Using PPM to install modules

Install

install		Installs default package
install <number>		Installs packages by a specific number
install <range>		Installs packages in the given numeric range <range>.
install <name>		Installs named package

The install command is used to install packages from the repository. You can install packages by name or number (the number is given by the repository or search request), or a default package can be established through use of the describe command. There is also a set of modifiers that can be used with the install command:

-force  -noforce
-follow -nofollow

The force and follow commands determine how packages are installed:

FORCE		FOLLOW		RESULT
false		false		Checks to see if the package is installed and if it is, PPM3 stops. If there are any missing prerequisites, the installation will fail.
false		true		Checks to see if the package is installed and if it is, PPM3 stops. If there are any missing prerequisites, they are automatically installed.
true		false		If the package is installed, PPM3 will reinstall the package. If there are any missing prerequisites, the installation will fail. NOTE: This is the default setting when PPM3 is first installed.
true		true		If the package is installed, PPM3 will reinstall the package. If there are any missing prerequisites, they are automatically installed.

If you do not specify any options, install uses the default settings. Set or view the current defaults using the settings command.

For example:

install foo

will install the package named "foo", using the default settings. You can over-ride the defaults with the install modifiers.

For example:

install foo -force

will install the "foo" package, even if it has already been installed. If both -force and -follow are set to "true", all the prerequisites for any package you install will be installed. For example, the installation of a tk-related package, like "tk-ach" which is 8.4 kB will be preceded by the installation of Tk, which is 1.7 MB.

You can also install by package number. The numbering of the packages is based on the current repository or current search request. For example:

install 6

installs package number 6. You can install more than one package at one time:

install 3-5

installs packages 3, 4 and 5. You can also type install 3-6,8 to receive packages 3,4,5,6 and 8.

Profile

profile		lists profiles available on the repository
profile <number>		switches to the given profile
profile add <name>		creates a new profile on the repository
profile del <number>		deletes the given profile
profile save		saves the client state to the current profile
profile restore		restores the current profile

With profiles, package installation and management is easy to oversee. By using profiles, you can save your favorite perl packages in a single profile or group packages by function in different profiles. This also makes installation of packages easier, as you only need to access one or two profiles, instead of many individual packages.

Managing your profiles can be done through PPM3 or via the ActiveState Interactive website.

Note: The profile commands are only available if the current repository is a PPM3 repository.

Properties

properties		Describes default installed package
properties <number>		Describes installed package <number>
properties <package name>		Describes named installed package
properties <glob pattern>		Performs a new query using <glob pattern>

Similar to the describe command, properties provides information on an installed package, but with more details than those available with describe. In addition to the summary information, properties will display the installation date and a URL showing the location of the package within the repository.

Note: When properties is called with arguments including a wildcard, it prints a message telling you that it is about to forward the whole command-line to query; then it does. With this, you can type "properties Tk*" or "prop Tk*".

For example, typing properties libnet will give you:

    Name: libnet
 Version: 1.07.03
  Author: Graham Barr
Abstract: Collection of Network protocol modules
InstDate: Fri Oct  2 16:15:15 1998
Location: http://ppm.ActiveState.com/cgibin/PPM/ppmserver.pl?urn:/PPMServer

See Also: Describe

Quit

Quit

exits the program.

Quit is another command used to close the PPM application. Like the exit command; when you close PPM3, the current settings will be saved.

See Also: Exit

Query

query		Displays list of previous queries
query <number>		Displays results of previous query
query <glob pattern>		Performs a new query using <glob pattern>
query *		Displays a list of all installed packages

The query command displays either a list of all installed packages or a shortened list, based on the <glob pattern> entered. You can also check the list of past queries or the results of a past query.

Note: Depending on the value of "case-sensitivity", the query may or may not be case-sensitive. See "help settings" for how to affect the case sensitivity.

See Also: Settings

Remove

remove		Deletes default installed package
remove <number>		Deletes a package by a specific number
remove <range>		Deletes a <range> of packages
remove <name>		Deletes a package by a specific name

The remove command deletes packages from your current target. Packages can be removed by package name or by their numerical listing. For example:

remove XML-DOM

will delete the XML-DOM package from your target. Also, you can remove package by number:

remove 6

and the 6th package in your current query will be removed. If you have no query requests established, you'll be required to use query to find a package before you delete it. It's important to remember that removing packages also clears all previous query requests, since the numerical sequence stored in any query will no longer be true once package(s) have been removed.

