What's new on CPAN - May 2014

Jun 2, 2014 by David Farrell

Welcome to “What’s new on CPAN”, a curated look at last month’s new CPAN uploads for your reading and programming pleasure.

Alien

• Install a local ImageMagic with Alien::ImageMagick. No more hacks!
• Alien::SamTools will install the SamTools C libs and headers

APIs

• Activiti::Rest::Client provides an API for Activit, the open source workflow and BPM platform
• Use the decNumber C library with Math::decNumber
• Sensu::API::Client is an API client for Sensu, an open source monitoring framework
• Sentry is an exceptions tracking service and Sentry::Raven provides an API for it
• WWW::Liquidweb::Lite provides an API for Liquidweb hosting
• Access the OANDA exchange rates API with WebService::OANDA::ExchangeRates

Apps

• App::CSE implements the Code Search Engine as an app
• Run multiple apps in command with App::Munner
• App::Table2YAML will convert tables to YAML
• App::revealup is an awesome app that converts markdown documents into an HTTP served slideshow with revealup.js - check it out.
• Perl’s compile-only mode doesn’t always load modules in the correct order or location. App::perlminlint aims to fix that (current version 0.1 needs a minor patch)

Bots

Capulcu::Bot is a highly customizable and modular IRC bot

Several new Bot::Cobalt plugins for:

• Bitly
• Figlet
• Twitter
• Urban Dictionary
• RandomQuote
• SeenURL (URLs already linked)

Data

• Debug Perl data structures with Data::Debug
• Data::Validate::Perl will validate Perl data structures using a Parse::Yapp grammar
• Data::EDI::X12 will process EDI x12 documents
• Safely slurp files again with File::Slurp::Sane
• Render SVG as a Cairo surface with Image::CairoSVG
• MARC::Parser::RAW parses MARC records in a fault-tolerant way
• Easily generate Marpa parsers using MarpaX::Simple
• MemcacheDBI implements a memcache queue for DBI commands
• Given an input, SQL::Type::Guess attempts to derive the correct SQL column datatype
• Parse TOML with TOML::Parser

Development & System Administration

Command::Interactive provides a command line interface for process invocation, e.g. capture a password and launch a process with the captured password.

Curses! New widgets Curses::UI::Number and Curses::UI::Time

New Dist::Zilla plugins:

• Prevent an accidental release with BlockRelease
• Get a count of RT and Github issues with CheckIssues
• ContributorsFromPod updates your META file with contributors from your module’s POD
• Dynamically inject Makefile pre-reqs during installation with DynamicPrereqs (useful for platform specific reqs).
• ModuleBuildTiny::Fallback creates a Build.PL file using Module::Build::Tiny if it’s available

Zilla::Dist creates Perl distributions from an acmeist (language agnostic) source structure

Log::Minimal::Object provides an OO interface for Log::Minimal

Add roles to Moo objects at runtime with MooX::Traits

MooseX::Enumeration adds enumerated types for Moose classes, woohoo!

Create configurable stack traces with Stacktrace::Configurable

Maths, Science & Language

• Easily translate compass points with Compass::Points
• Date::QuarterOfYear parses dates and returns the year quarter, without using the heavy DateTime module
• Parse words into known and unknown parts with Lingua::Word::Parser
• Manipulate text case with String::CamelSnakeKebab (ported from Clojure)
• Draw braille characters at the terminal with Term::Drawille

Security

• Crypt::Polybius implements the Polybius Square cipher
• Passwords is a simple API for hashing and validating passwords

Web

Catalyst::Model::Net::Stripe provides a Catalyst model using Net::Stripe (the payments service)

Implement a stronger Dancer session id with Dancer::Plugin::SecureSessionID

HTTP::Request::AsCurl converts an HTTP::Request object into a curl command

New Mojolicious toys!:

• Support offline web applications with AppCacheManifest
• Clear an upsteam cache with CachePurge
• RenderSteps helps you create async controllers with minimal code
• Easily manage thumbnails using Thumbnail
• TimeAgo elegantly convert dates to human-readable dates

Plack::App::HostMap can dispatch requests to applications based on host names, in constant time

This article was originally posted on PerlTricks.com.