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From: "Dave Korn" <dk AT artimi DOT com>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: perl: cpan module's interactive mode fails
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:02:56 +0100
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In-Reply-To: <41235C84.7060300@gtt-technologies.de>
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X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Aug 2004 18:02:56.0921 (UTC) FILETIME=[9737D090:01C4854D]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner  On Behalf Of Stephan Petersen
> Sent: 18 August 2004 14:41

> Hi guys,
> 
> I just ran "perl -MCPAN -e shell" and tried to install Bundle::LWP.
> 
> But when it does "Scanning cache /home/sp/.cpan/build for sizes", see 
> below, it chokes with (see output below):
> 
> /usr/bin/tar: Skipping to next header
> /usr/bin/tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
> gzip: stdin: invalid compressed data--crc error
> gzip: stdin: invalid compressed data--length error
> 
> 
> I removed all ~/.cpan stuff, tried it again, no difference.
> 
> Does anybody have an idea what's going on?


  I've sometimes seen those error messages.  In my case, they've always been
caused by attempting to on-the-fly-gunzip and untar by using "tar -xz" a
file that is in fact just an ordinary tar and has already been gunzip'ed
separately.

  My WAG is that this is happening because there are some ftp servers that
if you download a .gz file from them, they uncompress it in transmission.
Yes, I know, that sounds like a really daft idea and in fact it is: "Oh,
this file has been compressed to make it quicker to transmit: so let's
uncompress it at the server and send the whole thing to the client".  D'oh.
A nice example of a feature that seems useful at first sight but is in fact
not something you're ever likely to want to actually do in practice........

  So, my first suggestion would be to take a quick look at the file with cat
or less and see if it's already been gunziped and just looks like a plain
(ascii text) tar file.  That would diagnose it; how you'd go about fixing it
(remove the .gz from the extension?  recompress it yourself?  persuade the
CPAN install process to download it from a less 'helpful' ftp site?) is
another question.

    cheers, 
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....


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