Commit | Line | Data |
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a0d0e21e LW |
1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perlrun - how to execute the Perl interpreter | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 SYNOPSIS | |
6 | ||
672fde27 | 7 | B<perl> S<[ B<-sTtuUWX> ]> |
e0ebc809 | 8 | S<[ B<-hv> ] [ B<-V>[:I<configvar>] ]> |
2cbb2ee1 | 9 | S<[ B<-cw> ] [ B<-d>[B<t>][:I<debugger>] ] [ B<-D>[I<number/list>] ]> |
f2095865 | 10 | S<[ B<-pna> ] [ B<-F>I<pattern> ] [ B<-l>[I<octal>] ] [ B<-0>[I<octal/hexadecimal>] ]> |
df451b2a | 11 | S<[ B<-I>I<dir> ] [ B<-m>[B<->]I<module> ] [ B<-M>[B<->]I<'module...'> ] [ B<-f> ]> |
aefc56c5 | 12 | S<[ B<-A>[I<module>][=I<assertions>] ]> |
c630fe62 | 13 | S<[ B<-C [I<number/list>] >]> |
e0ebc809 | 14 | S<[ B<-P> ]> |
15 | S<[ B<-S> ]> | |
16 | S<[ B<-x>[I<dir>] ]> | |
17 | S<[ B<-i>[I<extension>] ]> | |
bc9b29db | 18 | S<[ B<-eE> I<'command'> ] [ B<--> ] [ I<programfile> ] [ I<argument> ]...> |
a0d0e21e LW |
19 | |
20 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
21 | ||
19799a22 GS |
22 | The normal way to run a Perl program is by making it directly |
23 | executable, or else by passing the name of the source file as an | |
24 | argument on the command line. (An interactive Perl environment | |
25 | is also possible--see L<perldebug> for details on how to do that.) | |
26 | Upon startup, Perl looks for your program in one of the following | |
a0d0e21e LW |
27 | places: |
28 | ||
29 | =over 4 | |
30 | ||
31 | =item 1. | |
32 | ||
bc9b29db | 33 | Specified line by line via B<-e> or B<-E> switches on the command line. |
a0d0e21e LW |
34 | |
35 | =item 2. | |
36 | ||
37 | Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line. | |
a3cb178b GS |
38 | (Note that systems supporting the #! notation invoke interpreters this |
39 | way. See L<Location of Perl>.) | |
a0d0e21e LW |
40 | |
41 | =item 3. | |
42 | ||
5f05dabc | 43 | Passed in implicitly via standard input. This works only if there are |
19799a22 GS |
44 | no filename arguments--to pass arguments to a STDIN-read program you |
45 | must explicitly specify a "-" for the program name. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
46 | |
47 | =back | |
48 | ||
49 | With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file from the | |
50 | beginning, unless you've specified a B<-x> switch, in which case it | |
51 | scans for the first line starting with #! and containing the word | |
19799a22 | 52 | "perl", and starts there instead. This is useful for running a program |
a0d0e21e | 53 | embedded in a larger message. (In this case you would indicate the end |
19799a22 | 54 | of the program using the C<__END__> token.) |
a0d0e21e | 55 | |
5f05dabc | 56 | The #! line is always examined for switches as the line is being |
57 | parsed. Thus, if you're on a machine that allows only one argument | |
58 | with the #! line, or worse, doesn't even recognize the #! line, you | |
59 | still can get consistent switch behavior regardless of how Perl was | |
19799a22 GS |
60 | invoked, even if B<-x> was used to find the beginning of the program. |
61 | ||
62 | Because historically some operating systems silently chopped off | |
63 | kernel interpretation of the #! line after 32 characters, some | |
64 | switches may be passed in on the command line, and some may not; | |
65 | you could even get a "-" without its letter, if you're not careful. | |
66 | You probably want to make sure that all your switches fall either | |
67 | before or after that 32-character boundary. Most switches don't | |
68 | actually care if they're processed redundantly, but getting a "-" | |
69 | instead of a complete switch could cause Perl to try to execute | |
