Here we need to distinguish between four things:

• A Distribution

• A package

• A module

• A class/grammar

Distribution

A Distribution is a set of related source files that are distributed together. This usually includes some modules, some tests, and maybe some other resources.

For a full explanation, see Distributions: An introduction and the following documentation.

package

Packages are nested namespaces of named program elements. Modules, classes and grammars are all types of package.

For a full explanation see Packages.

module

Modules are usually one or more source files that expose Raku constructs, such as classes, roles, grammars, subroutines and variables. Modules are usually used for distributing Raku code as libraries which can be used in another Raku program.

For a full explanation see the pages linked from Using Modules: An Introduction.

class

Classes are a collection of methods and attributes grouped together for convenience. Being a package, they're also a nested namespace.

For further explanation, see:

• The class section of the Type system fundamentals

• The Classes and objects tutorial

grammar

Grammars are a specific type of class intended for parsing text. Grammars are composed of rules, tokens and regexes which are actually methods, since grammars are classes.

For a full explanation see Grammars.

Creating and using modules

A module is usually a source file or set of source files that expose Raku constructs ^[1].

Modules are typically packages (classes, roles, grammars), subroutines, and sometimes variables. In Raku module can also refer to a type of package declared with the module keyword (see Module Packages and the examples below) but here we mostly mean "module" as a set of source files in a namespace.

Documentation about Modules

• Using Modules: An Introduction

• Using Modules: Finding and Installing

• Using Modules: The Code

• Making Modules: Introduction (this page)

• Making Modules: The Code

Want to distribute your modules?

• Distributions: An introduction

• Distributions: The Configuration and Structure

• Distributions: The Tools

• Distributions: Testing

• Distributions: Uploading