Re: Which CPAN modules are available on platform X?

[Herkum]

This is not a good idea. CPAN is about platform independence( in as much as you get platform indepedence). As long as you have the proper libraries and a version of make, you should have something that will work for that platform.

Think of it this way, you are approaching this from a result perspective instead of a process/method. By focusing on the result (ie the Platform) you are create a lot of work to tell people that a module does not work. However you are rarely more than a make program and a few C libraries away from getting a module from working.

[szabgab]

I am not sure I follow you on this.
I would like to show which modules do work for sure as they come with the standard distribution of the given platform.

In many cases companies are reluctant to use Perl (or for that matter CPAN) as they don't know where to go for support. If the module actually comes from the supplier of the OS they are ok, they get all (or none) of the support of the supplier.

In the longer run I hope to encourage these suppliers to include more CPAN modules in their distro.

[Herkum]

There are basically two types of modules, Pure Perl and XS modules.

Pure Perl modules should work straight out of the box with the exception of dependencies.

XS modules needs make and the C libraries that are used for a particular module to be installed. The code is calling these libraries to do the actual work for that module.

If you are getting a module from a vendor supplied distribution, they are just pre-packaging the C libraries and copying the compile XS modules to a pre-determined location. Just because the distribution provider is doing the work for you does not mean that the module is unavailable for the platform.

All you need is make and the C libraries and you can do the same thing. Some platforms are harder to get certain modules compiled (*cough* Windows *cough*). However this is not a limitation of the platform but of the compiler.