70 | standard input instead of your program. And a partial B<-I> switch | |
a0d0e21e LW |
71 | could also cause odd results. |
72 | ||
19799a22 GS |
73 | Some switches do care if they are processed twice, for instance |
74 | combinations of B<-l> and B<-0>. Either put all the switches after | |
75 | the 32-character boundary (if applicable), or replace the use of | |
76 | B<-0>I<digits> by C<BEGIN{ $/ = "\0digits"; }>. | |
fb73857a | 77 | |
a0d0e21e LW |
78 | Parsing of the #! switches starts wherever "perl" is mentioned in the line. |
79 | The sequences "-*" and "- " are specifically ignored so that you could, | |
80 | if you were so inclined, say | |
81 | ||
82 | #!/bin/sh -- # -*- perl -*- -p | |
19799a22 | 83 | eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}' |
5f05dabc | 84 | if $running_under_some_shell; |
a0d0e21e | 85 | |
44a4342c | 86 | to let Perl see the B<-p> switch. |
19799a22 GS |
87 | |
88 | A similar trick involves the B<env> program, if you have it. | |
89 | ||
90 | #!/usr/bin/env perl | |
91 | ||
92 | The examples above use a relative path to the perl interpreter, | |
93 | getting whatever version is first in the user's path. If you want | |
94 | a specific version of Perl, say, perl5.005_57, you should place | |
95 | that directly in the #! line's path. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
96 | |
97 | If the #! line does not contain the word "perl", the program named after | |
98 | the #! is executed instead of the Perl interpreter. This is slightly | |
99 | bizarre, but it helps people on machines that don't do #!, because they | |
19799a22 | 100 | can tell a program that their SHELL is F</usr/bin/perl>, and Perl will then |
a0d0e21e LW |
101 | dispatch the program to the correct interpreter for them. |
102 | ||
19799a22 | 103 | After locating your program, Perl compiles the entire program to an |
a0d0e21e | 104 | internal form. If there are any compilation errors, execution of the |
19799a22 | 105 | program is not attempted. (This is unlike the typical shell script, |
54310121 | 106 | which might run part-way through before finding a syntax error.) |
a0d0e21e | 107 | |
19799a22 | 108 | If the program is syntactically correct, it is executed. If the program |
a0d0e21e LW |
109 | runs off the end without hitting an exit() or die() operator, an implicit |
110 | C<exit(0)> is provided to indicate successful completion. | |
111 | ||
68dc0745 | 112 | =head2 #! and quoting on non-Unix systems |
d74e8afc | 113 | X<hashbang> X<#!> |
68dc0745 | 114 | |
115 | Unix's #! technique can be simulated on other systems: | |
116 | ||
117 | =over 4 | |
118 | ||
119 | =item OS/2 | |
120 | ||
121 | Put | |
122 | ||
123 | extproc perl -S -your_switches | |
124 | ||
19799a22 | 125 | as the first line in C<*.cmd> file (B<-S> due to a bug in cmd.exe's |
68dc0745 | 126 | `extproc' handling). |
127 | ||
54310121 | 128 | =item MS-DOS |
68dc0745 | 129 | |
19799a22 | 130 | Create a batch file to run your program, and codify it in |
fd1adc71 | 131 | C<ALTERNATE_SHEBANG> (see the F<dosish.h> file in the source |
68dc0745 | 132 | distribution for more information). |
133 | ||
134 | =item Win95/NT | |
135 | ||
6c6a61e2 | 136 | The Win95/NT installation, when using the ActiveState installer for Perl, |
c8db1d39 | 137 | will modify the Registry to associate the F<.pl> extension with the perl |
6c6a61e2 GS |
138 | interpreter. If you install Perl by other means (including building from |
139 | the sources), you may have to modify the Registry yourself. Note that | |
140 | this means you can no longer tell the difference between an executable | |
141 | Perl program and a Perl library file. | |
68dc0745 | 142 | |
143 | =item Macintosh | |
144 | ||
8e30f651 RGS |
145 | Under "Classic" MacOS, a perl program will have the appropriate Creator and |
