NAME
    load - runtime require of both modules and files

VERSION
    This document describes version 0.01 of load, released Nov 24, 2002.

SYNOPSIS
            use load;

            load Data::Dumper;

            load some/script.pl;

            load thing;

DESCRIPTION
    "load" eliminates the need to know whether you are trying to require
    either a file or a module.

    If you consult "perldoc -f require" you will see that "require" will
    behave differently when given a bareword or a string.

    In the case of a string, "require" assumes you are wanting to load a
    file. But in the case of a bareword, it assumes you mean a module.

    This gives nasty overhead when you are trying to dynamically require
    modules at runtime, since you will need to change the module notation
    ("Acme::Comment") to a file notation fitting the particular platform you
    are on.

    "load" elimates the need for this overhead and will just DWYM.

Rules
    "load" has the following rules to decide what it thinks you want:

    *   If the argument has any characters in it other than those matching
        "\w" or ":", it must be a file

    *   If the argument matches only "[\w:]", it must be a module

    *   If the argument matches only "\w", it could either be a module or a
        file. We will try to find "file" first in "@INC" and if that fails,
        we will try to find "file.pm" in @INC. If both fail, we die with the
        respective error messages.

TODO
    *   Allow for "import()" arguments and version checks

    *   Allow a compile time equivalent of load (perhaps "use load LWP")

AUTHOR
    This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT
    This module is copyright (c) 2002 Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>. All
    rights reserved.

    This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

