, each time I tried the install again that 'make' and 'make test' both said skipping, already done. But I didn't think about the implication. So now I deleted the build directory and reran install and it generated a new Makefile and installed OK!

So it seems CPAN doesn't know that the make is invalidated by a config change? Something to remember for the future.

Thanks again, Dave

MyConfig.pm

$CPAN::Config = {
  'applypatch' => q[],
  'auto_commit' => q[0],
  'build_cache' => q[50],
  'build_dir' => q[/home/dhoworth/.cpan/build],
  'build_dir_reuse' => q[1],
  'build_requires_install_policy' => q[ask/yes],
  'bzip2' => q[/usr/bin/bzip2],
  'cache_metadata' => q[1],
  'check_sigs' => q[0],
  'commandnumber_in_prompt' => q[1],
  'cpan_home' => q[/home/dhoworth/.cpan],
  'curl' => q[/usr/bin/curl],
  'dontload_hash' => {  },
  'ftp' => q[/usr/bin/ftp],
  'ftp_passive' => q[1],
  'ftp_proxy' => q[],
  'getcwd' => q[cwd],
  'gpg' => q[/usr/bin/gpg],
  'gzip' => q[/bin/gzip],
  'histfile' => q[/home/dhoworth/.cpan/histfile],
  'histsize' => q[100],
  'http_proxy' => q[],
  'inactivity_timeout' => q[0],
  'index_expire' => q[1],
  'inhibit_startup_message' => q[0],
  'keep_source_where' => q[/home/dhoworth/.cpan/sources],
  'lynx' => q[/usr/bin/lynx],
  'make' => q[/usr/bin/make],
  'make_arg' => q[-j3],
  'make_install_arg' => q[-j3],
  'make_install_make_command' => q[/usr/bin/make],
  'makepl_arg' => q[LIB=~/perl/lib INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/perl/man/man1 INST
+ALLMAN3DIR=~/perl/man/man3 INSTALLARCHLIB=~/perl/lib INSTALLSCRIPT=~/
+perl/bin INSTALLBIN=~/perl/bin INSTALLSITEMAN1DIR=~/perl/man/man1 INS
+TALLSITEMAN3DIR=~/perl/man/man3 INSTALLSITEARCH=~/perl/lib INSTALLSIT
+ELIB=~/perl/lib INSTALLSITEBIN=~/perl/bin],  'mbuild_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_build_command' => q[./Build],
  'mbuildpl_arg' => q[--lib=~/perl/lib --installman1dir=~/perl/man/man
+1 --installman3dir=~/perl/man/man3 --installarchlib=~/perl/lib --inst
+allscript=~/perl/bin --installbin=~/perl/bin --installsiteman1dir=~/p
+erl/man/man1 --installsiteman3dir=~/perl/man/man3 --installsitearch=~
+/perl/lib --installsitelib=~/perl/lib --installsitebin=~/perl/bin],
  'ncftpget' => q[/usr/bin/ncftpget],
  'no_proxy' => q[],
  'pager' => q[less],
  'patch' => q[/usr/bin/patch],
  'prefer_installer' => q[EUMM],
  'prefs_dir' => q[/home/dhoworth/.cpan/prefs],
  'prerequisites_policy' => q[ask],
  'scan_cache' => q[atstart],
  'shell' => q[/bin/bash],
  'show_upload_date' => q[0],
  'tar' => q[/bin/tar],
  'term_is_latin' => q[0],
  'term_ornaments' => q[1],
  'test_report' => q[0],
  'unzip' => q[/usr/bin/unzip],
  'urllist' => [q[ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/], q[ftp:/
+/ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/]],
  'use_sqlite' => q[0],
  'wget' => q[/usr/bin/wget],
  'yaml_module' => q[YAML],
};
1;
__END__
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