146 | Type, so that double-clicking them will invoke the MacPerl application. | |
147 | Under Mac OS X, clickable apps can be made from any C<#!> script using Wil | |
148 | Sanchez' DropScript utility: http://www.wsanchez.net/software/ . | |
68dc0745 | 149 | |
bd3fa61c CB |
150 | =item VMS |
151 | ||
152 | Put | |
153 | ||
154 | $ perl -mysw 'f$env("procedure")' 'p1' 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 'p5' 'p6' 'p7' 'p8' ! | |
155 | $ exit++ + ++$status != 0 and $exit = $status = undef; | |
156 | ||
19799a22 GS |
157 | at the top of your program, where B<-mysw> are any command line switches you |
158 | want to pass to Perl. You can now invoke the program directly, by saying | |
159 | C<perl program>, or as a DCL procedure, by saying C<@program> (or implicitly | |
160 | via F<DCL$PATH> by just using the name of the program). | |
bd3fa61c CB |
161 | |
162 | This incantation is a bit much to remember, but Perl will display it for | |
163 | you if you say C<perl "-V:startperl">. | |
164 | ||
68dc0745 | 165 | =back |
166 | ||
167 | Command-interpreters on non-Unix systems have rather different ideas | |
168 | on quoting than Unix shells. You'll need to learn the special | |
169 | characters in your command-interpreter (C<*>, C<\> and C<"> are | |
170 | common) and how to protect whitespace and these characters to run | |
19799a22 | 171 | one-liners (see B<-e> below). |
68dc0745 | 172 | |
173 | On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to double ones, | |
e6f03d26 | 174 | which you must I<not> do on Unix or Plan 9 systems. You might also |
68dc0745 | 175 | have to change a single % to a %%. |
176 | ||
177 | For example: | |
178 | ||
179 | # Unix | |
180 | perl -e 'print "Hello world\n"' | |
181 | ||
54310121 | 182 | # MS-DOS, etc. |
68dc0745 | 183 | perl -e "print \"Hello world\n\"" |
184 | ||
54310121 | 185 | # Macintosh |
68dc0745 | 186 | print "Hello world\n" |
187 | (then Run "Myscript" or Shift-Command-R) | |
188 | ||
189 | # VMS | |
190 | perl -e "print ""Hello world\n""" | |
191 | ||
19799a22 GS |
192 | The problem is that none of this is reliable: it depends on the |
193 | command and it is entirely possible neither works. If B<4DOS> were | |
194 | the command shell, this would probably work better: | |
68dc0745 | 195 | |
196 | perl -e "print <Ctrl-x>"Hello world\n<Ctrl-x>"" | |
197 | ||
19799a22 | 198 | B<CMD.EXE> in Windows NT slipped a lot of standard Unix functionality in |
68dc0745 | 199 | when nobody was looking, but just try to find documentation for its |
200 | quoting rules. | |
201 | ||
54310121 | 202 | Under the Macintosh, it depends which environment you are using. The MacPerl |
68dc0745 | 203 | shell, or MPW, is much like Unix shells in its support for several |
54310121 | 204 | quoting variants, except that it makes free use of the Macintosh's non-ASCII |
68dc0745 | 205 | characters as control characters. |
206 | ||
207 | There is no general solution to all of this. It's just a mess. | |
208 | ||
a3cb178b | 209 | =head2 Location of Perl |
d74e8afc | 210 | X<perl, location of interpreter> |
a3cb178b GS |
211 | |
212 | It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can | |
19799a22 GS |
213 | easily find it. When possible, it's good for both F</usr/bin/perl> |
214 | and F</usr/local/bin/perl> to be symlinks to the actual binary. If | |
215 | that can't be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged | |
216 | to put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities into a | |
217 | directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in some other | |
218 | obvious and convenient place. | |
219 | ||
220 | In this documentation, C<#!/usr/bin/perl> on the first line of the program | |
