To see the dependancies for HTML::TokeParser::Simple, go to http://search.cpan.org/src/OVID/HTML-TokeParser-Simple-1.3/Makefile.PL. With the new CPAN (not necessarily the mirrors), go to the main page of a module, click on "browse" and select Makefile.PL. If it's done correctly, as Abigail-II points out, you should see something like the following.

use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
# See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for details of how to influence
# the contents of the Makefile that is written.
WriteMakefile(
    'NAME'         => 'HTML::TokeParser::Simple',
    'VERSION_FROM' => 'Simple.pm', # finds $VERSION
    'PREREQ_PM'    => { 'HTML::Parser' => 3.25 },
    ($] >= 5.005 
        ? (AUTHOR => 'Curtis "Ovid" Poe <poec@yahoo.com>') 
        : ()),
);
[download]

As you can see from the above, the module requires HTML::Parser. Unfortunately, that should actually read HTML::TokeParser, but I didn't discover the mistake until I responded to your post :)

Cheers,
Ovid

Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group.
New address of my CGI Course.

    tar xfvzO Date-Calc-5.3.tar.gz Date-Calc-5.3/Makefile.PL | grep PR
+EREQ_PM
[download]

I don't think it's a good idea to make any requirements for modules uploaded to CPAN. Modules uploaded to CPAN are a gift from their authors; we should be happy. Adding requirements will make that you'll lose some authors.

Abigail

no no no... The other way..

When an author uploads a module, they can add something to the effect of

Module Dependancies:
Net::FTP
MIME::Base64
Digest::MD5

That way when you go to grab module A, you can check for modules b,c,d in your installation, and grab those as well if needed.

Update: Ahh.. I see what you are saying, but wouldn't it make sense? I mean there have been times (notably Net::SSH::Perl), where I would have loved to know that I needed over a dozen other modules, prior to trying to get it working on a host.

I hear what you are saying about possibly pushing authors away, but do you honestly think that will happen? I don't know what kind of reqs there are for getting your module on CPAN, but I can assume a simple find . -name "*.plm" -print | xargs grep "^use" wouldn't be that much more work..

/* And the Creator, against his better judgement, wrote man.c */

No, it doesn't make sense. The information is already provided, it's in Makefile.PL (assuming a proper Makefile.PL). And if you go to search.cpan.org, search for a module, and then browse it, you can see the content of Makefile.PL.

If you still find this too much of a hassle, I suggest volunteering to write a patch for PAUSE that extracts the information from Makefile.PL and puts the information somewhere to your liking. No need to require authors to do redundant things.

Abigail

It sounds like what you really want is for the Dependencies to show up on the search.cpan.org page for each distrobution (right next to the "CPAN Testers" or "CPAN Request Tracker" links perhaps)

What people have tried to explain so far is that it's not neccessary for Module authors to do anything new for this to happen. For wellformed Distrobutions, the info is allready in the PREREQ_PM section of Makefile.PL (And for modules whose Makefile.PL isn't wellformed, it would be just as easy to fix that as to do something new). What's needed is for something on the search.cpan.org site to parse the Makefile.PL and surface the list.

The appropriate place to submit suggestions like this is the search.cpan.org feedback form.

CPAN.org already provides the README for every module, and that info should be in the README, as detailed as an author wants it to be. See:

E:\new>h2xs -AX Foo::Bar
Writing Foo/Bar/Bar.pm
Writing Foo/Bar/Makefile.PL
Writing Foo/Bar/README
Writing Foo/Bar/test.pl
Writing Foo/Bar/Changes
Writing Foo/Bar/MANIFEST

E:\new>more "Foo/Bar/README"
Foo/Bar version 0.01
====================

The README is used to introduce the module and provide instructions on
how to install the module, any machine dependencies it may have (for
example C compilers and installed libraries) and any other information
that should be provided before the module is installed.

A README file is required for CPAN modules since CPAN extracts the
README file from a module distribution so that people browsing the
archive can use it get an idea of the modules uses. It is usually a
good idea to provide version information here so that people can
decide whether fixes for the module are worth downloading.

INSTALLATION

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install

DEPENDENCIES

This module requires these other modules and libraries:

  blah blah blah

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Put the correct copyright and licence information here.

Copyright (C) 2002 A. U. Thor

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

____________________________________________________
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

-Nitrox

Even if you had that option, it would still be a pain: you may be missing dependencies of a dependency of a module you're installing. There is no way to add all that information without knowledge of what is installed at your site.

The immediate dependencies of the one module you're looking at are already viewable, as already pointed out by others.

Makeshifts last the longest.