/ 
cpancd-1.01
/ cpancd

NAME

cpancd - generate an ISO image for a CPAN snapshot to burn on a CD

SYNOPSIS

sample [options] CPAN

Options:
  -output XXX		the name of the ISO image (default: cpan.iso)
  -volid XXX		a volume id (default: CPANYYYYMMDD)
  -ident		show identification
  -help		brief help message
  -man                 full documentation
  -verbose		verbose information

DESCRIPTION

cpancd creates an ISO image to burn on a CD. It is intended to be used to create CD-rommable snapshots of CPAN.

It generates a subset of all CPAN files, by omitting older versions of packages.

Currently (April 2001) the size of CPAN is about 880Mb, the generated subset just over 630Mb.

cpancd must be run with one argument, the CPAN main directory. That is the directory that contains files like CPAN.html and MIRRORED.BY,

THE EXCLUSION PROCESS

cpancd processes all the files on CPAN, and analyzes files with names in the form package-nn.nn.ext. If multiple packages with different version numbers are detected, only the one with the highest number is retained (by writing the others to the exclusion list).

Recognized extensions are ((tar(\.(z|Z|gz|bz2)))|readme|zip|tgz).

The exclusion process is not very aggressive, but currently sufficient to reduce the size of the ISO image to fit an ordinary CD.

OPTIONS

-output image

The name of the ISO image file. Default is cpan.iso in the current directory which may not be a good idea unless you have a lot of free space there.

-volid id

An identification (volume ID) for the CD. Default is CPAN with a timestamp.

-help

Print a brief help message and exits.

-ident

Prints program identification.

-verbose

More verbose information.

-trace

More verbose information, including the verbose information from mkisofs.

file

Input file(s).

ENVIRONMENT

This program requires the mkisofs program. This is part of the cdrtools package widely available. See, for example, ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord .

A temporary directory is created in /var/tmp, or wherever your TMPDIR environment variable points to.

WARNING FOR NON-UNIX USERS

This program has been tested on Unix only. Since CPAN makes extensive use of case sensitive filenames and symbolic links it may not be feasible to make CPAN CDs on systems that do not fully support these features.

The ISO image that is generated conforms to the ISO9660 standard, with rationalized Rock Ridge extensions and a Joliet root. Note, however, that the symbolic links will show as empty (and useless) files unless your system uses the Rock Ridge extensions.

AUTHOR

Johan Vromans <jvromans@squirrel.nl>

COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

This program is Copyright 2001 by Johan Vromans. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License or the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

If you do not have a copy of the GNU General Public License write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.