> So my questions to this list are: > > 1. Why doesn't the "apt-cache show" description usually list the > module names? (I see that it *is* properly listed for, say, the > libtext-template-perl package.) Careful with that word "properly". :) I think that quite a few Debian Perl packages do list the module name in their package description. I've done it in most of my Perl packages over the past few years. However, there are going to be some CPAN packages (large ones, I mean) for which it is kind of impractical to list all of the provided modules in the package description. So, one possible answer to your question is that it wasn't really practical in this case. Another is that the Debian packager didn't think it was worthwhile. As an example, I don't personally think it is worthwhile for my own libxmltv-perl package. Besides all that, Policy (AFAIK) doesn't require this, so there's nothing forcing a developer to do it. > 2. Given that you know the module you'd like to install, how, in- > general, can you get apt-cache to tell you which package to install? I would typically go to CPAN, search for the module name, see what CPAN package the module is in, and search for the appropriate Debian package using apt-cache. The Debian package name should always map directly to the CPAN package name, so this should be fairly easy to accomplish. > 3. (though this might be off-topic here) Why does CPAN use that > "MailTools" name? Why is it grouping those Mail::* modules that > way? A CPAN package is just a grouping of Perl modules. Typically, the grouped-together modules are related to each other in some way, and the name of the CPAN package reflects this. However, as with any library, both the grouping of modules and the name of the library could be essentially arbitrary. I haven't looked at this case in particular, but I would imagine that the upstream author thinks that the MailTools CPAN package provides a sensible grouping of related Perl modules. I personally think MailTools is a fine name for a package that provides, well, mail tools. Does that help? KEN -- Kenneth J. Pronovici <pronovic@debian.org>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature