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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Greetings all,<br>
<br>
For folks who are getting toward the end of Learning Perl and have
a comfortable level of vi (since it takes months to be a power vi
user), here's the next step: Write an MP3 library engine.<br>
<br>
One of the great power features of Perl is that 90% of most
programs have already been written. What I mean by that is that
most of the complexity in most programs has already been written
in the form of code libraries, which are hosted on CPAN (the
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network). When beginning any Perl
program, it's useful to check CPAN (</font><font face="Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif">search.cpan.org) </font><font face="Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif">for libraries that will help.<br>
<br>
Installing CPAN libraries on your VM is fairly straight forward,
but can be made even easier by installing "cpanminus". Here's how
you do that:<br>
<br>
cpan -i App::</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">cpanminus</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
Read more about what cpanminus is here:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://search.cpan.org/~miyagawa/App-cpanminus-1.5018/lib/App/cpanminus.pm">http://search.cpan.org/~miyagawa/App-cpanminus-1.5018/lib/App/cpanminus.pm</a><br>
<br>
With that done, do a search on CPAN for "MP3", and you'll get a
lengthy list of libraries of various value. Keep in mind that
while CPAN is awesome, most of the code on CPAN isn't. It's just
that the 10% of CPAN that isn't horrible is extremely helpful and
powerful. Take a look at module ratings (the stars) to learn what
the community thinks of some modules.<br>
<br>
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build an MP3
library engine. Grab some MP3s and throw them into a directory
structure. You can organize them however you'd like, just as long
as they're in a directory structure of some kind. Then write a
Perl program that will read through all the files and build an
index of their titles, artists, lengths, and whatever else you
find interesting. Present a command-line interface that will allow
a user running your program to search for MP3s based on title
(including wildcard searching), artists, lengths, and so forth.<br>
<br>
While you're doing this, here is a helpful resource with a lot of
examples of how to solve problems that you might encounter along
the way:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goldenguru.com/docman/OReilly/Perl_Bookshelf_v4/cook/index.htm">http://goldenguru.com/docman/OReilly/Perl_Bookshelf_v4/cook/index.htm</a><br>
<br>
Good luck.<br>
<br>
Gryphon<br>
<br>
<br>
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