G'day puterboy,

The encoding directive is described in "perlpod: Command Paragraph".

That directive appears in the DateTime::Locale::pa_Guru_IN source code at the very start of the POD:

=pod

=encoding utf8
[download]

I don't know when that directive was introduced. It's documented in Perl v5.8.8 perlpod; I couldn't find it documented in my copy of "Programming Perl, 3rd Edition" which covers Perl v5.6.

It's some years since I used Cygwin, but I recall it came with a very old version of Perl. Use perl -v to determine the version you're using; you may need to update; the latest stable production version is 5.18.2.

I recalled you've had other installation problems recently. I went back to check and noticed you've just added Re: Difficult compiling Package::Stash::XS which includes "/usr/lib/perl5/5.14/x86_64-cygwin-threads/...". That tends to rule out an old Perl version problem (assuming you're using v5.14 in the curent scenario).

I tried installing DateTime::Locale::pa_Guru_IN myself via cpan and it worked fine without any errors or warnings (I have Perl v5.18.1):

$ cpan

cpan[1]> install DateTime::Locale::pa_Guru_IN 
...
Creating new 'Build' script for 'DateTime-Locale' version '0.45'
...
Installing /Users/ken/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.18.1t/lib/site_perl/
+5.18.1/DateTime/Locale.pm
...
Installing /Users/ken/perl5/perlbrew/perls/perl-5.18.1t/lib/site_perl/
+5.18.1/DateTime/Locale/pa_Guru_IN.pm
...
  DROLSKY/DateTime-Locale-0.45.tar.gz
  ./Build install  -- OK
[download]

I found a bug report that may have a bearing on your problem: Bug #85628 for DateTime-Locale: [PATCH] POD fix.

I also tried to install just DateTime. This worked fine also:

cpan[3]> install DateTime
...
  DROLSKY/DateTime-1.06.tar.gz
  ./Build install  -- OK
[download]

And, just to be on the safe side, in case that new version had caused some issue:

cpan[4]> install DateTime::Locale::pa_Guru_IN
DateTime::Locale::pa_Guru_IN is up to date (undef).
[download]

You haven't said how you're actually "using cpan to install DateTime". Perhaps try with the commands I've shown or, if you've been specifying a distribution, check the version numbers.

Regarding the last part of your question, L<...> is a POD formatting code for hyperlinks (described in perlpod: Formatting Codes). The two http://* links do resolve correctly via a browser (you can try them directly yourself). Until you can install DateTime, not being able to link to/from its documentation is moot.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.