Re: Minicpan size issue

[marto]

"Randal's article of year 2002 - the main purpose of minicpan is to burn all that into a single CD or some portable device. Please help me in that."

It isn't 2002 any more, this isn't going to happen. CPAN has grown. Rather than use your own code to do this I echo what AM has said, use CPAN::Mini.

If you are concerned about size of your minicpan you can use the options/filters to exclude things you don't need, for example:

• Language distributions (perl, parrot etc)
• Entire module hierarchy (for example ACME::, Tk, modules for a specific platform which you'll never use)
• Exclude modules from specific authors who you know pollute CPAN with garbage or modules that nobody but them will use

Not only will this save disk space, but your updates will take less time and use less bandwidth.

Update: Even without any of the above, a minicpan will easily fit on a standard single layer DVD, media is cheap enough these days. Also consider USB flash memory storage. I use the storage space on my phone.