[% title="Frequently asked questions" description="" %] [% INCLUDE incl/header.tt %] It is hard to write a FAQ before the web site is launched.

- What is CPAN Digger?
- What search types are available?
- Where is the source code of CPAN Digger?
- What is META.yml and why is it missing?
- Why is the license missing?
- Examples not found?
- Other search engines for CPAN?
- What is author.json

- What is CPAN Digger?
  CPAN Digger is a place to find and analyze information about CPAN modules, distributions and authors. Some of the features:
  - /dist/Distribution-Name (including links to the examples)
  - /m/Module::Name
  - Authors: /id/PAUSEID
  - We parse the 00whois.xml file.
  - The author.json file is (partially) inculded in the author page at /id/PAUSEID
  - Plan: Fetch the avatars and display them.
  - Syntax highlighted source code. Each module is sent through a PPI based syntax highlighter. See the "syn" links on the module pages. The syntax highlighted code sould provide easy navigation in the source code. Just as an IDE would...
  - Minimum Required perl version For each module we check the mimimum required version using Perl::MinimumVersion of modules and setting minimum version of package. We also collect the version markers in the version.txt file of each distribution. See them linked from the /dist pages.
  - Perl::Critic
    Each module is processed by Perl::Critic at level 4. The results are currently collected and saved in the critic.txt file of each distribution. See the /dist/Distro-Name page for a link.
    It is done mostly to promote the use of Perl::Critic.
    In the future the processing will be fine tuned and the results will be linked the syntax highlighted source code.
  - Planned: Needs compiler? The parser will try to guess if the distribution only contains Perl code or if there is a need for a compiler. issue 17
  - Planned dependency analysis:
    Licenses of all the dependencies: issue 15
- What search types are available?
  The Digger is primarily NOT a search engine. It provides 3 search types:
  - All: a generic search that is not particularily strong. Yet
    It currently tries to match a Module::Name. If it does not match then it falls back to the Distribution mode:
  - Distribution: expects strings like some-distro and tries to find a CPAN distribution that contains some-distro in its name
  - Author: tries to match the PAUSEID of an author
- Where is the source code of CPAN Digger?
  It is on Github. Go fork it.
- What is META.yml and why is it missing?
  The META.yml file needs to be supplied by the developer of the module as part of the distribution. Modern tool will be able to automatically generate it when packaging the distribution. (TODO: describe how or link to article)
- Why is the license missing?
  The META.yml file can optionally contain a license field. Older distributions don't have META.yml file or don't have this field yet. Newer distributions can make sure that the license field in the META.yml file is included. (TODO: describe or link to how.)
- Examples not found?
  Some CPAN distributions add examples for usage in the eg/ or examples/ directory in the distribution. Apparently you just looked at a package that does not have either of those directories.
- Other search engines for CPAN?
  There are several search engines and helper sites for CPAN: search.cpan.org by Graham Bar
  Kobesearch by Randy Kobes
  MetaCPAN by Olaf Alders
  Frepan by Tokuhiro Matsuno
  grep.cpan.me by David Leadbeater
  Request Tracker for CPAN
  CPAN Testers
  Dependencies and test
  CPAN Ratings
  AnnoCPAN
  p3rl.org
  CPAN::Forum
  CPANTS
  There is also a separate web site to look up the core Perl documentation at perldoc.perl.org by Jon Allen.
- What is author.json?
  See Expanding Your Author Info in the MetaCPAN and see instructions how to upload your author meta data.

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