how to copy a file ?

The other day in a class I was teaching as I was showing how
to copy a file using File::Copy someone asked (as that happens
always) how could he find out the answer alone to this and
similar questions.
I pointed to various sources such as

perldoc -q           but it has no anse to this question
perldoc perlfunc     obviously this quesion is not answered there
www.perldoc.com      is currently down but even if it comes back,
                      is searching a web site the right anser ?
search.cpan.org      but that's probably too much for these questions


I pointed to vairous mailing lists for beginners and even to PerlMonks.

Still they seemed not to be satisfied with the answer.


What do you ppl. tell them, how to learn more and get answers to such 
questions ?

Do you know how such questions are answered by beginners of other 
languages ?


Gabor