This is a interface to the GNU CD Input and Control library (libcdio)
and it's ISO 9660 library which are written in C. The library
encapsulates CD-ROM reading and control. Perl programs wishing to be
oblivious of the OS- and device-dependent properties of a CD-ROM can
use this library.

The encapsulation is done in two parts. The lower-level Perl interface
creates perlcdio and perliso9660 libraries and these are generated by
SWIG.

There are also object-oriented modules that use perlcdio and
perliso9660. Although perlcdio and perliso9660 are perfectly usable on
there own, it is expected that the Device::Cdio... modules are what
most people will use. As perlcdio and perliso9660 more closely model
the C interface, it is conceivable (if unlikely) that die-hard libcdio
C users who are very familiar with that interface may use that.

It is probably possible to change the SWIG in such a way to combine
the low-level and OO pieces. However there are the problems. First,
I'm not that much of a SWIG expert. Second it looks as though the
resulting SWIG code would be more complex. Third the separation makes
translation very straight forward to understand and maintain: first we
get what's in C into Perl as a one-to-one translation. Then we
implement some nice abstraction off of that. The abstraction can be
modified without having to redo the underlying translation. (But the
reverse is generally not true: usually changes to the C-to-Perl
translation, perlcdio or perliso9660, do result in small, but obvious
and straightforward changes to the abstraction layer cdio.)

libcdio is rather large and yet may yet grow a bit. (UDF support may
be on the horizon.)  So what is here is incomplete; over time it may
grow to completion, depending on various factors: e.g. whether others
will help out (hint).

Some of the incompleteness is due to my lack of understanding of how
to get SWIG to accomplish wrapping various return values. If you know
how to do better, please let me know. Likewise suggestions on how to
improve classes or Python interaction are more than welcome.

Sections of libcdio that have been left out wholesale are the (SCSI)
MMC commands, the cdparanoia library, CD-Text handling. About 1/2 of
the ISO-9660 library has been done. Of the audio controls, I put in
those things that didn't require any thought.

There is much to be done - you want to help out, please do so!

Standalone documentation via perlpod. See also the
programs in the example directory.


INSTALLATION

To install this module, run the following commands:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install


Alternatively, to install with Module::Build, you can use the following commands:

    perl Build.PL
    ./Build
    ./Build test
    ./Build install



DEPENDENCIES

libcdio


COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2006, Rocky Bernstein <rocky@cpan.org>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

$Id: README,v 1.2 2006/03/02 07:20:19 rocky Exp $