Distribution of modules, historically

[Mark Shaw]

Is there a reference somewhere that lists which modules were
released with which versions of perl?

Specifically, I'm facing a situation where Date::Calc - used in a
script which I am responsible for maintaining - is not present at
a customer's site, and he is unwilling to obtain it.

I've bypassed this particular problem simply by rewriting the
missing function locally, but I'd like a more general-purpose way
of predicting which modules will be available on a particular
customer's machines, given the perl version he has. Or, more to
the point, I can avoid the use of modules that weren't released
until later versions of perl, to make my scripts maximally portable
to the entire body of customers - E.G. obviously I should avoid Date,
but Getopt is probably safe.

(I know that if I absolutely have to know for a particular module, I
can always get a customer to check with 'perl -MFoo::Bar -e 1' - but
that's not really what I'm after.)

I checked the perl release history at perl.com, but it doesn't get
that granular.

Thanks!

(If replying by email, see below.)

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Is there a reference somewhere that lists which modules were
released with which versions of perl?

I usually look at the modules list at perl.com for respective release.

Specifically, I'm facing a situation where Date::Calc - used in a
script which I am responsible for maintaining - is not present at
a customer's site,

AFAIK, Date::Calc has never been included in the standard distribution.

I'd like a more general-purpose way
of predicting which modules will be available on a particular
customer's machines,

You'd better base your prediction on a requirement. For a script I
wrote, where portability is important, I require Perl 5.005 or later
with the modules included in the Perl distribution installed. To the
extent I'm using non-standard modules, or modules that were included as
standard only after version 5.005, I include them in the distribution of
my own script.

 

[Fabian Pilkowski]

Is there a reference somewhere that lists which modules were
released with which versions of perl?

Have a look at CPAN. Module::CoreList seems to be the one you (not?)
searching for.

http://search.cpan.org/~rclamp/Module-CoreList-1.98/lib/Module/CoreList.pm

Specifically, I'm facing a situation where Date::Calc - used in a
script which I am responsible for maintaining - is not present at
a customer's site, and he is unwilling to obtain it.

On my own system (Perl 5.8.6) the module Date::Calc isn't present.
According to this, Module::CoreList should tell you that Date::Calc
isn't a standard module yet.

regards,
fabian

 

[Mark Shaw]

* Mark Shaw schrieb:

Have a look at CPAN. Module::CoreList seems to be the one you (not?)
searching for.

http://search.cpan.org/~rclamp/Module-CoreList-1.98/lib/Module/CoreList.pm

Thank you, that's exactly what I need.

On my own system (Perl 5.8.6) the module Date::Calc isn't present.
According to this, Module::CoreList should tell you that Date::Calc
isn't a standard module yet.

Yes, that's correct. No wonder it's not at my customer's site.