For a long time, the only easy way to submit CPAN Testers reports was CPANPLUS. The first automated smoke testers for CPAN were built upon it, like CPAN::YACSmoke and POE::Component::CPAN::YACSmoke.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote CPAN::Reporter, to bring CPAN Testers reporting to good-old CPAN.pm. Since then, some intrepid individuals have built automated smoke testers upon CPAN::Reporter, all writing their own programs to do so.
CPAN.pm itself added an experimental smoke command to test recent uploads, but it requires XML::LibXML and doesn't test distributions in isolation -- all tested distributions and their dependencies keep getting added to PERL5LIB until things explode.
Yesterday, I released the first, alpha version of CPAN::Reporter::Smoker to provide a better-behaved, more turn-key approach to smoke testing with CPAN::Reporter.
(... configure CPAN and CPAN::Reporter as usual ... ) $ perl -MCPAN::Reporter::Smoker -e start
This initial version still has some limitations (e.g. no developer versions smoked), but I'm ready for anyone interested to try it out and start sending feedback -- compliments, suggestions, or complaints all welcome.
-- dagolden
Re:beautiful!
dagolden on 2008-01-22T00:33:01
FYI -- 0.01_02 just uploaded to CPAN. Adds developer release support -- but needs a different index file to support it.
Thanks for trying it out.
-- dagolden
Re:email credentials?
dagolden on 2008-01-22T14:05:07
Not yet. CPAN::Reporter relies entirely on Test::Reporter for the transport mechanism and it has not yet been patched for it.
In various threads on cpan-testers-discuss, the consensus is that we want to move to HTTP transport. Ask (from the Perl NOC) is working on an API for us and transport work has stalled a bit waiting on that.
Overall, there are plans coming together for a broader reengineering of CPAN Testers to support multiple methods of transport. You can see the placeholder for the new stack at CPAN::Testers.
-- dagolden
Re:email credentials?
mw487 on 2008-01-22T17:08:32
Could you please make prominent note of any improvement to the transport mechanism, like a choice or using passwords?
I know I for one can not automatically test and submit because Verizon requires passwords. I think that requirement is true for many other carriers, and I think CPAN loses a lot of testers that way. I see a ton of testing on UNIX and its many variants, and little on Mac/Darwin or PeeCee.
I think this would really help with CPAN, and others seem to agree but it does not happen.
I know, I should do it myself. Well, then we will really wait until hell freezes over.
