Difference between revisions of "perl (manpage)"

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|}
 
====Internals and C Language Interface====
 
====Internals and C Language Interface====
 +
{|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlembed}} || Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perldebguts}} || Perl debugging guts and tips
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlxstut}} || Perl XS tutorial
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlxs}} || Perl XS application programming interface
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlclib}} || Internal replacements for standard C library functions
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlguts}} || Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlcall}} || Perl calling conventions from C
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlapi}} || Perl API listing (autogenerated)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlintern}} || Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perliol}} || C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layers
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlapio}} || Perl internal IO abstraction interface
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlhack}} || Perl hackers guide
 +
|}
 +
====Miscellaneous====
 +
{|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlbook}} || Perl book information
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perltodo}} || Perl things to do
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perldoc}} || Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlhist}} || Perl history records
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perldelta}} || Perl changes since previous version
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl583delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.8.3
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl582delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.8.2
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl581delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.8.1
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl58delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.8.0
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl573delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.7.3
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl572delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.7.2
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl571delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.7.1
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl570delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.7.0
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl561delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.6.1
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl56delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.6
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl5005delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.005
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perl5004delta}} || Perl changes in version 5.004
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlartistic}} || Perl Artistic License
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlgpl}} || GNU General Public License
 +
|}
 +
====Language-Specific====
 +
{|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlcn}} || Perl for Simplified Chinese (in EUC-CN)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perljp}} || Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlko}} || Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perltw}} || Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)
 +
|}
 +
====Platform-Specific====
 +
{|
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlaix}} || Perl notes for [[AIX]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlamiga}} || Perl notes for [[AmigaOS]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlapollo}} || Perl notes for Apollo DomainOS
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlbeos}} || Perl notes for [[BeOS]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlbs2000}} || Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlce}} || Perl notes for [[WinCE]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlcygwin}} || Perl notes for Cygwin
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perldgux}} || Perl notes for DG/UX
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perldos}} || Perl notes for [[DOS]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlepoc}} || Perl notes for EPOC
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlfreebsd}} || Perl notes for [[FreeBSD]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlhpux}} || Perl notes for [[HP-UX]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlhurd}} || Perl notes for Hurd
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlirix}} || Perl notes for Irix
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlmachten}} || Perl notes for Power MachTen
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlmacos}} || Perl notes for [[Mac OS]] (Classic)
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlmacosx}} || Perl notes for [[Mac OS X]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlmint}} || Perl notes for MiNT
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlmpeix}} || Perl notes for MPE/iX
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlnetware}} || Perl notes for [[NetWare]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlos2}} || Perl notes for [[OS/2]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlos390}} || Perl notes for [[OS/390]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlos400}} || Perl notes for [[OS/400]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlplan9}} || Perl notes for Plan 9
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlqnx}} || Perl notes for [[QNX]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlsolaris}} || Perl notes for Solaris
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perltru64}} || Perl notes for Tru64
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perluts}} || Perl notes for UTS
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlvmesa}} || Perl notes for VM/ESA
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlvms}} || Perl notes for [[VMS]]
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlvos}} || Perl notes for Stratus VOS
 +
|-
 +
| {{manpagelink|perlwin32}} || Perl notes for [[Windows (Microsoft)|Windows]]
 +
|}
 +
On [[Debian]] systems, you need to install the perl-doc package which contains the majority of the standard Perl documentation and the perldoc program.
  
−
          perlembed          Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
+
Extensive additional documentation for Perl modules is available, both those distributed with Perl and third-party modules which are packaged or locally installed.
−
          perldebguts        Perl debugging guts and tips
 
−
          perlxstut          Perl XS tutorial
 
−
          perlxs              Perl XS application programming interface
 
−
          perlclib            Internal replacements for standard C library functions
 
−
          perlguts            Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
 
−
          perlcall            Perl calling conventions from C
 
  
−
          perlapi            Perl API listing (autogenerated)
+
You should be able to view Perl's documentation with your {{manpagelink|man}}(1) program or {{manpagelink|perldoc}}(1).
−
          perlintern          Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
 
−
          perliol            C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layers
 
−
          perlapio            Perl internal IO abstraction interface
 
  
−
          perlhack            Perl hackers guide
+
If something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're not sure where you should look for help, try the '''-w''' switch first.  It will often point out exactly where the trouble is.
  