221 | will stand in for whatever method works on your system. You are | |
222 | advised to use a specific path if you care about a specific version. | |
a3cb178b | 223 | |
19799a22 | 224 | #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00554 |
a3cb178b | 225 | |
19799a22 GS |
226 | or if you just want to be running at least version, place a statement |
227 | like this at the top of your program: | |
a0d0e21e | 228 | |
19799a22 | 229 | use 5.005_54; |
a0d0e21e | 230 | |
19799a22 | 231 | =head2 Command Switches |
d74e8afc | 232 | X<perl, command switches> X<command switches> |
19799a22 GS |
233 | |
234 | As with all standard commands, a single-character switch may be | |
235 | clustered with the following switch, if any. | |
236 | ||
237 | #!/usr/bin/perl -spi.orig # same as -s -p -i.orig | |
a0d0e21e LW |
238 | |
239 | Switches include: | |
240 | ||
241 | =over 5 | |
242 | ||
f2095865 | 243 | =item B<-0>[I<octal/hexadecimal>] |
d74e8afc | 244 | X<-0> X<$/> |
a0d0e21e | 245 | |
f2095865 JH |
246 | specifies the input record separator (C<$/>) as an octal or |
247 | hexadecimal number. If there are no digits, the null character is the | |
248 | separator. Other switches may precede or follow the digits. For | |
249 | example, if you have a version of B<find> which can print filenames | |
250 | terminated by the null character, you can say this: | |
a0d0e21e | 251 | |
19799a22 | 252 | find . -name '*.orig' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink |
a0d0e21e LW |
253 | |
254 | The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in paragraph mode. | |
5f05dabc | 255 | The value 0777 will cause Perl to slurp files whole because there is no |
f2095865 JH |
256 | legal byte with that value. |
257 | ||
258 | If you want to specify any Unicode character, use the hexadecimal | |
259 | format: C<-0xHHH...>, where the C<H> are valid hexadecimal digits. | |
260 | (This means that you cannot use the C<-x> with a directory name that | |
261 | consists of hexadecimal digits.) | |
a0d0e21e | 262 | |
aefc56c5 | 263 | =item B<-A[I<module>][=I<assertions>]> |
d74e8afc | 264 | X<-A> |
702815ca | 265 | |
aefc56c5 SF |
266 | Activates the assertions given after the equal sign as a comma-separated |
267 | list of assertion names or regular expressions. If no assertion name | |
268 | is given, activates all assertions. | |
269 | ||
270 | The module L<assertions::activate> is used by default to activate the | |
271 | selected assertions. An alternate module may be specified including | |
272 | its name between the switch and the equal sign. | |
273 | ||
274 | See L<assertions> and L<assertions::activate>. | |
702815ca | 275 | |
a0d0e21e | 276 | =item B<-a> |
d74e8afc | 277 | X<-a> X<autosplit> |
a0d0e21e LW |
278 | |
279 | turns on autosplit mode when used with a B<-n> or B<-p>. An implicit | |
280 | split command to the @F array is done as the first thing inside the | |
281 | implicit while loop produced by the B<-n> or B<-p>. | |
282 | ||
283 | perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";' | |
284 | ||
285 | is equivalent to | |
286 | ||
287 | while (<>) { | |
288 | @F = split(' '); | |
289 | print pop(@F), "\n"; | |
290 | } | |
291 | ||
292 | An alternate delimiter may be specified using B<-F>. | |
293 | ||
a05d7ebb | 294 | =item B<-C [I<number/list>]> |
d74e8afc | 295 | X<-C> |
46487f74 | 296 | |
a05d7ebb JH |
297 | The C<-C> flag controls some Unicode of the Perl Unicode features. |
298 | ||
299 | As of 5.8.1, the C<-C> can be followed either by a number or a list | |
f3f8427d | 300 | of option letters. The letters, their numeric values, and effects |
8aa8f774 | 301 | are as follows; listing the letters is equal to summing the numbers. |
9f21530f | 302 | |
73e12209 A |
