Perl Best Practices

by Damian Conway, published by O'Reilly, 2005

Appendix D.1. Recommended Core Modules

base	Specifies the base classes of the current package at compile time
Benchmark	Provides utilities to time fragments of Perl code
Carp	Provides subroutines that warn or throw exceptions, reporting the problem from the caller's location
charnames	Enables the use of character names via \N{CHARNAME} string literal escapes
CPAN	Simplifies the downloading and installation of CPAN modules
Data::Dumper	Converts data structures into string representations of Perl code
Devel::DProf	Profiles Perl code
English	Defines readable English names for special variables
Fatal	Replaces functions and subroutines with equivalents that either succeed or throw an exception
File::Glob	Implements command-line filename globbing
File::Temp	Provides a safe and efficient way to create temporary files
Getopt::Long	Parses command-line options
IO::File	Creates I/O objects connected to files
IO::Handle	Acts as the base class for filehandles and objects
List::Util	Provides additional list-processing utilities missing from the core language
Memoize	Optimizes subroutines by caching their return values and reusing them
overload	Allows existing Perl operators to be redefined for objects of the current class
Scalar::Util	Provides additional scalar-processing utilities missing from the core language
strict	Prohibits unsafe uses of package variables, symbolic references, and barewords
Test::Harness	Executes and summarizes Perl test suites
Test::More	Provides more sophisticated utilities for writing tests
Test::Simple	Provides basic utilities for writing tests
Time::HiRes	Installs high-resolution versions of Perl's built-in time-keeping functions
version	Allows multipart versions to be specified as objects

Appendix D.2. Recommended CPAN Modules

Attribute::Types	Provides markers that confer type constraints on variables
Class::Std	Implements encapsulated class hierarchies
Class::Std::Utils	Provides utility functions for producing unique identifiers for any object, for creating anonymous scalars, and for extracting initialization values from a hierarchical initializer list
Config::General	Reads and writes almost any type of configuration file
Config::Std	Reads and writes simple configuration files, preserving their structure and comments
Config::Tiny	Reads and writes simple "INI" format configuration files with as little code as possible
Contextual::Return	Simplifies returning different values in different contexts
Data::Alias	Provides a comprehensive set of operations for aliasing variables
DateTime	Creates powerful date and time objects
DBI	Provides a generic interface to a large number of databases (see also the many DBD:: modules)
Devel::Size	Reports the amount of memory a variable uses
Exception::Class	Simplifies the creation of exception class hierarchies
File::Slurp	Permits efficient reading and writing of entire files
Filter::Macro	Converts a module into a macro that is expanded inline when the module is loaded
Getopt::Clade	Builds command-line parsers from an WYSIWYG declaration
Getopt::Euclid	Builds command-line parsers from command-line documentation
HTML::Mason	Builds web sites from modular Perl/HTML specifications
Inline	Enables Perl subroutines to be written in other programming languages
IO::InSitu	Allows a file to be modified in place with backup protection
IO::Interactive	Supplies handy subroutines for testing interactivity
IO::Prompt	Simplifies interactive prompting for user input
Lexical::Alias	Provides a smaller set of operations for aliasing variables
List::Cycle	Creates objects that can cycle through lists of values
List::MoreUtils	Provides additional list-processing utilities missing from the core language and the List::Util module
Log::Stdlog	Allows simple event logging via a special filehandle
Module::Build	Builds, tests, and installs Perl modules
Module::Starter	Creates the directory structures and starter files needed to develop a Perl module
Module::Starter::PBP	Creates the directory structures and starter files needed to develop a Perl module conforming to the guidelines presented in this book
only	Loads only specific versions of a module
Parse::RecDescent	Creates recursive-descent parsers
Perl6::Builtins	Provides updated versions of several Perl builtins, notably the system command, with extra features that will be standard in Perl 6
Perl6::Export::Attrs	Provides a simple and robust way to export subroutines from modules
Perl6::Form	Implements a replacement for Perl format statements
Perl6::Slurp	Opens a file and reads its contents in one statement
POE	Implements a portable multitasking and networking framework for Perl
Readonly	Creates read-only scalars, arrays, and hashes
Regexp::Autoflags	Automatically appends /xms to all regexes
Regexp::Assemble	Combines simple patterns into a single complex pattern
Regexp::Common	Generates many commonly needed regular expressions
Regexp::MatchContext	Defines "match variables" that aren't prohibitively expensive
Smart::Comments	Enables special comments for debugging and reporting the progress of non-interactive loops
Sort::Maker	Creates efficient sorting subroutines from simple descriptions
Sub::Installer	Installs subroutines in packages
Text::Autoformat	Automatically wraps and reformats plain text based on its content
Text::CSV	Provides tools to manipulate comma-separated value strings
Text::CSV::Simple	Simplifies parsing of CSV files
Text::CSV_XS	Provides faster 8-bit-clean tools to manipulate comma separated value strings
XML::Parser	Parses XML documents using the Expat library
YAML	Serializes Perl data structures to a compact and readable string representation