Grab a distribution tarball from CPAN

This is another "CPAN utils" post (sort of) but this time around resolving and fetching tarballs 😃

1. cpan -g
2. sourcepan
3. cpan-get
4. MetaCPAN::Client + HTTP::Simple

cpan -g

First let's start by using the venerable CPAN:

$ cpan -g Parser::MGC 
Checking Parser::MGC
Reading '/home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Sat, 15 May 2021 16:41:03 GMT
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v6.53)
Fetching with LWP:
http://www.cpan.org/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v1.30)
Reading '/home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz'
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.102)
............................................................................DONE
Fetching with LWP:
http://www.cpan.org/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Reading '/home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz'
  Database was generated on Tue, 18 May 2021 12:29:03 GMT
............................................................................DONE
Debug(CPAN,CPAN.pm,703,[Index,Index.pm,483,all_objects]): mgr[CPAN=HASH(0x563dc712a9e8)] class[CPAN::Module]
Debug(CPAN,CPAN.pm,703,[Index,Index.pm,483,all_objects]): mgr[CPAN=HASH(0x563dc712a9e8)] class[CPAN::Bundle]
Debug(CPAN,CPAN.pm,703,[Index,Index.pm,483,all_objects]): mgr[CPAN=HASH(0x563dc712a9e8)] class[CPAN::Distribution]
Fetching with LWP:
http://www.cpan.org/modules/03modlist.data.gz
Reading '/home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/sources/modules/03modlist.data.gz'
DONE
Writing /home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/Metadata
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl/5.26/App/Cpan.pm line 1186.
Downloaded [Parser::MGC] to []

sourcepan

Then look at the more developer oriented sourcepan:

$ sourcepan Acme::LSD
Reading '/home/tduponchelle/.local/share/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Tue, 18 May 2021 12:29:03 GMT
CONTRA/Acme-LSD-0.04.tar.gz => Acme-LSD-0.04.tar.gz

sourcepan --git could even init for you a repository...

cpan-get

Continue with the newborn cpan-get:

$ cpan-get Test::More
'http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/E/EX/EXODIST/Test-Simple-1.302183.tar.gz' was downloaded.

MetaCPAN::Client + HTTP::Simple

And finish by a mixed MetaCPAN API client + an HTTP client (with no error handling at all 💀):

# Init MetaCPAN client
use MetaCPAN::Client;
my $mcpan = MetaCPAN::Client->new();

# Resolve url
my $download_url = $mcpan->download_url('ExtUtils::MakeMaker');

# Download
use HTTP::Simple;
getstore($download_url->{data}->{download_url}, "EUMM.tgz");

(Should be possible fetch with MetaCPAN::Client, if you know how, please comment)