To answer your first question, you could always check to see if the symbol table entries exist. For example:

> perl
print "Data::Dumper exists\n" if %Data::Dumper::;
> perl -MData::Dumper
print "Data::Dumper exists\n" if %Data::Dumper::;
Data::Dumper exists
[download]

So you could do:

if (%HTML::Template::) {
  # HTML::template stuff
} else {
  # Regular HTML stuff
}
[download]

Keep in mind, however, there is a caveat to that: if you load HTML::Template::othermodule without loading HTML::Template, that may fail. Instead, you can do:

if (exists ${%HTML::Template::}{'import'}) {
  ...
}
[download]

which checks for the existance of the import subroutine. import is in every package by default, and that can be used to see if it exists (and hence if a module has been loaded by that name).

---

---

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.