cpanpm
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andk
Script exit depends on "last line", does not take in consideration recommends
If cpan Foo pulls in a recommend reqiures of Bar which fails to install AND it happens to be the last thing CPAN.pm is processing, the result will be a non-zero exit due to this.
An log of a session exhibiting the problem can be seen in the attachment here.
Many thanks to @xdg for quickly finding this.
At the current level of technology, that's just how it's going to be. I consider this the designed behavior.
Could you explain your reasoning for this behaviour being as designed? I do not see how the failure to install recommended prereqs ought to constitute an overall failure.
https://metacpan.org/pod/CPAN::Meta::Spec#Phases defines 'recommended' prereqs.
The script is really stupid. It simply watches output without understanding what CPAN.pm is doing. If anything in the output looks like it indicates failure, it considers it a failure. It doesn't know what CPAN.pm is doing or why it is doing it. I don't think the documentation in the script promises anything different. It exits with 8 if a module fails to install. That is true for this issue; a module did fail to install.
If you wanted something different, you need a completely different system. This was virtually the entire initial motivation of CPANPLUS.
I'd mark this issue as something like "enhancement" or "help wanted", but it is not a bug.
It's not a bug in the sense of the original intent of the script; it is, however, a bug in the sense of what the CPAN::Meta specification says how cpan clients ought to intepret prerequisite data of a distribution.
I'm content to label this "unlikely to be fixed" -- that is, relief will be felt through the retirement of the client and replacement with another, rather than through an update of this one.