303 | I 1 STDIN is assumed to be in UTF-8 |
304 | O 2 STDOUT will be in UTF-8 | |
305 | E 4 STDERR will be in UTF-8 | |
306 | S 7 I + O + E | |
307 | i 8 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for input streams | |
308 | o 16 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for output streams | |
309 | D 24 i + o | |
310 | A 32 the @ARGV elements are expected to be strings encoded | |
311 | in UTF-8 | |
312 | L 64 normally the "IOEioA" are unconditional, | |
313 | the L makes them conditional on the locale environment | |
314 | variables (the LC_ALL, LC_TYPE, and LANG, in the order | |
315 | of decreasing precedence) -- if the variables indicate | |
316 | UTF-8, then the selected "IOEioA" are in effect | |
9f21530f JH |
317 | |
318 | For example, C<-COE> and C<-C6> will both turn on UTF-8-ness on both | |
319 | STDOUT and STDERR. Repeating letters is just redundant, not cumulative | |
320 | nor toggling. | |
a05d7ebb | 321 | |
44505768 JH |
322 | The C<io> options mean that any subsequent open() (or similar I/O |
323 | operations) will have the C<:utf8> PerlIO layer implicitly applied | |
324 | to them, in other words, UTF-8 is expected from any input stream, | |
325 | and UTF-8 is produced to any output stream. This is just the default, | |
326 | with explicit layers in open() and with binmode() one can manipulate | |
327 | streams as usual. | |
328 | ||
8aa8f774 | 329 | C<-C> on its own (not followed by any number or option list), or the |
47427c4e RGS |
330 | empty string C<""> for the C<PERL_UNICODE> environment variable, has the |
331 | same effect as C<-CSDL>. In other words, the standard I/O handles and | |
332 | the default C<open()> layer are UTF-8-fied B<but> only if the locale | |
333 | environment variables indicate a UTF-8 locale. This behaviour follows | |
334 | the I<implicit> (and problematic) UTF-8 behaviour of Perl 5.8.0. | |
a05d7ebb | 335 | |
47427c4e | 336 | You can use C<-C0> (or C<"0"> for C<PERL_UNICODE>) to explicitly |
5b4f334e | 337 | disable all the above Unicode features. |
fde18df1 | 338 | |
8aa8f774 | 339 | The read-only magic variable C<${^UNICODE}> reflects the numeric value |
ab9e1bb7 JH |
340 | of this setting. This is variable is set during Perl startup and is |
341 | thereafter read-only. If you want runtime effects, use the three-arg | |
2307c6d0 | 342 | open() (see L<perlfunc/open>), the two-arg binmode() (see L<perlfunc/binmode>), |
ab9e1bb7 | 343 | and the C<open> pragma (see L<open>). |
fde18df1 JH |
344 | |
345 | (In Perls earlier than 5.8.1 the C<-C> switch was a Win32-only switch | |
346 | that enabled the use of Unicode-aware "wide system call" Win32 APIs. | |
347 | This feature was practically unused, however, and the command line | |
348 | switch was therefore "recycled".) | |
46487f74 | 349 | |
a0d0e21e | 350 | =item B<-c> |
d74e8afc | 351 | X<-c> |
a0d0e21e | 352 | |
19799a22 | 353 | causes Perl to check the syntax of the program and then exit without |
7d30b5c4 | 354 | executing it. Actually, it I<will> execute C<BEGIN>, C<CHECK>, and |
4f25aa18 GS |
355 | C<use> blocks, because these are considered as occurring outside the |
356 | execution of your program. C<INIT> and C<END> blocks, however, will | |
357 | be skipped. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
358 | |
359 | =item B<-d> | |
d74e8afc | 360 | X<-d> X<-dt> |
a0d0e21e | 361 | |
2cbb2ee1 RGS |
362 | =item B<-dt> |
363 | ||
19799a22 | 364 | runs the program under the Perl debugger. See L<perldebug>. |
2cbb2ee1 RGS |
365 | If B<t> is specified, it indicates to the debugger that threads |
366 | will be used in the code being debugged. | |
a0d0e21e | 367 | |
70c94a19 | 368 | =item B<-d:>I<foo[=bar,baz]> |
d74e8afc | 369 | X<-d> X<-dt> |
3c81428c | 370 | |
2cbb2ee1 RGS |
