CPAN difficulties (perhaps not Slackware - specific ...)
 

Hi all -

In one sense this problem is not Slack specific, but in another sense it (sort of) is: I have found threads about this online, but they all seem to be Ubuntu/Debian - related. So I am looking for a Slackware-appropriate solution ...

After upgrading a few Perl modules using the CPAN shell, I am hitting this both inside and outside the CPAN shell:

cpan[1]> r
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.18)
Going to read /root/.cpan/Metadata
Database was generated on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:06:49 GMT
Going to read /root/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.008)
Catching error: 'Can\'t call method "value" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/IO/Uncompress/RawInflate.pm line 64.
' at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 281
CPAN::shell() called at -e line 1


... based on a couple of the Ubuntu threads, I tried installing the latest version of Compress::Zlib using the cpan command, and was stopped by the same thing:

root@catbutt:/home/chexmix# cpan Compress::Zlib
CPAN: File::HomeDir loaded ok (v0.69)
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.18)
Going to read /root/.cpan/Metadata
Database was generated on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:06:49 GMT
Going to read /root/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.008)
Can't call method "value" on an undefined value at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/IO/Uncompress/RawInflate.pm line 64.
root@catbutt:/home/chexmix#


The LAST time I had big CPAN problems in Slackware, I wound up just ripping Perl off my system entirely and reinstalling. Is there no better way to deal with this issue?

Thanks for any pointers.

Regards,

Glenn

I don't really have a solution for you, but I recently was working on getting several perl modules working and packaging them. I ran into problems with the same modules -apparently these modules have been re-written or perhaps some have been consolidated.
I used this search line:
"undefined value /Uncompress/RawInflate.pm line 64"
and ran across a few threads whcih discuss the problem. This one seems to contain a patch to fix it.

http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl..../msg21554.html

Since it seems to be bug in the perl module, asking on a perl forum will probably get better results.

Thanks for the tip. Oddly, I asked (via IM, I should qualify) on the best Perl community I know of, and the only response I got was "there are some real advantages to a clean Perl install."

To which: sigh.