NAME

       Module::Load - runtime require of both modules and files

SYNOPSIS

               use Module::Load;

           my $module = 'Data:Dumper';
           load Data::Dumper;      # loads that module
           load 'Data::Dumper';    # ditto
           load $module            # tritto

           my $script = 'some/script.pl'
           load $script;
           load 'some/script.pl';      # use quotes because of punctuations

           load thing;             # try 'thing' first, then 'thing.pm'

           load CGI, ':standard'   # like 'use CGI qw[:standard]'

DESCRIPTION

       "load" eliminates the need to know whether you are trying to require either a file or a
       module.

       If you consult "perldoc -f require" you will see that "require" will behave differently
       when given a bareword or a string.

       In the case of a string, "require" assumes you are wanting to load a file. But in the case
       of a bareword, it assumes you mean a module.

       This gives nasty overhead when you are trying to dynamically require modules at runtime,
       since you will need to change the module notation ("Acme::Comment") to a file notation
       fitting the particular platform you are on.

       "load" eliminates the need for this overhead and will just DWYM.

Rules

       "load" has the following rules to decide what it thinks you want:

       •   If the argument has any characters in it other than those matching "\w", ":" or "'",
           it must be a file

       •   If the argument matches only "[\w:']", it must be a module

       •   If the argument matches only "\w", it could either be a module or a file. We will try
           to find "file.pm" first in @INC and if that fails, we will try to find "file" in @INC.
           If both fail, we die with the respective error messages.

Caveats

       Because of a bug in perl (#19213), at least in version 5.6.1, we have to hardcode the path
       separator for a require on Win32 to be "/", like on Unix rather than the Win32 "\".
       Otherwise perl will not read its own %INC accurately double load files if they are
       required again, or in the worst case, core dump.

       "Module::Load" cannot do implicit imports, only explicit imports.  (in other words, you
       always have to specify explicitly what you wish to import from a module, even if the
       functions are in that modules' @EXPORT)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Thanks to Jonas B. Nielsen for making explicit imports work.

BUG REPORTS

       Please report bugs or other issues to <bug-module-load@rt.cpan.org<gt>.

AUTHOR

       This module by Jos Boumans <kane@cpan.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       This library is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms
       as Perl itself.