Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter

CPAN::Reporter has had over 20 releases since I first announced it here on August 26. Now anyone with an up-to-date CPAN.pm can contribute to CPAN Testers -- no smoke server needed.

Some of the major developments since August:

Full CPAN.pm support since version 1.88; CPAN::Reporter added to Bundle::CPANxxl
Added interactive configuration direct from CPAN.pm with: 'o conf init test_report'
Added customization of action prompt defaults based on the test report grade. E.g., CC author on FAIL, but not otherwise
Distributions that fail tests but are missing prerequisites are marked as NA instead of FAIL
Test report includes prerequisite versions, environment variables, special Perl variables, and installed versions of the toolchain (e.g. ExtUtils::MakeMaker)
Added support for old style "test.pl" files

Becoming a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter is easy. From the CPAN shell prompt:

cpan> install CPAN::Reporter
cpan> reload cpan
cpan> o conf init test_report
cpan> o conf commit
[download]

Future development work on CPAN::Reporter will include better handling for interrupted tests and better integration with CPAN.pm to be able to report failures in Makefile.PL and "make" even before tests are run.

Come be a CPAN Tester today!

-xdg

Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

Comment on Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter Select or Download Code

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Re: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by cog (Parson) on Nov 07, 2006 at 15:15 UTC
If I could, I'd give you all my votes on this particular node :-) ++ for you :-) Come be a CPAN Tester today! Just did ;-)	[reply]
Re: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by rinceWind (Monsignor) on Nov 07, 2006 at 17:14 UTC
I will certainly give this a go on my home linux rig. Does it need to have a working MTA? That bit me the last time I attempted to do this. I have a "virgin perl" 5.8.8 environment and a blead perl 5.9.4 that I created specially for the purpose. -- Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree. Your powers of persuasion will set them all free, So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? (Missquoting Janis Joplin)	[reply]
Re^2: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by xdg (Monsignor) on Nov 07, 2006 at 17:54 UTC
Does it need to have a working MTA? It relies on Test::Reporter, but I think that if you have Net::SMTP, it will use that and make a direct connection to the perl.org mail servers. If your ISP firewalls outgoing email, you'll need to set a CPAN::Reporter configuration option to point to your ISP's mail server instead. Please give it a try and let me know if that works for you. -xdg Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.	[reply]
Re^3: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by rinceWind (Monsignor) on Nov 08, 2006 at 09:16 UTC
I've discovered that you're missing a dependency on Module::Build. My virgin perl did not have this installed, and tests t/5_test_report_ died. Once Module::Build is installed, the problem goes away. -- Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree. Your powers of persuasion will set them all free, So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? (Missquoting Janis Joplin)	[reply]
Re^4: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by xdg (Monsignor) on Nov 08, 2006 at 10:33 UTC
Re: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by tsee (Curate) on Nov 08, 2006 at 10:40 UTC
You forgot to mention one thing: It is important that the cpan testers reports have the verbose test output. Otherwise, the authors will have a hard time interpreting the results and fixing their bugs. I have even heard a prominent CPAN contributor say that testers reports without verbose output are useless. You can turn on verbose test output using the environment variable HARNESS_VERBOSE. After following xdg's steps, just run cpan as follows: `HARNESS_VERBOSE=1 cpan` [download] Or on win32: `set HARNESS_VERBOSE=1 cpan` [download] Best regards, Steffen	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by xdg (Monsignor) on Nov 08, 2006 at 15:09 UTC
I have even heard a prominent CPAN contributor say that testers reports without verbose output are useless I'm a little surprised by this comment. Tests reports, even without verbosity, include the details of failing tests, such as its label, line number, and any diagnostic output. My own experience developing CPAN::Reporter and other modules is that almost any test report is helpful. The exceptions have been some issues with CPANPLUS where no details are provided, which I think had to do with Module::Build support. (I don't know if that has been addressed, and frankly, now that CPAN.pm supports Module::Build and does test reporting, I've stopped paying attention to CPANPLUS.) Nevertheless, verbose reporting is an interesting idea and I'll put it on the Todo list to add as a configuration option. -xdg Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.	[reply]
Re: Become a CPAN Tester with CPAN::Reporter by Scott7477 (Chaplain) on Nov 13, 2006 at 23:02 UTC
One thing that I think is useful to note here is that docs for CPAN::Reporter state that "Because cpan-testers uses a mailing list to collect test reports, it is helpful if the email address provided is subscribed to the list. Otherwise, test reports will be held until manually reviewed and approved. Subscribing an account to the cpan-testers list is as easy as sending a blank email to cpan-testers-subscribe@perl.org and replying to the confirmation email." I had installed several modules using CPAN and checked CPAN Testers and wasn't seeing any sign of my test reports. Frustration was the result-until I decided to RTFM. So sign up for the mailing list: it'll save people some work and you'll get confirmation that you are actually contributing.	[reply]


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