What is standard?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

I'm distributing a Perl CGI program, and the system requirements
include "Perl 5.005 or later with the modules included in the Perl
distribution installed". The idea is to include such CPAN modules that
my program uses, but that you cannot count on are available at all web
hosting providers, together with my program.

My problem is: Where do I find the information about which modules
that are Perl "standard" or "core"?

An example: My program uses MIME::Base64 and MIME::QuotedPrint. Are
they core/standard?

According to
http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/pod/perlmodlib.html#Standard-Modules
they are not.

But is that the right place to look? When I check the Perl
distribution file, they are included in the 'ext' directory.

Does "standard"/"core" differ from what's included in the Perl
distribution? And, if so, is it advisable to presuppose that the
hosting providers have installed everything in the Perl distribution
file...?

Any comments that might help me put the pieces together would be
appreciated.

 

[Steve Grazzini]

My problem is: Where do I find the information about which modules
that are Perl "standard" or "core"?

Look at the standard distribution.

For example, to see what's bundled with 5.005_03:

http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl5.005_03.tar.gz

An example: My program uses MIME::Base64 and MIME::QuotedPrint. Are
they core/standard?

They are now. They weren't in 5.005_03 or 5.6.1.

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Look at the standard distribution.

For example, to see what's bundled with 5.005_03:

http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl5.005_03.tar.gz


They are now. They weren't in 5.005_03 or 5.6.1.

Okay.. Thanks, Steve. Does that mean that, in order to determine
whether a particular module is "standard", there is no reason to
distinguish between what's included in the 'lib' and the 'ext'
directory in the Perl distribution file? Is it reasonable to assume
that a web hosting provider, who are providing a certain Perl version,
typically has installed all the modules in both 'lib' and 'ext'?