For each uploaded distribution, PAUSE tries to identify the namespaces that the modules use so it can add them to its index files. It does this without running any code, since anyone can upload anything, and sometimes that fails in interesting ways. This week, Karen Etheridge (ether) uploaded Package-Variant-1.001004 and was surprised that she got [...]
There’s a semi-automated way to clean up your PAUSE author directory using the WWW:::PAUSE::CleanUpHomeDir module by Zoffix Znet. Steve Haryanto modified the example slightly to take the PAUSE user name and password from a configuration file. His cleanup-pause-homedir is in his Github account. All of your uploads to PAUSE stay in your author directory until [...]
Every time you upload a distribution to PAUSE and it is mirrored to CPAN, the CPAN Testers download the distribution to test it. You can do this with an experimental version so PAUSE won’t index it and CPAN clients won’t know it is there. You can try something, see if it works, such as a [...]
When you upload a distribution, PAUSE examines it so it knows what to put into the index files that the various CPAN clients use to translate a namespace into a distribution name. PAUSE doesn’t want to run any code since anyone can upload anything, so it does a very simple minded analysis in PAUSE::pmfile. It [...]
The CPAN Testers are an ad hoc group of volunteers who set up machines to download, unpack, and test every distribution uploaded to PAUSE. They collect and collate the reports so anyone, including the module author, can see where a module has problems.
Most CPAN mirrors take what PAUSE gives them. If an author deletes a file in his PAUSE account, that file disappears from the PAUSE master mirror and hence from the CPAN mirrors, by default. However, some people set up BackPANs; these are CPAN mirrors that don’t delete files. They maintain a near complete history of [...]