PERLFAQ2(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFAQ2(1) #
PERLFAQ2(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFAQ2(1)
NNAAMMEE #
perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl
VVEERRSSIIOONN #
version 5.20210520
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN #
This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find source and
documentation for Perl, support, and related matters.
WWhhaatt mmaacchhiinneess ssuuppppoorrtt PPeerrll?? WWhheerree ddoo II ggeett iitt?? The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the Perl development team) is distributed only in source code form. You can find the latest releases at http://www.cpan.org/src/.
Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually all
known and current Unix derivatives are supported (perl's native
platform), as are other systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows, QNX, BeOS,
OS X, MPE/iX and the Amiga.
Binary distributions for some proprietary platforms can be found
<http://www.cpan.org/ports/> directory. Because these are not part of the
standard distribution, they may and in fact do differ from the base perl
port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check their respective release
notes to see just what the differences are. These differences can be
either positive (e.g. extensions for the features of the particular
platform that are not supported in the source release of perl) or
negative (e.g. might be based upon a less current source release of
perl).
HHooww ccaann II ggeett aa bbiinnaarryy vveerrssiioonn ooff PPeerrll?? See CPAN Ports http://www.cpan.org/ports/
II ddoonn’’tt hhaavvee aa CC ccoommppiilleerr.. HHooww ccaann II bbuuiilldd mmyy oowwnn PPeerrll iinntteerrpprreetteerr?? For Windows, use a binary version of Perl, Strawberry Perl http://strawberryperl.com/ and ActivePerl http://www.activestate.com/activeperl come with a bundled C compiler.
Otherwise if you really do want to build Perl, you need to get a binary
version of "gcc" for your system first. Use a search engine to find out
how to do this for your operating system.
II ccooppiieedd tthhee PPeerrll bbiinnaarryy ffrroomm oonnee mmaacchhiinnee ttoo aannootthheerr,, bbuutt ssccrriippttss ddoonn’’tt wwoorrkk.. That’s probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ. You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it will eventually live on, and then type “make install”. Most other approaches are doomed to failure.
One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print
out the hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries:
% perl -le 'print for @INC'
If this command lists any paths that don't exist on your system, then you
may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create
symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed
as part of the output of
% perl -V
You might also want to check out "How do I keep my own module/library
directory?" in perlfaq8.
II ggrraabbbbeedd tthhee ssoouurrcceess aanndd ttrriieedd ttoo ccoommppiillee bbuutt ggddbbmm//ddyynnaammiicc llooaaddiinngg//mmaalllloocc//lliinnkkiinngg//...... ffaaiilleedd.. HHooww ddoo II mmaakkee iitt wwoorrkk?? Read the _I_N_S_T_A_L_L file, which is part of the source distribution. It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that the “Configure” script can’t work around for any given system or architecture.
WWhhaatt mmoodduulleess aanndd eexxtteennssiioonnss aarree aavvaaiillaabbllee ffoorr PPeerrll?? WWhhaatt iiss CCPPAANN?? CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a multi-gigabyte archive replicated on hundreds of machines all over the world. CPAN contains tens of thousands of modules and extensions, source code and documentation, designed for _e_v_e_r_y_t_h_i_n_g from commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control and running large web sites.
You can search CPAN on <http://metacpan.org>.
The master web site for CPAN is <http://www.cpan.org/>,
<http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html> lists all mirrors.
See the CPAN FAQ at <http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html> for answers
to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN.
The Task::Kensho module has a list of recommended modules which you
should review as a good starting point.
WWhheerree ccaann II ggeett iinnffoorrmmaattiioonn oonn PPeerrll?? • http://www.perl.org/
• <http://perldoc.perl.org/>
• <http://learn.perl.org/>
The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution.
If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
installed as well: type "perldoc perl" in a terminal or view online
<http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html>.
(Some operating system distributions may ship the documentation in a
different package; for instance, on Debian, you need to install the
"perl-doc" package.)
Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section later in
perlfaq2 for more details.
WWhhaatt iiss ppeerrll..ccoomm?? PPeerrll MMoonnggeerrss?? ppmm..oorrgg?? ppeerrll..oorrgg?? ccppaann..oorrgg?? Perl.com http://www.perl.com/ used to be part of the O’Reilly Network, a subsidiary of O’Reilly Media. Although it retains most of the original content from its O’Reilly Network, it is now hosted by The Perl Foundation http://www.perlfoundation.org/.
