Hi. I know it has been almost two months since I asked this, but I got frustrated then, so decided to let this sit for a while. So now I have calmed down a bit, I can dig in.

So, today I decided to give File::ShareDir a go on the command line, and I got the answer I was looking for initially. The main directory for external files a module needs is lib/auto. So now I know where to put the external data files and can use File::ShareDir to hopefully get them. I have not tried this yet but will shortly. Here is what I think the top of my module will look like, in this case I am using one of my favorites, Random::Color.

package Random::Color;
use v5.10.0;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Exporter qw(import);
use File::ShareDir qw(module_dir);
use Fancy::Rand qw(fancy_rand);
use Fancy::Open qw(fancy_open);

our $VERSION   = '1.000';
our @EXPORT_OK = qw(random_color);

my $directory = module_dir('Random::Color');
my @Crayola_crayons = fancy_open("$directory/Crayola_crayon_colors.txt
+");;
my @MandMs          = fancy_open("$directory/MandMs_colors.txt");
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Also, I am assuming when I go to package Random::Color the file list inside the package will be something like this.

• Random-Color
  • Changes
  • ignore.txt
  • Makefile.PL
  • MANIFEST
  • README
  • lib
    • auto
      • Random
        • Color
          • Crayola_crayon_colors.txt
          • MandMs_colors.txt
    • Random
      • Color.pm
      • Color.pod
  • t
    • 00-load.t
    • manifest.t
    • pod-coverage.t
    • pod.t
  • xt
    • boilerplate.t

Am I on the right track here? I got the base of this structure from Discipulus's tutorial.

As an aside, I finally started using git because of that tutorial. How to use git was explained very well there. I am so very grateful for it!

Update: I tried it, it works as expected, I'm happy! Thank you for the recommendation.