http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=869159


in reply to Re^3: CPAN reverse dependencies
in thread CPAN reverse dependencies

I understand your point. What I want to stress here, is that the links provided all ask the end-user to install a huge amount of modules (dependencies) and (mostly) also want to run a local http service to provide the answer to the original quest: reverse dependency tracking. What module uses/depends-on this one.

Currently, the only publicly available service that doesn't need to install and run an awful lot of local things that provides this information is CPANTS, which is down most of the time, so probably useless for day-to-day inquiries.

I however find the original question a very important one if one cares about their own module. If I write Module::Foo, I'd like to know which other distribution uses that module, so I can see if they are following the API the module was designed for or if they are trying to do dirty trichs. When the latter is true, the module probably needs some extra functionality.

I've quite often extended my own modules based on reviewing how others actually use it. This action doesn't require any communication with the end-user. I can do that analisys purely on my own.

The basic feature to reverse lookup what other modules use Module::Foo is not (yet) available on CPAN, which makes the quest of the OP a very valid one.


Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

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Re^5: CPAN reverse dependencies
by DrHyde (Prior) on Nov 03, 2010 at 11:21 UTC
    Currently, the only publicly available service that doesn't need to install and run an awful lot of local things that provides this information is CPANTS, which is down most of the time, so probably useless for day-to-day inquiries.
    CPANdeps has it.

      When I tried several attempts this morning, I just got completely blank screens.

      It is however very well possible that I did it wrong, and the site also does not provide a link do do reverse lookups (or I must have gone blind).

      I tried this and this and got blank page in both Opera and Firefox.


      Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

        It needs a distribution version too (but because it's a rather nasty hack it needs to be the most recent version).

        Try this. I should really get round to making it more user-friendly.

        Having looked at the code, this will work. I'd forgotten I'd written that ;-)