The Perl Foundation is an advocacy organization for the Perl language
which maintains the web site <http://www.perl.org/> as a general advocacy
site for the Perl language. It uses the domain to provide general support
services to the Perl community, including the hosting of mailing lists,
web sites, and other services. There are also many other sub-domains for
special topics like learning Perl and jobs in Perl, such as:
• <http://www.perl.org/>
• <http://learn.perl.org/>
• <http://jobs.perl.org/>
• <http://lists.perl.org/>
Perl Mongers <http://www.pm.org/> uses the pm.org domain for services
related to local Perl user groups, including the hosting of mailing lists
and web sites. See the Perl Mongers web site <http://www.pm.org/> for
more information about joining, starting, or requesting services for a
Perl user group.
CPAN, or the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network <http://www.cpan.org/>,
is a replicated, worldwide repository of Perl software. See What is
CPAN?. #
WWhheerree ccaann II ppoosstt qquueessttiioonnss?? There are many Perl mailing lists for various topics, specifically the beginners list http://lists.perl.org/list/beginners.html may be of use.
Other places to ask questions are on the PerlMonks site
<http://www.perlmonks.org/> or stackoverflow
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/perl>.
PPeerrll BBooookkss There are many good books on Perl http://www.perl.org/books/library.html.
WWhhiicchh mmaaggaazziinneess hhaavvee PPeerrll ccoonntteenntt?? There’s also _$_f_o_o _M_a_g_a_z_i_n, a German magazine dedicated to Perl, at ( http://www.foo-magazin.de ). The _P_e_r_l_-_Z_e_i_t_u_n_g is another German- speaking magazine for Perl beginners (see http://perl-zeitung.at.tf ).
Several Unix/Linux related magazines frequently include articles on Perl.
WWhhiicchh PPeerrll bbllooggss sshhoouulldd II rreeaadd?? Perl News http://perlnews.org/ covers some of the major events in the Perl world, Perl Weekly http://perlweekly.com/ is a weekly e-mail (and RSS feed) of hand-picked Perl articles.
<http://blogs.perl.org/> hosts many Perl blogs, there are also several
blog aggregators: Perlsphere <http://perlsphere.net/> and IronMan
<http://ironman.enlightenedperl.org/> are two of them.
WWhhaatt mmaaiilliinngg lliissttss aarree tthheerree ffoorr PPeerrll?? A comprehensive list of Perl-related mailing lists can be found at http://lists.perl.org/
WWhheerree ccaann II bbuuyy aa ccoommmmeerrcciiaall vveerrssiioonn ooff PPeerrll?? Perl already _i_s commercial software: it has a license that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is distributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a very large and supportive user community and an extensive literature.
If you still need commercial support ActiveState
<http://www.activestate.com/activeperl> offers this.
WWhheerree ddoo II sseenndd bbuugg rreeppoorrttss?? (contributed by brian d foy)
First, ensure that you've found an actual bug. Second, ensure you've
found an actual bug.
If you've found a bug with the perl interpreter or one of the modules in
the standard library (those that come with Perl), you can submit a bug
report to the GitHub issue tracker at
<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
To determine if a module came with your version of Perl, you can install
and use the Module::CoreList module. It has the information about the
modules (with their versions) included with each release of Perl.
Every CPAN module has a bug tracker set up in RT, <http://rt.cpan.org>.
You can submit bugs to RT either through its web interface or by email.
To email a bug report, send it to bug-<distribution-name>@rt.cpan.org .
For example, if you wanted to report a bug in Business::ISBN, you could
send a message to bug-Business-ISBN@rt.cpan.org .
Some modules might have special reporting requirements, such as a GitHub
or Google Code tracking system, so you should check the module
documentation too.
AAUUTTHHOORR AANNDD CCOOPPYYRRIIGGHHTT #
Copyright (c) 1997-2010 Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, and other
authors as noted. All rights reserved.
This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the
public domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you see
fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would be
courteous but is not required.
perl v5.36.3 2023-02-15 PERLFAQ2(1)