Packages can also be removed in groups; for example:

remove 4-7

will delete packages 4, 5, 6, and 7 from your target. You can also skip packages in the removal process:

remove 3-5, 7

this will delete packages 3, 4, 5 and 7...but it will leave 6 intact. Remember to run a new query whenever you remove a package from your target.

Please note that wildcards like "*" or "?" cannot be used with the remove command.

See Also: Uninstall

Repository

repository		displays all repositories
repository [set] <number>		sets the specified repository active
repository add [name] <repository location>		adds a new repository
repository del <number>		deletes the specified repository
repository describe [number]		displays the name, location and type of the specified (or current) repository

When used with no arguments, repository (or "rep") will list the repositories currently within the PPM3 settings. The default repository is highlighted with a leading "*".

For example, when you enter:

rep

PPM3 will return something resembling this:

Repositories:
* 1. ActiveCD.
  2. ActiveState Package Repository

With the example above, entering rep set 2 will make the second repository (ActiveState Package Repository) the active repository. Adding another repository is done like this:

rep add <NAME> <LOCATION>

for example:

with "TheoryX5" being the name of the repository (for easy reference) and the location noted by the http location. If you were to enter rep again, you would see:

ppm>rep
Repositories:
  1. ActiveCD
* 2. ActiveState Package Repository
  3. TheoryX5

If you wanted to remove the ActiveCD repository, you would type rep del 1, to remove the 1st repository. To get more information on a particular repository, type res describe to get information on the current repository or res describe <number> to get information on a specific repository.

For example:

rep describe 2

will return:

Describing Repository 2:
    Name: ActiveState Package Repository
Location: http://ppm.ActiveState.com/cgibin/PPM/ppmserver.pl?urn:/PPMServer
    Type: PPMServer 2.00

Search

search		Displays list of previous searches
search <number>		Displays results of search <number>
search <glob pattern>		Performs a new search
search <field>=<glob pattern>		Searches for all packages matching the field - the available fields are ABSTRACT, NAME or TITLE, AUTHOR and VERSION - NAME is the default search setting
search *		Searches for all packages in the current repository

Search is used to look through the repository for packages. With PPM, you can perform powerful and detailed searches. Here are some examples:

COMMAND		MEANING		SAMPLE RESULTS
search CGI		Search for 'CGI' anywhere in the name		Apache-CGI CGI-Application CGI-ArgChecker
search CGI*		Search for 'CGI' at beginning of name		CGI-Application CGI-ArgChecker
search AUTHOR=smith		Search for all modules authored by someone with 'smith' in their name or email		Apache-ProxyPass Business-ISBN
search ABSTRACT=compress		Search for 'compress' anywhere in the abstract		Apache-GzipChain IO-Zlib
search CGI or ABSTRACT=web		Search for 'CGI' in the name, or 'web' in the abstract		CGI-XMLForm HTML-Clean
search XML and (parser or ABSTRACT=pars) and not XPath		Search for 'XML' in the name and either 'parser' in the name or 'pars' in the abstract, but not with 'XPath' in the name		XML-Node XML-Parser-EasyTree
search Data::Grove		PPM Server 3.0 repositories only: Search by module name, even if unrelated to the containing package		libxml-perl
search *		Browse all packages in the repository		Affix-Infix2Postfix AI-Fuzzy AI-NeuralNet-BackProp [... 1700+ more]

You can recall previous searches with the search <number> command, as PPM stores past searches.

Settings

settings		displays current options
settings <name>		displays the current setting of the given <name>
settings <name> <value>		sets <name> to <value>

The settings command gives you access to the different options that PPM has available. This can be modified to better suit your needs when using PPM.

