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1=head1 NAME
2
3perlutil - utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7Along with the Perl interpreter itself, the Perl distribution installs a
8range of utilities on your system. There are also several utilities
9which are used by the Perl distribution itself as part of the install
10process. This document exists to list all of these utilities, explain
11what they are for and provide pointers to each module's documentation,
12if appropriate.
13
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14=head1 LIST OF UTILITIES
15
16=head2 Documentation
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17
18=over 3
19
20=item L<perldoc|perldoc>
21
22The main interface to Perl's documentation is C<perldoc>, although
23if you're reading this, it's more than likely that you've already found
24it. F<perldoc> will extract and format the documentation from any file
25in the current directory, any Perl module installed on the system, or
26any of the standard documentation pages, such as this one. Use
27C<perldoc E<lt>nameE<gt>> to get information on any of the utilities
28described in this document.
29
30=item L<pod2man|pod2man> and L<pod2text|pod2text>
31
32If it's run from a terminal, F<perldoc> will usually call F<pod2man> to
33translate POD (Plain Old Documentation - see L<perlpod> for an
3958b146 34explanation) into a manpage, and then run F<man> to display it; if
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35F<man> isn't available, F<pod2text> will be used instead and the output
36piped through your favourite pager.
37
ad68f4fd 38=item L<pod2html|pod2html>
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40As well as these two, there is another converter: F<pod2html> will
41produce HTML pages from POD.
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42
43=item L<pod2usage|pod2usage>
44
45If you just want to know how to use the utilities described here,
46F<pod2usage> will just extract the "USAGE" section; some of
47the utilities will automatically call F<pod2usage> on themselves when
48you call them with C<-help>.
49
50=item L<podselect|podselect>
51
52F<pod2usage> is a special case of F<podselect>, a utility to extract
53named sections from documents written in POD. For instance, while
54utilities have "USAGE" sections, Perl modules usually have "SYNOPSIS"
55sections: C<podselect -s "SYNOPSIS" ...> will extract this section for
56a given file.
57
58=item L<podchecker|podchecker>
59
60If you're writing your own documentation in POD, the F<podchecker>
61utility will look for errors in your markup.
62
63=item L<splain|splain>
64
65F<splain> is an interface to L<perldiag> - paste in your error message
66to it, and it'll explain it for you.
67
a24e5063 68=item C<roffitall>
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69
70The C<roffitall> utility is not installed on your system but lives in
71the F<pod/> directory of your Perl source kit; it converts all the
72documentation from the distribution to F<*roff> format, and produces a
73typeset PostScript or text file of the whole lot.
74
75=back
76
b6538e4f 77=head2 Converters
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79To help you convert legacy programs to more modern Perl, the
80L<pl2pm|pl2pm> utility will help you convert old-style Perl 4 libraries
81to new-style Perl5 modules.
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83=head2 Administration
84
85=over 3
86
87=item L<libnetcfg|libnetcfg>
88
89To display and change the libnet configuration run the libnetcfg command.
90
baf0caad 91=item L<perlivp>
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93The F<perlivp> program is set up at Perl source code build time to test
94the Perl version it was built under. It can be used after running C<make
95install> (or your platform's equivalent procedure) to verify that perl
96and its libraries have been installed correctly.
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98=back
99
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100=head2 Development
101
102There are a set of utilities which help you in developing Perl programs,
103and in particular, extending Perl with C.
104
105=over 3
106
107=item L<perlbug|perlbug>
108
109F<perlbug> is the recommended way to report bugs in the perl interpreter
110itself or any of the standard library modules back to the developers;
111please read through the documentation for F<perlbug> thoroughly before
112using it to submit a bug report.
113
f9615397 114=item L<perlthanks|perlbug>
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115
116This program provides an easy way to send a thank-you message back to the
117authors and maintainers of perl. It's just F<perlbug> installed under
118another name.
119
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120=item L<h2ph|h2ph>
121
122Back before Perl had the XS system for connecting with C libraries,
123programmers used to get library constants by reading through the C
124header files. You may still see C<require 'syscall.ph'> or similar
125around - the F<.ph> file should be created by running F<h2ph> on the
126corresponding F<.h> file. See the F<h2ph> documentation for more on how
c06dc7de 127to convert a whole bunch of header files at once.
