How Is CPAN Organized? (Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition)

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2.2. How Is CPAN Organized?

CPAN materials are grouped into categories, including Perl modules, distributions, documentation, announcements, ports, scripts, and contributing authors. Each category is linked to related categories. For example, links to a graphing module written by an author appear in both the module and the author areas.

Since CPAN provides the same offerings worldwide, the directory structure has been standardized; files are located in the same place in the directory hierarchy at all CPAN sites. All CPAN sites use CPAN as the root directory, from which the user can select a specific Perl item. From the CPAN directory, you have the following choices:

Item	Description
CPAN.html	CPAN info page; some general information about CPAN
ENDINGS	Description of the file extensions, such as .tar, .gz, and .zip
MIRRORED BY	A list of sites mirroring CPAN
MIRRORING.FROM	A list of sites mirrored by CPAN
README	A brief description of what you'll find on CPAN
README.html	An HTML-formatted version of the README file
RECENT	Recent additions to the CPAN site
RECENT.html	An HTML-formatted list of recent additions
ROADMAP	What you'll find on CPAN and where
ROADMAP.html	An HTML-formatted version of ROADMAP
SITES	An exhaustive list of CPAN sites
SITES.html	An HTML-formatted version of SITES
authors	A list of CPAN authors
clpa	An archive of comp.land.perl.announce
disclaimer.html	Before you call your lawyer, read these details about CPAN content
doc	Various Perl documentation, FAQs, etc.
index.html	CPAN starting point in you prefer to browse CPAN from the web instead of FTP
indices	Everything that is indexed
misc	Miscellaneous Perl stuff such as Larry Wall quotes and gifts
modules	Modules for Perl Version 5
other-archives	Other things yet uncategorized
ports	Various Perl ports
scripts	Various scripts appearing in Perl books
src	The Perl sources from various versions

While most people who want to use Perl for Win32 should use ActivePerl from www.activestate.com, if you want to roll your own, you can get the current Perl source kit from the src directory and click on stable.tar.gz (or stable.zip, if you're building under Win32). If you want to stand on the cutting edge of Perl development, you should download devel.tar.gz (or devel.zip, if you're building under Win32). For ports to other systems, click on ports. The modules link is the one you want if you're looking for a Perl module. From there, you can get a full list of the modules or access the modules directly by author, by CPAN category, or by module name. (Section 2.4, "Getting and Installing Modules" later in this chapter talks about installing modules.) Click on doc for Perl documentation, FAQs, etc.