371 | =item B<-dt:>I<foo[=bar,baz]> |
372 | ||
19799a22 GS |
373 | runs the program under the control of a debugging, profiling, or |
374 | tracing module installed as Devel::foo. E.g., B<-d:DProf> executes | |
70c94a19 RR |
375 | the program using the Devel::DProf profiler. As with the B<-M> |
376 | flag, options may be passed to the Devel::foo package where they | |
377 | will be received and interpreted by the Devel::foo::import routine. | |
378 | The comma-separated list of options must follow a C<=> character. | |
2cbb2ee1 RGS |
379 | If B<t> is specified, it indicates to the debugger that threads |
380 | will be used in the code being debugged. | |
70c94a19 | 381 | See L<perldebug>. |
3c81428c | 382 | |
db2ba183 | 383 | =item B<-D>I<letters> |
d74e8afc | 384 | X<-D> X<DEBUGGING> X<-DDEBUGGING> |
a0d0e21e | 385 | |
db2ba183 | 386 | =item B<-D>I<number> |
a0d0e21e | 387 | |
19799a22 | 388 | sets debugging flags. To watch how it executes your program, use |
db2ba183 TB |
389 | B<-Dtls>. (This works only if debugging is compiled into your |
390 | Perl.) Another nice value is B<-Dx>, which lists your compiled | |
4197b13f | 391 | syntax tree. And B<-Dr> displays compiled regular expressions; |
44a4342c | 392 | the format of the output is explained in L<perldebguts>. |
4197b13f MJD |
393 | |
394 | As an alternative, specify a number instead of list of letters (e.g., | |
395 | B<-D14> is equivalent to B<-Dtls>): | |
a0d0e21e | 396 | |
9388183f | 397 | 1 p Tokenizing and parsing (with v, displays parse stack) |
3679267a | 398 | 2 s Stack snapshots (with v, displays all stacks) |
db2ba183 TB |
399 | 4 l Context (loop) stack processing |
400 | 8 t Trace execution | |
401 | 16 o Method and overloading resolution | |
402 | 32 c String/numeric conversions | |
1045810a | 403 | 64 P Print profiling info, preprocessor command for -P, source file input state |
db2ba183 TB |
404 | 128 m Memory allocation |
405 | 256 f Format processing | |
406 | 512 r Regular expression parsing and execution | |
407 | 1024 x Syntax tree dump | |
408 | 2048 u Tainting checks | |
7bab3ede | 409 | 4096 (Obsolete, previously used for LEAKTEST) |
db2ba183 TB |
410 | 8192 H Hash dump -- usurps values() |
411 | 16384 X Scratchpad allocation | |
412 | 32768 D Cleaning up | |
8b73bbec | 413 | 65536 S Thread synchronization |
607df283 | 414 | 131072 T Tokenising |
04932ac8 | 415 | 262144 R Include reference counts of dumped variables (eg when using -Ds) |
1045810a | 416 | 524288 J Do not s,t,P-debug (Jump over) opcodes within package DB |
d6721266 | 417 | 1048576 v Verbose: use in conjunction with other flags |
46187eeb | 418 | 2097152 C Copy On Write |
ecae49c0 | 419 | 4194304 A Consistency checks on internal structures |
3679267a | 420 | 8388608 q quiet - currently only suppresses the "EXECUTING" message |
a0d0e21e | 421 | |
19799a22 | 422 | All these flags require B<-DDEBUGGING> when you compile the Perl |
1045810a | 423 | executable (but see L<Devel::Peek>, L<re> which may change this). |
44a4342c | 424 | See the F<INSTALL> file in the Perl source distribution |
19799a22 | 425 | for how to do this. This flag is automatically set if you include B<-g> |
8c52afec IZ |
426 | option when C<Configure> asks you about optimizer/debugger flags. |
427 | ||
19799a22 GS |
428 | If you're just trying to get a print out of each line of Perl code |
429 | as it executes, the way that C<sh -x> provides for shell scripts, | |
44a4342c | 430 | you can't use Perl's B<-D> switch. Instead do this |
19799a22 | 431 | |
c406981e | 432 | # If you have "env" utility |
fdac53cd | 433 | env PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program |
c406981e | 434 | |
19799a22 GS |
435 | # Bourne shell syntax |
436 | $ PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program | |
