What is it? ----------- This base package contains Perl extensions for Topic Maps http://www.isotopicmaps.org/ With it you can - manipulate topic maps via an API - navigate through TMs via a TMDM-like API (almost TMAPI) - read/write AsTMa 1.x and 2.x resources - read LTM resources - read/write XTM 1/2 resources - create virtualized topic maps - use a topic map backend store - add drivers for your own native store - add indices to speed up things - query topic maps via TMQL (query language, in the working) - and more Prerequisites ------------- Of course, TM::* relies heavily on other Perl packages. Most of them (hopefully all) should be resolved automatically if you use the CPAN frontend. Installation ------------ This module should be completely installable via the cpan frontend. To build the extensions manually, unpack this distribution somewhere, and exercise the usual incantation: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install You will need perl version 5.8 or better to install these modules. There may also be Debian packages for this generation. Documentation ------------- You can learn about Topic Maps in general at http://www.isotopicmaps.org/ (standards) http://kill.devc.at/taxonomy/term/22 (my blog) http://topicmaps.bond.edu.au/ (tutorials, other stuff) http://easytopicmaps.com/ (tutorials, lotta links and hints) http://astma.it.bond.edu.au/ (shorthand notation used by the authors) For this particular package I also recommend the tutorials in maps/tutorials.atm Support ------- You can either - mail to the author (rho@devc.at), or - discuss this in one of the topicmap mailing lists, or - find me in the freenode #topicmaps IRC channel, or - create a bug entry in rt.cpan.org (preferred) Copyright 200[1-8] Robert Barta, rho@devc.at This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.