If you ask me, reading the documentation for everyday CPAN modules (as well as many others) is a hassle. They are usually written with the seasoned Perl programmer in mind. With that said, it can become very difficult to understand CPAN documentation if it isn't a tutorial or walkthrough.

For example, JSON.pm is an app that I will soon be using. The issue is, in my eyes, the documentation is poor. It gives you a bunch of functions and what they do, but it says nothing about how to do it, besides the synopsis, which really doesn't help much

So, my question to you is, how can I become better at reading CPAN module documentation, and understanding how to use modules that don't come with books or tutorials in them?

--perl.j

In reply to How to read CPAN documentation by perl.j

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.