Available settings:

NAME		VALUE		DESCRIPTION
case-sensitivity		"0" or "1"		If set to "1", searches and queries are case-sensitive.
download-chunksize		integer		If this is set to a positive, non-zero integer, PPM updates the status after each "integer" of bytes transferred during an install or upgrade.
follow-install		"0" or "1"		See install for details.
force-install		"0" or "1"		See install for details.
page-lines		integer		The number of lines to display per page. If a result has fewer than "page-lines", it will be printed directly to the screen regardless of the "pager" setting.
pager		path		The path to an external pager program used to page long displays. If left blank, the internal pager is used.
prompt-context		"0" or "1"		If "1", enables the prompt to change based on the current state of PPM, i.e. showing current target, query, etc.
prompt-slotsize		integer		If prompt-verbose is "1", this defines the width of each slot in the prompt. For instance, "4" means to use 4 character-wide slots.
prompt-verbose		"0" or "1"		If "0", uses numbers to represent the context in the prompt; much shorter. If prompt-context is set to "0", there will be no visible difference in the prompt-verbose settings.
sort-field		field		The field by which to sort search and query results. Valid fields are ABSTRACT, NAME or TITLE, AUTHOR and VERSION. Note: these fields are case-sensitive.
tempdir		path		A temporary directory into which packages are downloaded and expanded during "install" and "upgrade".
trace-file		path		A file to which PPM will write tracing information.
trace-level		integer		If 0 or negative, tracing is disabled. Any positive integer results in tracing information. Higher numbers mean more tracing information.

PPM options: If you are looking for old options understood by previous version of PPM, please see "help ppm_migration".

Note: When you assign a value, PPM saves its configuration. That means all values automatically persist across sessions. Also, setting names may be abbreviated to uniqueness. Instead of typing "case-sensitivity", you may type "case".

Target

target		Displays a list of targets
target <number>		Sets <number> as default target
target describe [number]		Describes the given (or default) target
target set <key> <val>		Sets the target's <key> to <val>

A target is a location where packages are installed, a directory where the packages you want to install are placed when they're downloaded from the repository. For example, entering:

target

will return:

Targets:
  1. ActivePerl 618
* 2. ActivePerl 630

This shows us that we have 2 targets available to us and that the second target (ActivePerl 630) is currently the default, as noted by the asterisk. The ability to choose different targets allows PPM to manage several installations of Perl from one command-line.

Note: Currently, PPM only supports Perl but will be expanded for other languages in the near future. You can have several versions of Perl on your system and each version will be recognized as a unique target by PPM.

Tree

tree		displays the dependency-tree of the default package
tree <number>		displays the dependency-tree of the given <number>
tree <range>		displays a <range> of dependency trees
tree <name>		displays the dependency-tree of the named package

The tree command is used to show the what is known as the "dependncy tree" of a given package. That is, a list of additional packages that are required to make a given package perform as expected. For example, entering:

tree SOAP-lite

would return something that looks like this:

====================
SOAP-Lite 0.46
    |__MIME-tools 5.316
    |   |__MailTools 1.15
    |   \__IO-stringy 1.216
    |
    \__MIME-Lite 2.105
====================

As we can see, SOAP-Lite would require 4 other packages to be installed with it.

When tree is called without a <name> or <number>, tree will return the dependency tree of the first package in the default search result. If there is no default search, you will be requested to use search to find a package.

Uninstall

uninst		Removes default installed package
uninst <number>		Removes installed package <number>
uninst <range>		Removes a <range> of installed packages
uninst <name>		Removes named installed package

Like the remove command, uninstall enables you to delete installed packages. This can be done by name or by the numerical listing of packages. Also like the remove command, uninstalling any packages will clear all previous query requests.

See Also: Remove

Upgrade

upgrade [*]		Lists upgrades available for all installed packages
upgrade <number>		Upgrades installed package <number>
upgrade <range>		Upgrades a <range> of installed packages
upgrade <package>		Upgrades the named <package>

There are several modifiers to the upgrade command, as well:

OPTION		DESCRIPTION
Install		Installs, rather than lists, available upgrades
Precious		Allows upgrading of "precious" packages
Force		See install
Follow		See install

By default, upgrade typed by itself only lists the available upgrades. To actually install all available upgrades, enter:

upgrade -install

To enable upgrading "precious" packages, type:

upgrade -install -precious

Version

Version

displays the installed PPM version number.