Using Devel-Cover to get coverage reports

Question

I am new to Perl and I am trying to generate a coverage report for a Perl script I had. I followed the steps mentioned here to install Devel-Cover https://code.activestate.com/ppm/Devel-Cover/ and ran

perl -MDevel::Cover script

I get some coverage info and that message

    Pod coverage is unavailable.  Please install Pod::Coverage from CPAN.

Then running command cover to generate the report I get cover: Command not found. Tring to run cpan install Pod::Coverage as stated by the output but it fails. I am not sure what I am missing here. I tried using Devel::Coverage too using

 perl -d:Coverage script

But I got that output

Can't locate Devel/Coverage.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Devel::Coverage module) (@INC contains: /spiratech/tools/perllib /home/mmaher/.cache/activestate/02540130/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.32.0/x86_64-linux /home/mmaher/.cache/activestate/02540130/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.32.0 /home/mmaher/.cache/activestate/02540130/lib/perl5/5.32.0/x86_64-linux /home/mmaher/.cache/activestate/02540130/lib/perl5/5.32.0).
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.
%!s(<nil>)

and I couldn't find any instructions on how to install it. I am using Perl v5.32.0

Answer 1

Zeroth, ActiveState's PPM is old stuff. They have a new State Tool to handle all of that. Note that this is for using their Perl packages. If you aren't using ActiveState's perl, don't use their instructions.

First, you only need Pod::Coverage if you want to check that all of your public subroutines are documented. It's an optional feature.

Second, there's no install command to cpan. Just list the modules that you want or use the command line options. With no options, the -i (for install) is assumed:

$ cpan Pod::Coverage
$ cpan -i Pod::Coverage

Third, the -d switch for debugging assumes that you are loading a module under the Devel namespace. That's why -d:Coverage looks for Devel::Coverage, which it then cannot find.

To load any module that you like, you can use the -M switch. This takes the entire module name:

$ perl -MPod::Coverage

Lastly, once you install Devel::Cover, look where you installed cover and ensure that that directory is in your PATH.