Search engine for CPAN modules

Question

I find the extensive volume of modules available through CPAN to be somewhat at odds with its search capacities. I'm aware that there is a lot of data stored about modules, including the dlsip tags. However I'm not aware of a convenient interface to query this database. search.cpan.org seems to provide only a basic textual search, and the dlsip data is only (AFAIK) shown when browsing by category.

Is there an interface available, either as a command-line utility, in a perl module, or on a website, that will provide an advanced search query system, and render relevant data in a convenient way? In addition to the dlsip data, I'd ideally like to be able to make things like user ratings, total comments, last update time, and deployment statistics part of the query and/or view.

Answer 1

This is a somewhat obvious answer, but I often use Google to search CPAN. I simply type "site:cpan.org search term here" or simply "cpan search term here" and usually can find an appropriate module quickly. Rarely have I found a need to search the meta-data directly, but I agree it would definitely be nice.

(If someone is interested in starting a project to make that data more searchable, let me know and I'll help out!)

Answer 2

You can get a data dump from PAUSE and do what you like with it. Andreas König is the guy you'll have to talk to. I've never found the dlsip stuff useful because most people never bother to update it after they register a module.

All of the other stuff you see on CPAN Search is just a mash up of other projects. Most of the stuff that you list does not live in one database. You have to go to each individual project and get its data.

Answer 3

Talk to drrho, he is nursing a pet project involving lots of additional CPAN metadata.

If you want to help making a better search engine than (kobe)search.c.o, get involved in CPANHQ.