I tried to install this module WWW::Curl via cpan, but failed on both Centos 4 and Centos 5. Instead of digging for the fix, I just enabled rpmforge repository, and installed through yum:

# yum install perl-WWW-Curl

This module is fantastic. If you look at the source code, you will see that the bulk of the work is all in C, and the perl module is just a very thin wrapper serving as the API. As a result, it's very efficient. Best of all, is its ability to handle non-blocking socket for parallel requests.

http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/curl_easy_setopt.html contains all the information for how to set the curl options.

Examples:

• curl.pm (from OpenStreetMap project).
• WWW::Curl::Simple (a CPAN module).