Parse:...ckages(3pm)

✨ Parse::BACKPAN::Packages — the whole vibe ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to the Parse:...ckages(3pm) page, aka the User Contributed Perl Documentation entry for Parse::BACKPAN::Packages 💅 she's a Perl module, she's deprecated, and she still ate, so let's get into it.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

Parse::BACKPAN::Packages — she provides an index of BACKPAN. that's it, that's the job 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

here's the whole flex, copy-paste ready:

use Parse::BACKPAN::Packages;
my $p = Parse::BACKPAN::Packages->new();
print "BACKPAN is " . $p->size . " bytes\n";

my @filenames = keys %$p->files;

# see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File
my $file = $p->file("authors/id/L/LB/LBROCARD/Acme-Colour-0.16.tar.gz");
print "That's " . $file->size . " bytes\n";

# see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::Release
my @acme_colours = $p->releases("Acme-Colour");

my @authors = $p->authors;
my @acmes = $p->distributions_by('LBROCARD');

like, look at her go 🫶

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so first thing, and this is the important part bestie: Parse::BackPAN::Packages has been DEPRECATED. 😭 please go use the faster and more flexible BackPAN::Index instead. she's still iconic but she's retired, no cap.

so like, context: The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a very useful collection of Perl code. but to keep CPAN relatively small, authors of modules can delete older versions of modules so that CPAN only has the latest version of a module. BACKPAN is where those deleted modules get backed up 💾 it's basically a full CPAN mirror, except without the deletions. this module gives you an index of BACKPAN plus some handy functions ✨

also, the data is fetched from the net and cached for an hour. just so you know. 🕐

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👑 METHODS 👑

🎀 new

the constructor. she downloads a ~1M index file from the web and parses it, so yeah it might take a while to run:

my $p = Parse::BACKPAN::Packages->new();

by default it caches the file locally for one hour. and if you do not want that caching, you can pass in:

my $p = Parse::BACKPAN::Packages->new( { no_cache => 1 } );

slay. no notes. 💅

🎀 authors

the authors method returns a list of all the authors. it's meant so that you can pass them into the distributions_by method:

my @authors = $p->authors;

🎀 distributions

my $distributions = $p->distributions;

the distributions method returns an array ref of the names of all the distributions in BackPAN. yes it's an array ref, don't @ me, that's just how she is. 💜

🎀 releases

the releases method returns a list of objects representing all the different releases of a distribution:

# see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::Release
my @acme_colours = $p->releases("Acme-Colour");

🎀 distributions_by

the distributions_by method returns a list of distribution names representing all the distributions that an author has uploaded:

my @acmes = $p->distributions_by('LBROCARD');

🎀 file

the file method finds metadata relating to a file:

# see Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File
my $file = $p->file("authors/id/L/LB/LBROCARD/Acme-Colour-0.16.tar.gz");
print "That's " . $file->size . " bytes\n";

🎀 files

the files method returns a hash reference where the keys are the filenames of the files on CPAN and the values are Parse::BACKPAN::Packages::File objects:

my @filenames = keys %$p->files;

🎀 size

the size method returns the sum of all the file sizes in BACKPAN:

print "BACKPAN is " . $p->size . " bytes\n";

big number energy honestly 🌈

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⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>

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💜 COPYRIGHT 💜

Copyright (C) 2005-9, Leon Brocard

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🧚 LICENSE 🧚

This module is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

BackPAN::Index, CPAN::DistInfoname

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and that's the whole page bestie 🫶 this was perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-07-25, from Parse:...ckages(3pm) — go forth, index responsibly, and remember: deprecated but never forgotten 💀✨