CPAN

Table 1 1. Module List DSLIP codes (Continued)

P Public License

p

Standard Perl license (Artistic and GPL hybrid)

g

GPL (GNU General Public License)

l

LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License)

b

The BSD License

a

Artistic license

o

Other (but distribution allowed without restrictions)

The biggest problem with the Module List is that it is incomplete, although 

this situation may be improved in the future.

Alternative Browsing Methods

An alternative to browsing the Module List is the  modules by  listings. You can 

browse modules grouped by author, by category, by name, and by recentness. The 

advantage to this method is that it deals directly with the directory structure of 

CPAN and as a result all available modules are accessible.

By Author

Upon entering the Modules By Author view, you see a directory listing with what 

appears to be a directory for every author on CPAN. This is misleading the list 

you're seeing is a relic of the past. When CPAN started every author received an 

entry in this directory, but there's a limit to how many subdirectories a single 

directory can efficiently contain. These days there are far too many authors on 

CPAN to house them all in one directory, so CPAN switched to a multilevel hier 

archy for storing author directories, which is used today.

To see the real list, open the file 00whois.html. There you'll find three pieces of 

information for each author his or her CPAN ID, his or her full name, and his or 

her e mail address. A CPAN ID is a unique identifier for CPAN authors I'll show 

you how to apply for one in Chapter 5. If you click an author's CPAN ID,

5

 you'll be 

taken to that author's CPAN directory, which contains all the modules he or she 

has uploaded to CPAN. Some authors have registered Web sites for themselves, 

and you can click their full names to visit these.

5. Some CPAN authors do not have CPAN directories. Their IDs will not be links.

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