hmm just a quick remark:

Calling use will also execute the import function which might do unexpected things.

You might prefer require (or even do ) which are just part of use.

(mnemonic use > require > do > eval with > read as "extends")

Furthermore you should probably check the error code to avoid false negatives.

There are many reasons why a code execution might fail.

Saying so, a function to check @INC without eval-ing the located code would be safer°. (especially if you don't want to activate the whole dependency chain with consecutive use calls)

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!

update

°) The page for require has sample code showing how @INC is searched, just skip the part after do($realfilename); to avoid compilation and add the logic for ref($prefix) if needed. (alternatively see also these modules)

        use Carp 'croak';
        use version;
        sub require {
            my ($filename) = @_;
            if ( my $version = eval { version->parse($filename) } ) {
                if ( $version > $^V ) {
                   my $vn = $version->normal;
                   croak "Perl $vn required--this is only $^V, stopped
+";
                }
                return 1;
            }
            if (exists $INC{$filename}) {
                return 1 if $INC{$filename};
                croak "Compilation failed in require";
            }
            foreach $prefix (@INC) {
                if (ref($prefix)) {
                    #... do other stuff - see text below ....
                }
                # (see text below about possible appending of .pmc
                # suffix to $filename)
                my $realfilename = "$prefix/$filename";
                next if ! -e $realfilename || -d _ || -b _;
                $INC{$filename} = $realfilename;
                my $result = do($realfilename);
                             # but run in caller's namespace
                if (!defined $result) {
                    $INC{$filename} = undef;
                    croak $@ ? "$@Compilation failed in require"
                             : "Can't locate $filename: $!\n";
                }
                if (!$result) {
                    delete $INC{$filename};
                    croak "$filename did not return true value";
                }
                $! = 0;
                return $result;
            }
            croak "Can't locate $filename in \@INC ...";
        }

[download]

You might want to use this as a first step and doing your eval only if it's not found in a second step (in order to play safe). Like this you will only execute module code if the parsing mechanism fails (which shouldn't be ever the case and deserves a warning)

NB: This approach answers the question "Can a module be found in @INC" which is slightly different to "Is a module distribution installed" since:

In reply to Re: find module name from the module archive (in @INC) (updated) by LanX
in thread find module name from the module archive by Lotus1

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