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The CPAN is an important resource for the professional Perl programmer.

With over 23, 000 modules ( containing 20, 000, 000 lines of code ) as of July 2011, the CPAN can save programmers weeks of time, and large Perl programs often make use of dozens of modules.

Some of them, such as the DBI family of modules used for interfacing with SQL databases, are nearly irreplaceable in their area of function ; others, such as the List :: Util module, are simply handy resources containing a few common functions.