−
      Miscellaneous
+
But wait, there's more...
  
−
          perlbook            Perl book information
+
Begun in 1993 (see {{manpagelink|perlhist}}), Perl version 5 is nearly a complete rewrite that provides the following additional benefits:
−
          perltodo            Perl things to do
 
  
−
          perldoc            Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
+
* modularity and reusability using innumerable modules
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlmod}}, {{manpagelink|perlmodlib}}, and {{manpagelink|perlmodinstall}}.
 +
* embeddable and extensible
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlembed}}, {{manpagelink|perlxstut}}, {{manpagelink|perlxs}}, {{manpagelink|perlcall}}, {{manpagelink|perlguts}}, and {{manpagelink|xsubpp}}.
 +
* roll-your-own magic variables (including multiple simultaneous DBM implementations)
 +
*: Described in {{manppagelink|perltie}} and AnyDBM_File.
 +
* subroutines can now be overridden, autoloaded, and prototyped
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlsub}}.
 +
* arbitrarily nested data structures and anonymous functions
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlreftut}}, {{manpagelink|perlref}}, {{manpagelink|perldsc}}, and {{manpagelink|perllol}}.
 +
* object-oriented programming
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlobj}}, {{manpagelink|perlboot}}, {{manpagelink|perltoot}}, {{manpagelink|perltooc}}, and {{manpagelink|perlbot}}.
 +
* support for light-weight processes (threads)
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlthrtut}} and {{manpagelink|threads}}.
 +
* support for [[Unicode]], internationalization, and localization
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perluniintro}}, {{manpagelink|perllocale}} and Locale::Maketext.
 +
* lexical scoping
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlsub}}.
 +
* [[regular expression]] enhancements
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perlre}}, with additional examples in {{manpagelink|perlop}}.
 +
* enhanced debugger and interactive Perl environment, with integrated editor support
 +
*: Described in {{manpagelink|perldebtut}}, {{manpagelink|perldebug}} and {{manpagelink|perldebguts}}.
 +
* POSIX 1003.1 compliant library
 +
*: Described in POSIX.
  
−
          perlhist            Perl history records
+
Okay, that's definitely enough hype.
−
          perldelta          Perl changes since previous version
+
===AVAILABILITY===
−
          perl583delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.3
+
Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually all [[Unix]]-like platforms. See "Supported Platforms" in {{manpagelink|perlport}} for a listing.
−
          perl582delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.2
+
===ENVIRONMENT===
−
          perl581delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.1
+
See {{manpagelink|perlrun}}.
−
          perl58delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.0
+
===AUTHOR===
−
          perl573delta        Perl changes in version 5.7.3
+
Larry Wall {{email|larry|wall|org}}, with the help of oodles of other folks.
−
          perl572delta        Perl changes in version 5.7.2
 
−
          perl571delta        Perl changes in version 5.7.1
 
−
          perl570delta        Perl changes in version 5.7.0
 
−
          perl561delta        Perl changes in version 5.6.1
 
−
          perl56delta        Perl changes in version 5.6
 
−
          perl5005delta      Perl changes in version 5.005
 
−
          perl5004delta      Perl changes in version 5.004
 
  
−
          perlartistic        Perl Artistic License
+
If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others who wish to advocate the use of Perl in their applications, or if you wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and the Perl developers, please write to {{email|perl-thanks|perl|org}}.
−
          perlgpl            GNU General Public License
+
===FILES===
 +
;"@INC":locations of perl libraries
 +
===SEE ALSO===
 +
* '''a2p''': awk to perl translator
 +
* '''s2p''': sed to perl translator
  
−
      Language-Specific
+
* http://www.perl.com/      the Perl Home Page
 +
* http://www.cpan.org/      the Comprehensive Perl Archive
 +
* http://www.perl.org/      Perl Mongers (Perl user groups)
 +
===DIAGNOSTICS===
 +
The "use warnings" pragma (and the '''-w''' switch) produces some lovely diagnostics.
  
−
          perlcn              Perl for Simplified Chinese (in EUC-CN)
+
See {{manpagelink|perldiag}} for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics.  The "use diagnostics" pragma automatically turns Perl's normally terse warnings and errors into these longer forms.
−
          perljp              Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)
 
−
          perlko              Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)
 
−
          perltw              Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)
 
  
−
      Platform-Specific
+
Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an indication of the next token or token type that was to be examined.  (In a script passed to Perl via '''-e''' switches, each '''-e''' is counted as one line.)
  
