update: such a feature already exists (sort of). Thanks to rozallin below for pointing this out. Linking to the CPAN search page should be sufficient, maybe not as spiffy as linking directly to a module, but it's sufficient.
(old question/comment:) I think it might be cool if we had a "cpan" tag to autolink to CPAN modules without having to find the URL. It would navigating through search.cpan.org to link up a module.

<cpan>File::Find</cpan>

Would become: File::Find

Potential hiccup: Would have to maintain a mapping of the CPAN ~users to modules in the PerlMonks DB. This would require periodic scanning of CPAN to parse the list of modules. Not too bad, methinks.

Another potential hiccup: we would have to default to the latest version of Perl POD, which may not always be desired behavior if someone was using, say, Perl 6. A <cpan version=5.6>File::Find</cpan> could use an optional attribute to accomplish this black magic.

Ideas? Comments? Tomatoes?

In reply to CPAN Tagging by flyingmoose

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