This module provides a common library for working with a variety of CPAN index services. It is intentionally minimalist, trying to use as few non-core modules as possible.
The 'CPAN::Common::Index' module is an abstract base class that defines a common API. Individual backends deliver the API for a particular index.
As shown in the SYNOPSIS, one interesting application is multiplexing -- using different index backends, querying each in turn, and returning the first result.