−
          perlaix            Perl notes for AIX
+
Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error messages such as "Insecure dependency".  See {{manpagelink|perlsec}}.
−
          perlamiga          Perl notes for AmigaOS
 
−
          perlapollo          Perl notes for Apollo DomainOS
 
−
          perlbeos            Perl notes for BeOS
 
−
          perlbs2000          Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000
 
−
          perlce              Perl notes for WinCE
 
−
          perlcygwin          Perl notes for Cygwin
 
−
          perldgux            Perl notes for DG/UX
 
−
          perldos            Perl notes for DOS
 
−
          perlepoc            Perl notes for EPOC
 
−
          perlfreebsd        Perl notes for FreeBSD
 
−
          perlhpux            Perl notes for HP-UX
 
−
          perlhurd            Perl notes for Hurd
 
−
          perlirix            Perl notes for Irix
 
−
          perlmachten        Perl notes for Power MachTen
 
−
          perlmacos          Perl notes for Mac OS (Classic)
 
−
          perlmacosx          Perl notes for Mac OS X
 
−
          perlmint            Perl notes for MiNT
 
−
          perlmpeix          Perl notes for MPE/iX
 
−
          perlnetware        Perl notes for NetWare
 
−
          perlos2            Perl notes for OS/2
 
−
          perlos390          Perl notes for OS/390
 
−
          perlos400          Perl notes for OS/400
 
−
          perlplan9          Perl notes for Plan 9
 
−
          perlqnx            Perl notes for QNX
 
−
          perlsolaris        Perl notes for Solaris
 
−
          perltru64          Perl notes for Tru64
 
−
          perluts            Perl notes for UTS
 
−
          perlvmesa          Perl notes for VM/ESA
 
−
          perlvms            Perl notes for VMS
 
−
          perlvos            Perl notes for Stratus VOS
 
−
          perlwin32          Perl notes for Windows
 
  
−
      On Debian systems, you need to install the perl-doc package which contains the majority of the
+
Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the '''-w''' switch?
−
      standard Perl documentation and the perldoc program.
+
===BUGS===
 +
The -w switch is not mandatory.
  
−
      Extensive additional documentation for Perl modules is available, both those distributed with
+
Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various operations such as type casting, {{perlfunc|atof}}(), and floating-point output with {{perlfunc|sprintf}}().
−
      Perl and third-party modules which are packaged or locally installed.
 
  
−
      You should be able to view Perl's documentation with your man(1) program or perldoc(1).
+
If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a particular stream, so does Perl.  (This doesn't apply to {{perlfunc|sysread}}() and {{perlfunc|syswrite}}().)
  
−
      If something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're not sure where you should look
+
While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits (apart from memory size), there are still a few arbitrary limits:  a given variable name may not be longer than 251 characters.  Line numbers displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short integers, so they are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers usually being affected by wraparound).
−
      for help, try the -w switch first.  It will often point out exactly where the trouble is.
 
  
−
      But wait, there's more...
+
You may mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration information as output by the myconfig program in the perl source tree, or by "perl -V") to {{email|perlbug|perl|org}}.  If you've succeeded in compiling perl, the perlbug script in the utils/ subdirectory can be used to help mail in a bug report.
−
      Begun in 1993 (see perlhist), Perl version 5 is nearly a complete rewrite that provides the
 
−
      following additional benefits:
 
  
−
      ·  modularity and reusability using innumerable modules
+
Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said that.
 +
===NOTES===
 +
The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it."  Divining how many more is left as an exercise to the reader.
  
−
          Described in perlmod, perlmodlib, and perlmodinstall.
+
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.  See the Camel Book for why.
−
 
 
−
      ·  embeddable and extensible
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlembed, perlxstut, perlxs, perlcall, perlguts, and xsubpp.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  roll-your-own magic variables (including multiple simultaneous DBM implementations)
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perltie and AnyDBM_File.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  subroutines can now be overridden, autoloaded, and prototyped
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlsub.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  arbitrarily nested data structures and anonymous functions
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlreftut, perlref, perldsc, and perllol.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  object-oriented programming
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlobj, perlboot, perltoot, perltooc, and perlbot.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  support for light-weight processes (threads)
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlthrtut and threads.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  support for Unicode, internationalization, and localization
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perluniintro, perllocale and Locale::Maketext.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  lexical scoping
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlsub.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  regular expression enhancements
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perlre, with additional examples in perlop.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  enhanced debugger and interactive Perl environment, with integrated editor support
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in perldebtut, perldebug and perldebguts.
 