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128
129=item L<c2ph|c2ph> and L<pstruct|pstruct>
130
131F<c2ph> and F<pstruct>, which are actually the same program but behave
132differently depending on how they are called, provide another way of
133getting at C with Perl - they'll convert C structures and union declarations
134to Perl code. This is deprecated in favour of F<h2xs> these days.
135
136=item L<h2xs|h2xs>
137
138F<h2xs> converts C header files into XS modules, and will try and write
139as much glue between C libraries and Perl modules as it can. It's also
140very useful for creating skeletons of pure Perl modules.
141
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142=item L<enc2xs>
143
144F<enc2xs> builds a Perl extension for use by Encode from either
145Unicode Character Mapping files (.ucm) or Tcl Encoding Files (.enc).
146Besides being used internally during the build process of the Encode
147module, you can use F<enc2xs> to add your own encoding to perl.
148No knowledge of XS is necessary.
149
150=item L<xsubpp>
151
152F<xsubpp> is a compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
153It is typically run by the makefiles created by L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>.
154
155F<xsubpp> will compile XS code into C code by embedding the constructs
156necessary to let C functions manipulate Perl values and creates the glue
157necessary to let Perl access those functions.
158
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159=item L<prove>
160
e1020413 161F<prove> is a command-line interface to the test-running functionality
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162of F<Test::Harness>. It's an alternative to C<make test>.
163
164=item L<corelist>
165
166A command-line front-end to C<Module::CoreList>, to query what modules
167were shipped with given versions of perl.
168
169=back
170
171=head2 General tools
172
173A few general-purpose tools are shipped with perl, mostly because they
174came along modules included in the perl distribution.
175
176=over 3
177
178=item L<piconv>
179
180B<piconv> is a Perl version of B<iconv>, a character encoding converter
181widely available for various Unixen today. This script was primarily a
7c2e2b3a 182technology demonstrator for Perl v5.8.0, but you can use piconv in the
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183place of iconv for virtually any case.
184
185=item L<ptar>
186
187F<ptar> is a tar-like program, written in pure Perl.
188
189=item L<ptardiff>
190
191F<ptardiff> is a small utility that produces a diff between an extracted
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192archive and an unextracted one. (Note that this utility requires the
193C<Text::Diff> module to function properly; this module isn't distributed
194with perl, but is available from the CPAN.)
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196=item L<ptargrep>
197
198F<ptargrep> is a utility to apply pattern matching to the contents of files
199in a tar archive.
200
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201=item L<shasum>
202
203This utility, that comes with the C<Digest::SHA> module, is used to print
204or verify SHA checksums.
205
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206=item L<zipdetails>
207
208L<zipdetails> displays information about the internal record structure of the zip file.
209It is not concerned with displaying any details of the compressed data stored in the zip file.
210
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211=back
212
213=head2 Installation
214
215These utilities help manage extra Perl modules that don't come with the perl
216distribution.
217
218=over 3
219
220=item L<cpan>
221
222F<cpan> is a command-line interface to CPAN.pm. It allows you to install
223modules or distributions from CPAN, or just get information about them, and
224a lot more. It is similar to the command line mode of the L<CPAN> module,
225
226 perl -MCPAN -e shell
227
228=item L<instmodsh>
229
230A little interface to ExtUtils::Installed to examine installed modules,
231validate your packlists and even create a tarball from an installed module.
232
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233=back
234
baf0caad 235=head1 SEE ALSO
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236
237L<perldoc|perldoc>, L<pod2man|pod2man>, L<perlpod>,
238L<pod2html|pod2html>, L<pod2usage|pod2usage>, L<podselect|podselect>,
239L<podchecker|podchecker>, L<splain|splain>, L<perldiag>,
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240C<roffitall|roffitall>, L<File::Find|File::Find>, L<pl2pm|pl2pm>,
241L<perlbug|perlbug>, L<h2ph|h2ph>, L<c2ph|c2ph>, L<h2xs|h2xs>, L<enc2xs>,
242L<xsubpp>, L<cpan>, L<instmodsh>, L<piconv>, L<prove>, L<corelist>, L<ptar>,
243L<ptardiff>, L<shasum>, L<zipdetails>
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244
245=cut