.::MySQL/TableInfo version 1.01::.. ============================ .:DESCRIPTION:. MySQL::TableInfo is a handy class for getting easy access to MySQL tables' descriptions which is available via DESCRIBE table_name, SHOW COLUMNS FROM table_name queries. It's also handy for constructing form based CGI applications to control HTML forms' attributes such as C<VALUE>, C<SIZE>, C<MAXLENGTH>, C<TYPE> and so forth. For example, if you have a ENUM('Yes', 'No') column in your mysql table, then you normally would present it either as a group of radio buttons, or as a <SELECT> menu. If you modify the column, and add one more option, ENUM('Yes', 'No', 'N/A'), then you will have to re-write your html code accordingly. By using MySQL::TableInfo, you can avoide this double troubles. Consider the following code: use CGI; use DBI; my MySQL::TableInfo; my $CGI = new CGI: my $dbh = DBI->connect(....); my $table = new MySQL::TableInfo($dbh, "bio"); print $CGI->header, $CGI->start_html("MySQL::TableInfo"); print $CGI->start_form, $CGI->div("Do you wear beard?"), $CGI->popup_menu(-name=>'has_beard', -values=>[$table->set('beard')], -default=>$table->default('beard')), $CGI->end_form; print $CGI->end_html; As you see, modifying 'beard' column, which is an enumeration column, whould reflect in your CGI too. .:INSTALLATION:. After downloading the destribution, you need to uncompress and unpack it. In windows you could use WinZip. In *.nix you can use gzip to uncompress the file and use 'tar' to unpack it. You can combine the two steps into one command like: % gzip -dc MySQL-TableInfo-0.03.tar.gz | tar -xof - Then cd into the folder: % cd MySQL-TableInfo-0.08 And perform the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make install .:DEPENDENCIES:. Perl 5 or later is required to install this module. .:COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE:. This library is a free software. You can modify and destribute this under the same condition as Perl itself. .:AUTHOR:. Sherzod B. Ruzmetov, sherzodr@cpan.org