backPAN modules still appear in CPAN search results?

[Dave Messina]

Hi,

I'm one of the core developers for the BioPerl project.

We've had a persistent problem with users grabbing outdated versions of
our distributions from CPAN. For example, the distribution
bioperl-1.4.tar.gz is deprecated and is on backpan, as seen here:

http://backpan.perl.org/authors/id/B/BI/BIRNEY/

and yet in a search for bioperl through the cpan command-line interface,
bioperl-1.4.tar.gz turns up almost at the top of the list:

cpan[2]> i /bioperl/
Bundle Bundle::BioPerl (CRAFFI/Bundle-BioPerl-2.1.8.tar.gz)
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-db-0.1.tar.gz
[..snip..]
16 items found


Is there a way to prevent our old distributions from appearing in CPAN
search results?

It would be fine, for example, if they were removed from CPAN and
BackPAN completely (we have them archived elsewhere).


Thanks for any guidance,
Dave

[Jan Dubois]

Post by Dave Messina
I'm one of the core developers for the BioPerl project.
We've had a persistent problem with users grabbing outdated versions of
our distributions from CPAN. For example, the distribution
http://backpan.perl.org/authors/id/B/BI/BIRNEY/
and yet in a search for bioperl through the cpan command-line interface,
cpan[2]> i /bioperl/
Bundle Bundle::BioPerl (CRAFFI/Bundle-BioPerl-2.1.8.tar.gz)
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-db-0.1.tar.gz
[..snip..]
16 items found
Is there a way to prevent our old distributions from appearing in CPAN
search results?

Yes, you have to delete them from CPAN (using the PAUSE interface).
The distribution will still stay on BackPAN but no longer be included
in CPAN search results.

Cheers,
-Jan

[Lars Dɪᴇᴄᴋᴏᴡ 迪拉斯]

Post by Dave Messina
in a search for bioperl through the cpan command-line interface,
[
]
It would be fine, for example, if they were removed from CPAN and
BackPAN completely (we have them archived elsewhere).

Nothing gets ever deleted from BackPAN, but that's not the problem anyway.
This distro is indexed as part of regular CPAN, not BackPAN:
<http://search.cpan.org/~birney/>

BIRNEY simply needs to delete the files through PAUSE:
<https://pause.perl.org/pause/authenquery?ACTION=delete_files>

If that is not possible, contact the PAUSE admins on the "modules" list:
<http://lists.perl.org/list/modules.html>

[(Andreas J. Koenig)]

Post by Dave Messina
Hi,
I'm one of the core developers for the BioPerl project.
We've had a persistent problem with users grabbing outdated versions
of our distributions from CPAN. For example, the distribution
http://backpan.perl.org/authors/id/B/BI/BIRNEY/
and yet in a search for bioperl through the cpan command-line
cpan[2]> i /bioperl/
Bundle Bundle::BioPerl (CRAFFI/Bundle-BioPerl-2.1.8.tar.gz)
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-db-0.1.tar.gz
[..snip..]
16 items found
Is there a way to prevent our old distributions from appearing in CPAN
search results?
It would be fine, for example, if they were removed from CPAN and
BackPAN completely (we have them archived elsewhere).

I'll show you how to debug this situation. I come to the same conclusion
as the other posters who suggested that bioperl-1.4.tar.gz be removed
from CPAN.

In the cpan shell you have the 'd' command (mnemonic: distribution) that
tells you something about a single uploaded file.

cpan> d BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution id = B/BI/BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
CPAN_USERID BIRNEY (Ewan Birney <***@sanger.ac.uk>)
CONTAINSMODS Bio::DB::GFF::Adaptor::memory_iterator Bio::Root::Global
UPLOAD_DATE 2003-12-23

The for debugging purposes interesting line is CONTAINSMODS. The two
modules listed there (Bio::DB::GFF::Adaptor::memory_iterator and
Bio::Root::Global) have since been removed from the bioperl distro, so
bioperl-1.4 is the last remaining copy of them. This is the reason why
bioperl-1.4 is still known to the index used by the cpan shell. If later
versions of bioperl would have kept the two modules, it would have
disappeared from the index.

That said, searching with 'i' is always only a second-best idea because
it combines the search for authors, modules, and distros. A better
targetting is achieved with the use of the 'm' command to search for a
module, like

cpan> m Bio::Perl
Module id = Bio::Perl
CPAN_USERID CJFIELDS (Christopher Fields <***@bioperl.org>)
CPAN_VERSION 1.006001
CPAN_FILE C/CJ/CJFIELDS/BioPerl-1.6.1.tar.gz
UPLOAD_DATE 2009-09-29
INST_FILE (not installed)

HTH,

[Dave Messina]

Thanks so much everybody for your help and thorough explanations — I really
appreciate it. I've contacted the authors of the old distros and asked them
to delete via PAUSE.


Dave




On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 06:46, Andreas J. Koenig <

Post by (Andreas J. Koenig)

Post by Dave Messina

On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:32:11 +0100, Dave Messina <

Hi,
I'm one of the core developers for the BioPerl project.
We've had a persistent problem with users grabbing outdated versions
of our distributions from CPAN. For example, the distribution
http://backpan.perl.org/authors/id/B/BI/BIRNEY/
and yet in a search for bioperl through the cpan command-line
cpan[2]> i /bioperl/
Bundle Bundle::BioPerl (CRAFFI/Bundle-BioPerl-2.1.8.tar.gz)
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution BIRNEY/bioperl-db-0.1.tar.gz
[..snip..]
16 items found
Is there a way to prevent our old distributions from appearing in CPAN
search results?
It would be fine, for example, if they were removed from CPAN and
BackPAN completely (we have them archived elsewhere).

I'll show you how to debug this situation. I come to the same conclusion
as the other posters who suggested that bioperl-1.4.tar.gz be removed
from CPAN.
In the cpan shell you have the 'd' command (mnemonic: distribution) that
tells you something about a single uploaded file.
cpan> d BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
Distribution id = B/BI/BIRNEY/bioperl-1.4.tar.gz
CONTAINSMODS Bio::DB::GFF::Adaptor::memory_iterator Bio::Root::Global
UPLOAD_DATE 2003-12-23
The for debugging purposes interesting line is CONTAINSMODS. The two
modules listed there (Bio::DB::GFF::Adaptor::memory_iterator and
Bio::Root::Global) have since been removed from the bioperl distro, so
bioperl-1.4 is the last remaining copy of them. This is the reason why
bioperl-1.4 is still known to the index used by the cpan shell. If later
versions of bioperl would have kept the two modules, it would have
disappeared from the index.
That said, searching with 'i' is always only a second-best idea because
it combines the search for authors, modules, and distros. A better
targetting is achieved with the use of the 'm' command to search for a
module, like
cpan> m Bio::Perl
Module id = Bio::Perl
CPAN_VERSION 1.006001
CPAN_FILE C/CJ/CJFIELDS/BioPerl-1.6.1.tar.gz
UPLOAD_DATE 2009-09-29
INST_FILE (not installed)
HTH,
--
andreas