Hi,

I'm looking into broken URLs of Fedora packages of (inter
alia) CPAN modules, in the following picking
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/perl-Config-IniHash as a
random example.

This Fedora package refers to
https://metacpan.org/release/Config-IniHash which redirects
to https://metacpan.org/dist/Config-IniHash which is 404.

The source URL however,
https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/J/JE/JENDA/Config-IniHash-3.01.01.tar.gz,
works nicely, as does some metadata file at
https://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/J/JE/JENDA/Config-IniHash-3.01.01.meta.

If I go to https://metacpan.org/author/JENDA, Config-IniHash
is not listed there. If I search for "Config-IniHash"
(https://metacpan.org/search?size=20&q=Config-IniHash) or
"Config::IniHash"
(https://metacpan.org/search?size=20&q=Config%3A%3AIniHash)
on metacpan.org, I don't get any pertinent results.

Therefore I'm interested if this is the expected result or
some fault at (meta)cpan.org and thus who I need to contact
to get it fixed. Does the module author have to click some
button to trigger the inclusion in the database? Are all
modules available at cpan.org supposed to be listed at
metacpan.org?

TIA,
Tim

Hi Tim!

Tim Landscheidt <tim@tim-landscheidt.de> writes:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking into broken URLs of Fedora packages of (inter
> alia) CPAN modules, in the following picking
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/perl-Config-IniHash as a
> random example.
>
> This Fedora package refers to
> https://metacpan.org/release/Config-IniHash which redirects
> to https://metacpan.org/dist/Config-IniHash which is 404.
>
> The source URL however,
> https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/J/JE/JENDA/Config-IniHash-3.01.01.tar.gz,
> works nicely, as does some metadata file at
> https://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/J/JE/JENDA/Config-IniHash-3.01.01.meta.

This use an old standard for the META-spec, which should not be a
problem. (I have a very old one also using 1.2 without problems as
well.) But the 1st line looks a bit incomplete as the spec says:

|The first line of a META.yml file should be a valid YAML document
|header like "--- #YAML:1.0".

Maybe that's the problem? (Just a wild guess as I'm not really familiar
with the old spec's details.)

If an author releases a new module (or new version) on PAUSE, an indexer
analyses the package including the META-spec (and usually sends a mail
to the author that everything went well, what it indexed etc.). But
this process can sometimes fail and the author has to restart it
manually. (I never had any problems though, I just read about it.)

> Does the module author have to click some button to trigger the
> inclusion in the database?

Normally it gets added fully automatically, if the META-spec is correct
and the PAUSE server don't run into problems.

> Are all modules available at cpan.org supposed to be listed at
> metacpan.org?

At least those that appear as "name" in the META-spec, yes.

Just my 2 cents.

Best regards, Thomas
--
Address is only valid for short time!

with <6e1q82dsds.fsf@th-dorner.de> Thomas Dorner wrote:
> Tim Landscheidt <tim@tim-landscheidt.de> writes:

>> I'm looking into broken URLs of Fedora packages of (inter alia) CPAN
>> modules, in the following picking
>> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/perl-Config-IniHash as a random
>> example.
*SKIP* [ 14 lines 2 levels deep]
>|The first line of a META.yml file should be a valid YAML document
>|header like "--- #YAML:1.0".
> Maybe that's the problem? (Just a wild guess as I'm not really
> familiar with the old spec's details.)
> If an author releases a new module (or new version) on PAUSE, an
> indexer analyses the package including the META-spec (and usually
> sends a mail to the author that everything went well, what it indexed
> etc.). But this process can sometimes fail and the author has to
> restart it manually. (I never had any problems though, I just read
> about it.)

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with cpan-people either, what follows is
my speculation. Config-IniHash has been added to CPAN ~20070125 and
about ~201712## it has been "removed". However, what "removed" means in
Perl-land is "removed from indexes" or de-indexed. Files themselves
must be scheduled for purge by author (it means: personally by author).
That act of care has never happened.

From Perl, perl, and CPAN perspective Config-IniHash doesn't exist. It
is possible that some cruft has been accumulated in various places on
the span of 15y. I'm pretty much certain there's more.

*CUT* [ 15 lines 2 levels deep]

--
Torvalds' goal for Linux is very simple: World Domination
Stallman's goal for GNU is even simpler: Freedom