−
 
 
−
      ·  POSIX 1003.1 compliant library
 
−
 
 
−
          Described in POSIX.
 
−
 
 
−
      Okay, that's definitely enough hype.
 
−
 
 
−
AVAILABILITY
 
−
      Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually all Unix-like platforms.  See
 
−
      "Supported Platforms" in perlport for a listing.
 
−
 
 
−
ENVIRONMENT
 
−
      See perlrun.
 
−
 
 
−
AUTHOR
 
−
      Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>, with the help of oodles of other folks.
 
−
 
 
−
      If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others who wish to advocate the
 
−
      use of Perl in their applications, or if you wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and
 
−
      the Perl developers, please write to perl-thanks@perl.org .
 
−
 
 
−
FILES
 
−
        "@INC"                locations of perl libraries
 
−
 
 
−
SEE ALSO
 
−
        a2p    awk to perl translator
 
−
        s2p    sed to perl translator
 
−
 
 
−
        http://www.perl.com/      the Perl Home Page
 
−
        http://www.cpan.org/      the Comprehensive Perl Archive
 
−
        http://www.perl.org/      Perl Mongers (Perl user groups)
 
−
 
 
−
DIAGNOSTICS
 
−
      The "use warnings" pragma (and the -w switch) produces some lovely diagnostics.
 
−
 
 
−
      See perldiag for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics.  The "use diagnostics" pragma automat-
 
−
      ically turns Perl's normally terse warnings and errors into these longer forms.
 
−
 
 
−
      Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an indication of the next
 
−
      token or token type that was to be examined.  (In a script passed to Perl via -e switches, each
 
−
      -e is counted as one line.)
 
−
 
 
−
      Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error messages such as "Insecure
 
−
      dependency".  See perlsec.
 
−
      Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the -w switch?
 
−
 
 
−
BUGS
 
−
      The -w switch is not mandatory.
 
−
 
 
−
      Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various operations such as type casting,
 
−
      atof(), and floating-point output with sprintf().
 
−
 
 
−
      If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a particular stream, so does
 
−
      Perl.  (This doesn't apply to sysread() and syswrite().)
 
−
 
 
−
      While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits (apart from memory size),
 
−
      there are still a few arbitrary limits:  a given variable name may not be longer than 251 char-
 
−
      acters.  Line numbers displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short integers, so they
 
−
      are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers usually being affected by wraparound).
 
−
 
 
−
      You may mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration information as output by
 
−
      the myconfig program in the perl source tree, or by "perl -V") to perlbug@perl.org .  If you've
 
−
      succeeded in compiling perl, the perlbug script in the utils/ subdirectory can be used to help
 
−
      mail in a bug report.
 
−
 
 
−
      Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said
 
−
      that.
 
−
 
 
−
NOTES
 
−
      The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it."  Divining how many more is left as an
 
−
      exercise to the reader.
 
−
 
 
−
      The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.  See the
 
−
      Camel Book for why.
 

Revision as of 20:25, 8 April 2006

Computing: Software: Programming: Perl: Manpage

Manpage

NAME

perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language

SYNOPSIS

perl

  1. REDIRECT Template:arg/opt
  2. REDIRECT Template:fmt/arg/opt [ <-V[:configvar]> ] [ <-cw> ] [ <-d[:debugger]> ] [ <-D[number/list]> ] [ <-pna> ] [ <-Fpattern> ] [ <-l[octal]> ] [ <-0[octal]> ] [ <-Idir> ] [ <-m[-]module> ] [ <-M[-]'module...'> ] [ <-P> ] [ <-S> ] [ <-x[dir]> ] [ <-i[extension]> ] [ <-e 'command'> ] [ <--> ] [ <programfile> ] [ <argument> ]...

DESCRIPTION

Perl is a language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing reports based on that information. It's also a good language for many system management tasks. The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal).

