============================== README.TXT ================================ Welcome to the Perl CDROM! This CDROM contains files from CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. CPAN aims to be The Perl archive, the only Perl archive you will ever need by definition: the C in CPAN obliges. At the moment CPAN is still very much under construction, there are many Perl related resources around in the Net and it will take some time before all of them converge to the CPAN. We apologize for any inconsistencies, corrupt files, constantly moving directories and all such nuisances. The basic principle of CPAN is being distributed. It would be quite frankly impossible to coordinate the numerous resources so that all the people contributing Perl material would enter their contributions into some central site. Therefore, most of the contents of the CPAN will be mirrored from other sites, CPAN will just pull all the various resources together and layer them together into a (hopefully) coherent whole. CPAN is organized and maintained by Jarkko Hietaniemi. You can contact him at cpan-adm@ftp.funet.fi. ========================================================================== Here is a list of some important files and directories: setup.exe Windows Installation Program for this CDROM view.exe File Browser/Uncompressor for MS-DOS utils/w16view.exe File Browser for Windows 3.1 utils/w32view.exe File Browser for Windows 95, Windows NT, and Win32s readme.txt The file you are currently reading docs/ Documentation regarding this CDROM docs/view.doc Documentation regarding VIEW.EXE 00_index.txt Top Level index of this disc 00_index.htm Index for this CDROM in HTML format 00global.txt Global index of this CDROM filename.txt Complete filenames listing of this CDROM doc_perl/ Perl documentation perl5/ Perl 5.0 ports/ Perl for non-Unix (DOS, Win NT/95 and etc...) systems scripts/ Various Perl scripts src/ Source code to Perl ========================================================================== Quick Start Instructions: Windows 3.1/NT: Go to "File" menu under program manager and choose Run. At the Command Line box, type: "D:\setup", assuming 'D' is your cdrom drive. This will install a group folder with icons for this cdrom. MSDOS Quick Start: Change to your CDROM drive and type "view". Example: C:\> D: D:\> view Windows 95: Insert the cdrom into the cdrom drive. This will automatically start a CDROM browser program called WinView. Alternatively, you can also install the program group and icon by selecting the "Start" menu and choosing "Run". At the Run box, type: "D:\setup", assuming 'D' is your cdrom drive. Using the 00_INDEX.HTM: We have included 00_index.htm files so the user may use a Web browser to view our disc. In order to view this disc using these 00_index.htm files, point your Web browser to the root level 00_index.htm file. For example, in Netscape/Mosaic: 1) Choose File/Open File (or File/Open Local File with Mosaic) 2) Choose your CDROM Drive under "Drives" 3) Select the 00_index.htm file 4) Click on OK The 00_index.htm files have been tested under Netscape 1.1 (Windows, Macintosh, and FreeBSD), Netscape 1.22 (Windows), Netscape 2.0b2, Mosaic 2.00 (Final Beta), and Microsoft Internet Explorer. ============================================================================ WinView and View: To make browsing the disc easier, we have included the program WinView for Windows, and the program VIEW for MSDOS on the CDROM. These programs allow you to page through index files, browse through directories on the CD, view documentations and uncompress/install the program(s) you want onto your hard disk. =========================================================================== Word Lookup: This CDROM also contains a full word index program in the /utils directory. Look in that directory for the binary for your system. From the root directory of the CDROM, invoke the binary with the word you want to search as an argument. The source code for the lookup program is also available in /utils/lookup_src if you do not find a binary for your system. The full word lookup program is also integrated into the MSDOS view program. It is accessed by the F7 key when running view.exe. ========================================================================== The home site for the CPAN archive is ftp.funet.fi. It is mirrored at the following registered sites: Africa South Africa ftp://ftp.is.co.za/programming/perl/CPAN/ Asia Japan ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/lang/perl/CPAN/ Taiwan ftp://dongpo.math.ncu.edu.tw/perl/CPAN/ Australasia Australia ftp://coombs.anu.edu.au/pub/perl/ ftp://ftp.mame.mu.oz.au/pub/perl/CPAN/ New Zealand ftp://ftp.tekotago.ac.nz/pub/perl/CPAN/ Europe Austria ftp://ftp.tuwien.ac.at:languages/perl/CPAN/ Czech Republic ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/Languages/Perl/CPAN/ Finland ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/ France ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/ ftp://ftp.pasteur.fr/pub/computing/unix/perl/CPAN/ Germany ftp://ftp.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pub/CPAN/ Greece ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/lang/perl/ the Netherlands ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/ Poland ftp://ftp.pk.edu.pl/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/ Portugal ftp://ftp.ci.uminho.pt/pub/lang/perl/ Slovenia ftp://ftp.arnes.si/software/perl/CPAN/ Sweden ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/ Switzerland ftp://ftp.switch.ch/mirror/CPAN/ UK ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/perl/CPAN/ ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/perl-CPAN/ North America British Columbia ftp://mango.softwords.bc.ca/pub/perl/CPAN/ California ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/perl/CPAN/ Florida ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/ Illinois ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/ Massachusetts ftp://ftp.delphi.com/pub/mirrors/packages/perl/CPAN/ Oklahoma ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/CPAN/ Texas ftp://ftp.sedl.org/pub/mirrors/CPAN/ ftp://ftp.metronet.com/pub/perl/ ftp://ftp.sterling.com/CPAN/ If you know of some Perl resources that do not seem to be in the CPAN archive, please contact the CPAN administrators