=head1 DESCRIPTION
This module will read ISIS databases created by DOS CDS/ISIS, WinIsis or
-IsisMarc. It can be used as perl-only alternative to OpenIsis module.
+IsisMarc. It can be used as perl-only alternative to OpenIsis module which
+seems to depriciate it's old C<XS> bindings for perl.
It can create hash values from data in ISIS database (using C<to_hash>),
ASCII dump (using C<to_ascii>) or just hash with field names and packed
It also has support for identifiers (only if ISIS database is created by
IsisMarc), see C<to_hash>.
-This will module will always be slower than OpenIsis module which use C
+This module will always be slower than OpenIsis module which use C
library. However, since it's written in perl, it's platform independent (so
you don't need C compiler), and can be easily modified. I hope that it
creates data structures which are easier to use than ones created by
=head2 read_cnt
-This function is not really used by module, but can be useful to find info
-about your index (if debugging it for example).
+Read content of C<.CNT> file and return hash containing it.
print Dumper($isis->read_cnt);
+This function is not used by module (C<.CNT> files are not required for this
+module to work), but it can be useful to examine your index (while debugging
+for example).
+
=cut
sub read_cnt {
=head2 to_ascii
-Dump ASCII output of record with specified MFN
+Returns ASCII output of record with specified MFN
print $isis->to_ascii(42);
-It outputs something like this:
+This outputs something like this:
210 ^aNew York^cNew York University press^dcop. 1988
990 2140
my $hash = $isis->to_hash($mfn);
-It has ability to convert characters (using C<hash_filter> from ISIS
+It has ability to convert characters (using C<hash_filter>) from ISIS
database before creating structures enabling character re-mapping or quick
fix-up of data.
=head1 BUGS
-This module has been very lightly tested. Use with caution and report bugs.
+Some parts of CDS/ISIS documentation are not detailed enough to exmplain
+some variations in input databases which has been tested with this module.
+When I was in doubt, I assumed that OpenIsis's implementation was right
+(except for obvious bugs).
+
+However, every effort has been made to test this module with as much
+databases (and programs that create them) as possible.
+
+I would be very greatful for success or failure reports about usage of this
+module with databases from programs other than WinIsis and IsisMarc. I had
+tested this against ouput of one C<isis.dll>-based application, but I don't
+know any details about it's version.
=head1 AUTHOR