Perl combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some of the best features of C, sed, awk, and sh, so people familiar with those languages should have little difficulty with it. (Language historians will also note some vestiges of csh, Pascal, and even BASIC-PLUS.) Expression syntax corresponds closely to C expression syntax. Unlike most Unix utilities, Perl does not arbitrarily limit the size of your data--if you've got the memory, Perl can slurp in your whole file as a single string. Recursion is of unlimited depth. And the tables used by hashes (sometimes called "associative arrays") grow as necessary to prevent degraded performance. Perl can use sophisticated pattern matching techniques to scan large amounts of data quickly. Although optimized for scanning text, Perl can also deal with binary data, and can make dbm files look like hashes. Setuid Perl scripts are safer than C programs through a dataflow tracing mechanism that prevents many stupid security holes.

If you have a problem that would ordinarily use sed or awk or sh, but it exceeds their capabilities or must run a little faster, and you don't want to write the silly thing in C, then Perl may be for you. There are also translators to turn your sed and awk scripts into Perl scripts.

If you're new to Perl, you should start with perlintro, which is a general intro for beginners and provides some background to help you navigate the rest of Perl's extensive documentation.

For ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into several sections.

Overview

perl Perl overview (this section)
perlintro Perl introduction for beginners
perltoc Perl documentation table of contents

Tutorials

perlreftut Perl references short introduction
perldsc Perl data structures intro
perllol Perl data structures: arrays of arrays
perlrequick Perl regular expressions quick start
perlretut Perl regular expressions tutorial
perlboot Perl OO tutorial for beginners
perltoot Perl OO tutorial, part 1
perltooc Perl OO tutorial, part 2
perlbot Perl OO tricks and examples
perlstyle Perl style guide
perlcheat Perl cheat sheet
perltrap Perl traps for the unwary
perldebtut Perl debugging tutorial
perlfaq Perl frequently asked questions
perlfaq1 General Questions About Perl
perlfaq2 Obtaining and Learning about Perl
perlfaq3 Programming Tools
perlfaq4 Data Manipulation
perlfaq5 Files and Formats
perlfaq6 Regexes
perlfaq7 Perl Language Issues
perlfaq8 System Interaction
perlfaq9 Networking

Reference Manual

perlsyn Perl syntax
perldata Perl data structures
perlop Perl operators and precedence
perlsub Perl subroutines
perlfunc Perl built-in functions
perlopentut Perl open() tutorial
perlpacktut Perl pack() and unpack() tutorial
perlpod Perl plain old documentation
perlpodspec Perl plain old documentation format specification
perlrun Perl execution and options
perldiag Perl diagnostic messages
perllexwarn Perl warnings and their control
perldebug Perl debugging
perlvar Perl predefined variables
perlre Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
perlreref Perl regular expressions quick reference
perlref Perl references, the rest of the story
perlform Perl formats
perlobj Perl objects
perltie Perl objects hidden behind simple variables
perldbmfilter Perl DBM filters
perlipc Perl interprocess communication
perlfork Perl fork() information
perlnumber Perl number semantics
perlthrtut Perl threads tutorial
perlothrtut Old Perl threads tutorial
perlport Perl portability guide
perllocale Perl locale support
perluniintro Perl Unicode introduction
perlunicode Perl Unicode support
perlebcdic Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
perlsec Perl security
perlmod Perl modules: how they work
perlmodlib Perl modules: how to write and use
perlmodstyle Perl modules: how to write modules with style
perlmodinstall Perl modules: how to install from CPAN
perlnewmod Perl modules: preparing a new module for distribution
perlutil utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
perlcompile Perl compiler suite intro
perlfilter Perl source filters

Internals and C Language Interface

perlembed Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
perldebguts Perl debugging guts and tips
perlxstut Perl XS tutorial
perlxs Perl XS application programming interface
perlclib Internal replacements for standard C library functions
perlguts Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
perlcall Perl calling conventions from C
perlapi Perl API listing (autogenerated)
perlintern Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
perliol C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layers
perlapio Perl internal IO abstraction interface
perlhack Perl hackers guide

