NAME
    CPAN::WWW::Testers::Generator - Download and summarize CPAN Testers data

SYNOPSIS
      % cpanstats
      # ... wait patiently
      # ... then use cpanstats.db, an SQLite database

DESCRIPTION
    This distribution was originally written by Leon Brocard to download and
    summarize CPAN Testers data. However, much of the original code has been
    rewritten to use the CPAN Testers Statistics database generation code. This
    now means that all the CPAN Testers sites including the Reports site, the
    Statistics site and the CPAN Dependencies site, can use the same database.

    This module downloads articles from the cpan-testers newsgroup, generating or
    updating an SQLite database containing all the most important information. You
    can then query this database, or use CPAN::WWW::Testers to present it over the
    web.

    A good example query for Acme-Colour would be:

      SELECT version, status, count(*) FROM reports WHERE
      distribution = "Acme-Colour" group by version, status;

    To create a database from scratch can take several hours, as there are now over
    1.5 million articles in the newgroup. As such updating from a known copy of the
    database is much more advisable. If you don't want to generate the database
    yourself, you can obtain the latest official copy (compressed with gzip) at
    http://devel.cpantesters.org/cpanstats.db.gz

INTERFACE
  The Constructor
    * new
        Instatiates the object CPAN::WWW::Testers::Generator.

  Methods
    * logfile

        Accessor to set/get where the logging information is to be kept. Note 
	that if this not set, no logging occurs.

    * database

        Accessor to set/get the database full path.

    * directory

        Accessor to set/get the directory where the database is to be created.

    * generate

        Starting from the last recorded article, retrieves all the more recent
	articles from the NNTP server, parsing each and recording the articles 
	that either upload announcements or reports.

    * insert_article

        Inserts the components of a parsed article into the database.

DATABASE SCHEMA

    The database schema is very straightforward, one main table with several
    index tables to speed up searches. The main table is as below:

      +--------------------------------+
      | cpanstats                      |
      +----------+---------------------+
      | id       | INTEGER PRIMARY KEY |
      | state    | TEXT                |
      | postdate | TEXT                |
      | tester   | TEXT                |
      | dist     | TEXT                |
      | version  | TEXT                |
      | platform | TEXT                |
      | perl     | TEXT                |
      | osname   | TEXT                |
      | osvers   | TEXT                |
      | archname | TEXT                |
      +----------+---------------------+

HISTORY
    The CPAN testers was conceived back in May 1998 by Graham Barr and Chris 
    Nandor as a way to provide multi-platform testing for modules. Today there 
    are over 1.5 million tester reports and more than 100 testers each month
    giving valuable feedback for users and authors alike.
      
BECOME A TESTER
    The objective of the CPAN Testers is to test as many of the distributions 
    on CPAN as possible, on as many platforms as possible. The ultimate goal is
    to improve the portability of the distributions on CPAN, and provide good 
    feedback to the authors.

    Whether you have a common platform or a very unusual one, you can help by 
    testing modules you install and submitting reports. There are plenty of 
    module authors who could use test reports and helpful feedback on their 
    modules and distributions. 

    If you'd like to get involved, please take a look at the CPAN Testers Wiki,
    where you can learn how to install and configure one of the recommended 
    smoke tools.

    For further help and advice, please subscribe to the the CPAN Testers 
    discussion mailing list.

    CPAN Testers Wiki - http://wiki.cpantesters.org
    CPAN Testers Discuss mailing list
    - http://lists.cpan.org/showlist.cgi?name=cpan-testers-discuss

AUTHOR
    Original author:    Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>   (C) 2002-2008
    Current maintainer: Barbie       <barbie@cpan.org>   (C) 2008

LICENSE
    This code is distributed under the same license as Perl.
