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inc/inc_Module-Load/Module/Load.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

    my $module = 'Data:Dumper';
    load Data::Dumper;      # loads that module
    load 'Data::Dumper';    # ditto
    load $module            # tritto
    
    my $script = 'some/script.pl'
    load $script;
    load 'some/script.pl';	# use quotes because of punctuations
    
    load thing;             # try 'thing' first, then 'thing.pm'

    load CGI, ':standard'   # like 'use CGI qw[:standard]'
    

=head1 DESCRIPTION

C<load> eliminates the need to know whether you are trying to require
either a file or a module.

If you consult C<perldoc -f require> you will see that C<require> will
behave differently when given a bareword or a string.

In the case of a string, C<require> assumes you are wanting to load a
file. But in the case of a bareword, it assumes you mean a module.

This gives nasty overhead when you are trying to dynamically require
modules at runtime, since you will need to change the module notation
(C<Acme::Comment>) to a file notation fitting the particular platform
you are on.

C<load> elimates the need for this overhead and will just DWYM.

=head1 Rules

C<load> has the following rules to decide what it thinks you want:

=over 4

=item *

If the argument has any characters in it other than those matching
C<\w>, C<:> or C<'>, it must be a file

=item *

If the argument matches only C<[\w:']>, it must be a module

=item *

If the argument matches only C<\w>, it could either be a module or a
file. We will try to find C<file> first in C<@INC> and if that fails,
we will try to find C<file.pm> in @INC.
If both fail, we die with the respective error messages.

=back

=head1 Caveats

Because of a bug in perl (#19213), at least in version 5.6.1, we have
to hardcode the path seperator for a require on Win32 to be C</>, like
on Unix rather than the Win32 C<\>. Otherwise perl will not read it's
own %INC accurately double load files if they are required again, or
in the worst case, core dump.

C<Module::Load> can not do implicit imports, only explicit imports.
(in other words, you always have to specify expliclity what you wish
to import from a module, even if the functions are in that modules'
C<@EXPORT>)

=head1 AUTHOR

This module by Jos Boumans E<lt>kane@cpan.orgE<gt>.

Thanks to Jonas B. Nielsen for making explicit imports work.

=head1 COPYRIGHT

This module is
copyright (c) 2002 Jos Boumans E<lt>kane@cpan.orgE<gt>.
All rights reserved.

This library is free software;
you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.

=cut