Find CPAN mirrors and configure the local CPAN mirror list

CPAN mirrors are online repositories which host or “mirror” the Perl module distributions on CPAN. There are hundreds of CPAN mirrors dispersed throughout the World. When the CPAN program is run for the first time on a machine, it will configure the CPAN mirror list to use for checking for new versions of modules and downloading Perl distributions. All CPAN mirrors are not created equally though: the distribution list’s age, speed and the geographic location vary from mirror to mirror and so you may want to re-configure your local CPAN mirror list to suit your needs. This article describes how to find CPAN mirrors and edit the local CPAN mirror configuration.

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3 quick ways to find out the version number of an installed Perl module from the terminal

Perl module features and behaviour can change from version to version and so knowing the version number of an installed Perl module can be useful in several scenarios. Below are three different command line methods for finding out the version number of an installed module that work on Bash and Windows Powershell. So fire up the terminal and get typing!

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