NAME
    Parse::BACKPAN::Packages - Provide an index of BACKPAN

SYNOPSIS
      use Parse::BACKPAN::Packages;
      my $p = Parse::BACKPAN::Packages->new();
      print "BACKPAN is " . $p->size . " bytes\n";

      my @filenames = keys %$p->files;

      # see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File
      my $file = $p->file("authors/id/L/LB/LBROCARD/Acme-Colour-0.16.tar.gz");
      print "That's " . $file->size . " bytes\n";

      # see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::Distribution
      my @acme_colours = $p->distributions("Acme-Colour");

DESCRIPTION
    The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a very useful
    collection of Perl code. However, in order to keep CPAN relatively
    small, authors of modules can delete older versions of modules to only
    let CPAN have the latest version of a module. BACKPAN is where these
    deleted modules are backed up. It's more like a full CPAN mirror, only
    without the deletions. This module provides an index of BACKPAN and some
    handy functions.

METHODS
  new
    The constructor downloads a ~1M index file from the web and parses it,
    so it might take a while to run:

      my $p = Parse::BACKPAN::Packages->new();

  distributions
    The distributions method returns a list of objects representing all the
    different versions of a distribution:

      # see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::Distribution
      my @acme_colours = $p->distributions("Acme-Colour");

  file
    The file method finds metadata relating to a file:

      # see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File
      my $file = $p->file("authors/id/L/LB/LBROCARD/Acme-Colour-0.16.tar.gz");
      print "That's " . $file->size . " bytes\n";

  files
    The files method returns a hash reference where the keys are the
    filenames of the files on CPAN and the values are
    Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File objects:

      my @filenames = keys %$p->files;

  size
    The size method returns the sum of all the file sizes in BACKPAN:

      print "BACKPAN is " . $p->size . " bytes\n";

AUTHOR
    Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2005, Leon Brocard

    This module is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under
    the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
    CPAN::DistInfoname, Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File,
    Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::Distribution, Parse::CPAN::Packages.

