Zef::Client requires a cache parameter

[zoffixznet]

I've recently started getting this weird failure. It generally happened after first installing a module (going from a clean perl 6 install). Now, I built 2016.04 rakudo with rakudobrew, installed zef on it and it threw the error right away:

$ zef install Inline::Perl5 DBIish Config::From
Zef::Client requires a cache parameter
  in method new at sources/1DC0BAA246D0774E7EB4F5119C6168E0D8266EFA (Zef::Client) line 40
  in sub get-client at /home/zoffix/.rakudobrew/moar-2016.04/install/share/perl6/site/sources/A9948E7371E0EB9AFDF1EEEB07B52A1B75537C31 (Zef::CLI) line 449
  in sub MAIN at /home/zoffix/.rakudobrew/moar-2016.04/install/share/perl6/site/sources/A9948E7371E0EB9AFDF1EEEB07B52A1B75537C31 (Zef::CLI) line 83
  in block <unit> at /home/zoffix/.rakudobrew/moar-2016.04/install/share/perl6/site/resources/CF513BDDDD2453EA3D268ED1EE1B9E91EECA9DAC line 1

[ugexe]

I cannot reproduce, so my guess is zef is choosing a config that may not be what someone would expect. Specifically for this case its looking for a config file that is json, slurping it into a hash, and using the %hash<StoreDir> value for a default cache parameter

Zef::Config.find-config()
The order used is:

1. $cwd/config.json
2. $home/.zef/config.json
3. $cwd/.zef/config.json
4. %?RESOURCES<config.json>

As I cannot reproduce, could you run zef --help? The section under FLAGS, titled CONFIGURATION, will list the path of the file it will use for the config. Mine shows:
CONFIGURATION /home/nickl/.rakudobrew/moar-2016.04/install/share/perl6/site/resources/1F29702A476391AE0318E060ADE9CA2BB2B0F993.json

If this file does exist, could you verify it contains a "StoreDir" key and value?

If it does not exist or it shows nothing (I doubt this, as there should be a slurp related error occuring first), my guess would be %?RESOURCES<config.json> is possibly returning a bad path. I'd have to see what you are getting by adding the following to Zef::Config.find-config():

say "config.json".IO.perl;
say ($*HOME // $*CWD).child('.zef').child('config.json').perl;
say %?RESOURCES<config.json>.perl

Clearly better errors and debugging output are needed here 😦

[zoffixznet]

Aha! I actually had an unrelated file named config.json (config for my own module) in the directory I was running zef in. False alarm. Sorry.