at cpan-adm@ftp.funet.fi. If you have a reliable and well-connected ftp site where you can keep CPAN (about 170 MB currently), more mirror sites are welcome. Feel free to volunteer and contact the CPAN administrators describing your mirroring setup. Redundancy and fault-tolerance are good things for ftp archives like CPAN but virtues can be exaggerated. Mirroring software is available from the CPAN itself. If you want to set up a private/local mirror of CPAN but do not want to advertise it you do not need to contact the CPAN admistrators. You need to assess the public CPAN site which gives the best bandwidth for you. Mirroring software is available from the CPAN itself. ========================================================================== Funny file endings and what to do about them: The files in the CPAN have all kinds of curious endings (the parts after dots) and one must know what to do about them. The tools you need to run are marked like "this", inside double quotes, in the below list. Because CPAN is not just one place we cannot point you explicitly to the tools for your particular system, you have to locate them for your system, sorry. Try out whether your system already has them installed. If not, ask your local user support and/or search for them via the WWW search engines or the archie. Archives and/or Compressed/Packed .tar Tape ARchive (never mind the 'tape' part, historical reasons, disk will do just fine). Program called "tar" will help, "tar tvf foo.tar" will list the contents, "tar xvf foo.tar" will extract the contents. .Z compressed with "compress", "uncompress" to uncompress .gz compressed with "gzip", "gunzip" (or "gzip -d") to uncompress .uu UUencoded with "uuencode", "uudecode" to decode (note: the first line of the .uu file tells the name of the un-uuencoded file that will appear when you uudecode) .shar SHell ARchive: a self-extracting archive, extract with "unshar -c" or "unshar" or "sh". .zip PCish archive, "unzip -l foo.zip" to list the contents, "unzip -x foo.zip" to extract, "unzip -h" for help. .bin MacIntoshish archive, StuffIt should work. In UNIX a program called "mcvert" should work. .sit MacIntoshish archive, StuffIt should work. In UNIX a program called "unsit" should work. .hqx MacIntoshish archive, StuffIt should work. Code and/or Documentation .pl PerL: perl script, any Perl version .pm Perl Module: Perl 5 onwards code .pod Plain Old Documentation: perl documentation, quite readable as-is but if needed converters like pod2man, pod2html, exist in the Perl 5 distribution (CPAN/src/5.0/) .xs Perl eXtenSion code, please see the perlxs documentation coming with the Perl 5 distribution .man UNIX man(1) manual page format (nroff) .html HyperText Markup Language: the Web-speak .tex TeX or LaTeX formatted text .txt Text Graphics .xbm X11 BitMap, view with e.g. "xv" .gif Graphics Interchange Format, view with e.g. "xv" .ps PostScript: you probably have a laser printer that groks this and possibly have a previewer like ghostscript ("gs") that will display this on a screen .dvi DeVice Independent: TeX portable graphics display format: converters like "dvips" (DVI -> PostScript) and previewers like "xdvi" (X Window DVI) exist. But I have multiple endings... The endings are recursive, work your way down from the right. .tar.Z First "uncompress", then "tar". .tar.gz First "gunzip", then "tar". .uu.gz First "gunzip", then "uudecode". .shar.gz First "gunzip", then "unshar". .tgZ .tar.Z in disguise for DOS .tgz .tar.gz ditto Note 1: The GNU zip, "gunzip", "gzip -d", can uncompress both .Z and .gz gunzip foo.Z gunzip bar.gz Note 2: The GNU tar, often installed as "gnutar" or "gtar", can use "gunzip" if it can find it, one does not need to first uncompress and then "tar" but can instead do both in one sweep: gtar ztvf foo.tar.gz will list the contents of the gzipped foo.tar without having foo.tar in the disk. ========================================================================== Disclaimer: Walnut Creek CDROM makes no warranty about any file on this CDROM, including any written by Walnut Creek. You, not Walnut Creek CDROM, assume all risk of using any of the files on this CDROM. We reserve the right to limit any effort on our part to rectify problems with any file on this CDROM. We cannot accept any responsibility or liability in the event that using the software on this disc causes you grief, malfunction, data loss or thinning of the hair. As with any new software, make sure that you back up your system regularly so that you can recover from unforeseen crashes. Although we have made every attempt to examine every program on this disc, some non-shareware or public domain programs may have slipped by. If you find such a program on this disc, please notify us immediately so we can rectify the situation. Thanks. This CDROM comes with a full money back guarantee. If you are dissatisfied for any reason, you can return it for a full refund. ========================================================================== ASP: Walnut Creek CDROM is an approved vendor and associate member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. ========================================================================== Trademarks: All trademarks belong to their respective trademark holders. Third-Party applications/software/information are copyrighted by their respective owners. ========================================================================== Copyright: This CDROM copyright (c) 1996 Walnut Creek CDROM. All rights reserved. ========================================================================== This CDROM is unconditionally guaranteed. If you are dissatisfied for any reason, simply return it with a short note and your contact information for a full refund. Walnut Creek CDROM Suite 260 1547 Palos Verdes Mall Walnut Creek CA 94596 USA 1 800 786-9907 (Sales) [24 hours] +1 510 674-0783 (Sales) [24 hours] 1 800 731-7177 (Tech Support) [9 AM - 5 PM, Mon-Fri, PST] +1 510 603-1234 (Tech Support) [9 AM - 5 PM, Mon-Fri, PST] +1 510 674-0821 FAX [24 hours] Email: orders@cdrom.com (Orders) Email: info@cdrom.com (Information) Email: support@cdrom.com (Tech Support) WWW: http://www.cdrom.com/ (info, tech support, sales) FTP: ftp.cdrom.com =============================== README.TXT ==================================