/ 
Module-Installed-Tiny-0.006
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/ Module::Installed::Tiny

NAME

Module::Installed::Tiny - Check if a module is installed, with as little code as possible

VERSION

This document describes version 0.006 of Module::Installed::Tiny (from Perl distribution Module-Installed-Tiny), released on 2022-06-10.

SYNOPSIS

use Module::Installed::Tiny qw(module_installed module_source);

# check if a module is available
if (module_installed "Foo::Bar") {
    # Foo::Bar is available
} elsif (module_installed "Foo/Baz.pm") {
    # Foo::Baz is available
}

# get a module's source code, dies on failure
my $src = module_source("Foo/Baz.pm");

DESCRIPTION

To check if a module is installed (available), generally the simplest way is to try to require() it:

if (eval { require Foo::Bar; 1 }) {
    # Foo::Bar is available
}

However, this actually loads the module. There are some cases where this is not desirable: 1) we have to check a lot of modules (actually loading the modules will take a lot of CPU time and memory; 2) some of the modules conflict with one another and cannot all be loaded; 3) the module is OS specific and might not load under another OS; 4) we simply do not want to execute the module, for security or other reasons.

Module::Installed::Tiny provides a routine module_installed() which works like Perl's require but does not actually load the module.

This module does not require any other module except Exporter.

FUNCTIONS

module_installed

Usage:

module_installed($name [ , \%opts ]) => bool

Check that module named $name is available to load. This means that: either the module file exists on the filesystem and searchable in @INC and the contents of the file can be retrieved, or when there is a require hook in @INC, the module's source can be retrieved from the hook.

Note that this does not guarantee that the module can eventually be loaded successfully, as there might be syntax or runtime errors in the module's source. To check for that, one would need to actually load the module using require.

Options:

module_source

Usage:

module_source($name [ , \%opts ]) => str | (str, source_name)

Return module's source code, without actually loading it. Die on failure (e.g. module named $name not found in @INC).

In list context:

my @res = module_source($name);

will return the list:

(str, source_name)

where str is the module source code and source_name is source information (file path, or the @INC ref entry when entry is a ref).

Options:

  • die

    Bool. Default true. If set to false, won't die upon failure but instead will return undef (or empty list in list context).

  • find_prefix

    Bool. If set to true, when a module (e.g. Foo/Bar.pm) is not found in the fileysstem but its directory is (Foo/Bar/), then instead of dying or returning undef/empty list, the function will return:

    \$path

    in scalar context, or:

    (undef, \$path)

    in list context.

FAQ

How to get module source without dying? I want to just get undef if module source is not available.

Wrap in eval() or try/catch (Perl 5.34+):

my $src;
eval { $src = module_source $name };
# $src contains the module source or undef if not available

This is what module_installed() does.

HOMEPAGE

Please visit the project's homepage at https://metacpan.org/release/Module-Installed-Tiny.

SOURCE

Source repository is at https://github.com/perlancar/perl-Module-Installed-Tiny.

SEE ALSO

Module::Load::Conditional provides check_install which also does what module_installed does, plus can check module version. It also has a couple other knobs to customize its behavior. It's less tiny than Module::Installed::Tiny though.

Module::Path and Module::Path::More. These modules can also be used to check if a module on the filesystem is available. They do not handle require hooks, nor do they actually check that the module file is readable.

AUTHOR

perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>

CONTRIBUTING

To contribute, you can send patches by email/via RT, or send pull requests on GitHub.

Most of the time, you don't need to build the distribution yourself. You can simply modify the code, then test via:

% prove -l

If you want to build the distribution (e.g. to try to install it locally on your system), you can install Dist::Zilla, Dist::Zilla::PluginBundle::Author::PERLANCAR, and sometimes one or two other Dist::Zilla plugin and/or Pod::Weaver::Plugin. Any additional steps required beyond that are considered a bug and can be reported to me.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2022, 2021, 2020, 2016 by perlancar <perlancar@cpan.org>.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests on the bugtracker website https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Module-Installed-Tiny

When submitting a bug or request, please include a test-file or a patch to an existing test-file that illustrates the bug or desired feature.