Miscellaneous

perlbook Perl book information
perltodo Perl things to do
perldoc Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
perlhist Perl history records
perldelta Perl changes since previous version
perl583delta Perl changes in version 5.8.3
perl582delta Perl changes in version 5.8.2
perl581delta Perl changes in version 5.8.1
perl58delta Perl changes in version 5.8.0
perl573delta Perl changes in version 5.7.3
perl572delta Perl changes in version 5.7.2
perl571delta Perl changes in version 5.7.1
perl570delta Perl changes in version 5.7.0
perl561delta Perl changes in version 5.6.1
perl56delta Perl changes in version 5.6
perl5005delta Perl changes in version 5.005
perl5004delta Perl changes in version 5.004
perlartistic Perl Artistic License
perlgpl GNU General Public License

Language-Specific

perlcn Perl for Simplified Chinese (in EUC-CN)
perljp Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)
perlko Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)
perltw Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)

Platform-Specific

perlaix Perl notes for AIX
perlamiga Perl notes for AmigaOS
perlapollo Perl notes for Apollo DomainOS
perlbeos Perl notes for BeOS
perlbs2000 Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000
perlce Perl notes for WinCE
perlcygwin Perl notes for Cygwin
perldgux Perl notes for DG/UX
perldos Perl notes for DOS
perlepoc Perl notes for EPOC
perlfreebsd Perl notes for FreeBSD
perlhpux Perl notes for HP-UX
perlhurd Perl notes for Hurd
perlirix Perl notes for Irix
perlmachten Perl notes for Power MachTen
perlmacos Perl notes for Mac OS (Classic)
perlmacosx Perl notes for Mac OS X
perlmint Perl notes for MiNT
perlmpeix Perl notes for MPE/iX
perlnetware Perl notes for NetWare
perlos2 Perl notes for OS/2
perlos390 Perl notes for OS/390
perlos400 Perl notes for OS/400
perlplan9 Perl notes for Plan 9
perlqnx Perl notes for QNX
perlsolaris Perl notes for Solaris
perltru64 Perl notes for Tru64
perluts Perl notes for UTS
perlvmesa Perl notes for VM/ESA
perlvms Perl notes for VMS
perlvos Perl notes for Stratus VOS
perlwin32 Perl notes for Windows

On Debian systems, you need to install the perl-doc package which contains the majority of the standard Perl documentation and the perldoc program.

Extensive additional documentation for Perl modules is available, both those distributed with Perl and third-party modules which are packaged or locally installed.

You should be able to view Perl's documentation with your man(1) program or perldoc(1).

If something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're not sure where you should look for help, try the -w switch first. It will often point out exactly where the trouble is.

But wait, there's more...

Begun in 1993 (see perlhist), Perl version 5 is nearly a complete rewrite that provides the following additional benefits:

Okay, that's definitely enough hype.

AVAILABILITY

Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually all Unix-like platforms. See "Supported Platforms" in perlport for a listing.

ENVIRONMENT

See perlrun.

AUTHOR

Larry Wall larryspam@spamwallspam.spamorg, with the help of oodles of other folks.

If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others who wish to advocate the use of Perl in their applications, or if you wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and the Perl developers, please write to perl-thanksspam@spamperlspam.spamorg.

FILES

"@INC"
locations of perl libraries

SEE ALSO

  • a2p: awk to perl translator
  • s2p: sed to perl translator

DIAGNOSTICS

The "use warnings" pragma (and the -w switch) produces some lovely diagnostics.

See perldiag for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics. The "use diagnostics" pragma automatically turns Perl's normally terse warnings and errors into these longer forms.

Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an indication of the next token or token type that was to be examined. (In a script passed to Perl via -e switches, each -e is counted as one line.)

Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error messages such as "Insecure dependency". See perlsec.

Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the -w switch?

BUGS

The -w switch is not mandatory.

Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various operations such as type casting, atof(), and floating-point output with sprintf().

If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a particular stream, so does Perl. (This doesn't apply to sysread() and syswrite().)

While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits (apart from memory size), there are still a few arbitrary limits: a given variable name may not be longer than 251 characters. Line numbers displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short integers, so they are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers usually being affected by wraparound).

You may mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration information as output by the myconfig program in the perl source tree, or by "perl -V") to perlbugspam@spamperlspam.spamorg. If you've succeeded in compiling perl, the perlbug script in the utils/ subdirectory can be used to help mail in a bug report.

Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said that.

NOTES

The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." Divining how many more is left as an exercise to the reader.

The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.

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