NAME
    POE::Component::SmokeBox::Dists - Search for CPAN distributions by
    cpanid or distribution name

SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
    POE::Component::SmokeBox::Dists is a POE component that provides
    non-blocking CPAN distribution searches. It is a wrapper around
    File::Fetch for "02packages.details.txt.gz" file retrieval, IO::Zlib for
    extraction and Parse::CPAN::Packages for parsing the packages data.

    Given either author ( ie. CPAN ID ) or distribution search criteria,
    expressed as a regular expression, it will return to a requesting
    session all the CPAN distributions that match that pattern.

    The component will retrieve the "02packages.details.txt.gz" file to the
    ".smokebox" directory. If that file already exists, a newer version will
    only be retrieved if the file is older than 6 hours.

    The "02packages.details.txt.gz" is extracted and a Parse::CPAN::Packages
    object built in order to run the search criteria. This process can take
    a little bit of time.

CONSTRUCTORS
    There are two constructors:

    "author"
        Initiates an author search. Takes a number of parameters:

          'event', the name of the event to return results to, mandatory;
          'search', a regex pattern to match CPAN IDs against, mandatory;
          'session', specify an alternative session to send results to;

    "distro"
        Initiates a distribution search. Takes a number of parameters:

          'event', the name of the event to return results to, mandatory;
          'search', a regex pattern to match distributions against, mandatory;
          'session', specify an alternative session to send results to;

    In both constructors, "session" is only required if the component is not
    spawned from within an existing POE::Session or you wish the results
    event to be sent to an alternative existing POE::Session.

OUTPUT EVENT
    Once the component has finished, retrieving, extracting and processing
    an event will be sent.

    "ARG0" will be a hashref, with the following data:

      'dists', an arrayref consisting of prefixed distributions;
      'error', only present if something went wrong with any of the stages;

ENVIRONMENT
    The component uses the ".smokebox" directory to stash the
    "02packages.details.txt.gz" file.

    This is usually located in the current user's home directory. Setting
    the environment variable "PERL5_SMOKEBOX_DIR" will effect where the
    ".smokebox" directory is located.

AUTHOR
    Chris "BinGOs" Williams <chris@bingosnet.co.uk>

LICENSE
    Copyright (C) Chris Williams

    This module may be used, modified, and distributed under the same terms
    as Perl itself. Please see the license that came with your Perl
    distribution for details.

SEE ALSO
    Parse::CPAN::Packages

