What is CPAN Search?

CPAN Search is a search engine for the distributions, modules, docs, and ID's on CPAN. It was conceived and built by Graham Barr as a way to make things easier to navigate. Originally named TUCS [ The Ultimate CPAN Search ] it was later named CPAN Search or Search DOT CPAN.

I'm having trouble connecting to search and I think it may be down, whom do I contact?

If you are having technical difficulties with the site itself, send mail to search-rt@perl.org and try to be as detailed as possible in your note describing the problem.

Why is "Module X" not listed in the Catalogue? Where do I send suggestions/feedback?

The Catalogue on the front page is based on the Perl 5 Module List and if there is a module you think should be included in a particular category, you may either use the feedback link on the top of the page or send mail to feedback@search.cpan.org with your suggestions.

I have uploaded a distribution to CPAN but queries on search.cpan.org do not find it.

• There is a delay between when a distribution is uploaded and when it is indexed, please try again in a few hours.
• search.cpan.org only indexes distributions that unpack to a single top-level directory, i.e. a distribution that unpacks into its own directory instead of dumping into the current working directory. We suggest the use of h2xs -cfn YOUR::MODULE to construct the framework and, once the module is complete, using make dist to create the distribution for upload to CPAN. See the h2xs, ExtUtil::MakeMaker, and perlmodlib documentation for more details.

Are there any other search engines for CPAN?

Yes.

http://kobesearch.cpan.org/

Randy Kobes' search engine at Winnipeg.

http://wait.cpan.org/

WAIT which searches all documents on CPAN

http://perldoc.perl.org/

perldoc.perl.org contains the core documentation for Perl version 5.8.6, in HTML and PDF formats.

Can I get the results to be output in XML format?

Yes, by adding a 'format=xml' in the URL like so: http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&format=xml&query=LWP This feature is NOT supported and it may change at any time so don't build applications to depend on its continued presence.

Can I get an RSS file of the recent modules for my news portal, etc?

Yes, we have an RSS file at http://search.cpan.org/rss/search.rss. If you use it, you must also provide a link back to CPAN Search at http://search.cpan.org/. Please send a note to feedback@search.cpan.org to inform us of the URL.

Do you keep statistics on which modules are most popular?

No. search.cpan.org is only one way to access what is on CPAN. Any statistics gathered by search.cpan.org would not be very representative because we have no way to gather statistics for downloads from all the worldwide CPAN mirrors

Where do the author's pictures come from and how do I set mine?

They come from the Gravatar associated with that author's cpan.org email address. To set yours, simply sign up at http://site.gravatar.com/signup using your cpan.org address. We cache the gravatars so give it a day or so to catch up.