File::CachingFind - Perl Module for multiple file search in paths
=================================================================


TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------

1. Description
2. Availability
3. Prerequisites
4. Installation
5. Running Tests
6. Example
7. Known Bugs
8. Copyright
9. Author Information


1. DESCRIPTION
--------------

File::CachingFind is a Perl module to cache filenames and directories
for multiple file searches so that your script only has to browse the
appropriate directories once.  To achive this, it mainly uses a hash
containing filenames and their corresponding directories.

The Author used this module for a script analyzing a big tree of
source modules.  After introducing this modul, the process of locating
the scattered include files was notably faster than before.  (The
include statements of the modules didn't contain directory
informations.)

See the provided user documentation for more details.  As usual it
is contained within the module source in POD format.


2. AVAILABILITY
---------------

You can get the latest version of File::CachingFind from the
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) at

    http://www.perl.org/CPAN/modules/by-module/File/


3. PREREQUISITES
----------------

File::CachingFind requires Perl version 5.005 or later as well as the
standard modules Cwd and DirHandle.  It may also work with earlier
"5er" versions of Perl, but this is untested yet.  The latest versions
of Perl can be obtained from CPAN:

    http://www.perl.org/CPAN/


4. INSTALLATION
---------------

To build, test and install this module, run the following commands:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

If you want to install the module under a special directory (instead
of the default directory), try something like

    perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/usr/local/special/directory


5. RUNNING TESTS
----------------

If any of the tests fail, please contact the author with the output
from the following command:

    make test TEST_VERBOSE=1

Some tests in t/locate_link.t will fail in any environment not
supporting symbolic links, the test is not depending on the operating
system yet.


6. EXAMPLE
----------

Consider having the followin files on your system:

/usr/include/time.h
/usr/include/sys/time.h
/usr/include/bits/time.h
/usr/local/include/net/time.h
/usr/local/include/project/time.h

Now you would initialize a File::CachingFind object with 

$includes =
    File::CachingFind->new(Path => ['/usr/include', '/usr/local/include']);

Afterwords you can locate all time.h files with one call

@time_h = $includes->findInPath('time.h');

giving you above list without any further directory access.  If you
have to look up many files that way, you'll notice the performance
gain.  You may customize the File::CachingFind object to be case
insensitve, to cache only certain files, how to handle softlinks and
in many other ways.  See the user documentation for further details.


7. KNOWN BUGS
-------------

Directory names ending with an exclamation mark can't be handled yet!

Softlinks creating a cyclic directory structure will cause an infinite
loop.

If the same file is found more than once using different paths in the
constructor (B<new>), it will be cached more than once!  At the moment
this is considered a feature, not a bug.

If you find a(nother) bug, please report it to the author along with
the following information:

    * version of Perl
    * version of File::CachingFind
    * operating system type and version
    * exact text of error message or description of problem
    * the shortest possible program that exhibits the problem

If I don't have access to a system similar to yours, I may ask you
to insert some debugging lines and report back on the results.
The more help and information you can provide, the better.


8. COPYRIGHT
------------

Copyright (c) 2002 Thomas Dorner.  All rights reserved.  This program
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.


9. AUTHOR INFORMATION
---------------------

Thomas Dorner
Thomas.Dorner@start.de  or  Thomas.Dorner@gmx.de