437 | ||
438 | # csh syntax | |
439 | % (setenv PERLDB_OPTS "NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2"; perl -dS program) | |
440 | ||
441 | See L<perldebug> for details and variations. | |
442 | ||
a0d0e21e | 443 | =item B<-e> I<commandline> |
d74e8afc | 444 | X<-e> |
a0d0e21e | 445 | |
19799a22 GS |
446 | may be used to enter one line of program. If B<-e> is given, Perl |
447 | will not look for a filename in the argument list. Multiple B<-e> | |
448 | commands may be given to build up a multi-line script. Make sure | |
449 | to use semicolons where you would in a normal program. | |
a0d0e21e | 450 | |
bc9b29db RH |
451 | =item B<-E> I<commandline> |
452 | X<-E> | |
453 | ||
454 | behaves just like B<-e>, except that it implicitly enables all | |
455 | optional features (in the main compilation unit). See L<feature>. | |
456 | ||
20ef40cf | 457 | =item B<-f> |
d74e8afc | 458 | X<-f> |
20ef40cf | 459 | |
4a42f219 | 460 | Disable executing F<$Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl> at startup. |
20ef40cf GA |
461 | |
462 | Perl can be built so that it by default will try to execute | |
4a42f219 | 463 | F<$Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl> at startup. This is a hook that |
20ef40cf GA |
464 | allows the sysadmin to customize how perl behaves. It can for |
465 | instance be used to add entries to the @INC array to make perl find | |
466 | modules in non-standard locations. | |
467 | ||
e0ebc809 | 468 | =item B<-F>I<pattern> |
d74e8afc | 469 | X<-F> |
a0d0e21e | 470 | |
e0ebc809 | 471 | specifies the pattern to split on if B<-a> is also in effect. The |
5f05dabc | 472 | pattern may be surrounded by C<//>, C<"">, or C<''>, otherwise it will be |
d52fe7da | 473 | put in single quotes. You can't use literal whitespace in the pattern. |
a0d0e21e | 474 | |
e0ebc809 | 475 | =item B<-h> |
d74e8afc | 476 | X<-h> |
e0ebc809 | 477 | |
478 | prints a summary of the options. | |
479 | ||
480 | =item B<-i>[I<extension>] | |
d74e8afc | 481 | X<-i> X<in-place> |
a0d0e21e | 482 | |
2d259d92 CK |
483 | specifies that files processed by the C<E<lt>E<gt>> construct are to be |
484 | edited in-place. It does this by renaming the input file, opening the | |
485 | output file by the original name, and selecting that output file as the | |
486 | default for print() statements. The extension, if supplied, is used to | |
487 | modify the name of the old file to make a backup copy, following these | |
488 | rules: | |
489 | ||
490 | If no extension is supplied, no backup is made and the current file is | |
491 | overwritten. | |
492 | ||
19799a22 GS |
493 | If the extension doesn't contain a C<*>, then it is appended to the |
494 | end of the current filename as a suffix. If the extension does | |
495 | contain one or more C<*> characters, then each C<*> is replaced | |
496 | with the current filename. In Perl terms, you could think of this | |
497 | as: | |
2d259d92 | 498 | |
66606d78 | 499 | ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$file_name/g; |
2d259d92 CK |
500 | |
501 | This allows you to add a prefix to the backup file, instead of (or in | |
502 | addition to) a suffix: | |
503 | ||
ddffceb7 | 504 | $ perl -pi'orig_*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'orig_fileA' |
2d259d92 CK |
505 | |
506 | Or even to place backup copies of the original files into another | |
507 | directory (provided the directory already exists): | |
508 | ||
ddffceb7 | 509 | $ perl -pi'old/*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'old/fileA.orig' |
2d259d92 | 510 | |
66606d78 CK |
511 | These sets of one-liners are equivalent: |
512 | ||
513 | $ perl -pi -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file | |
ddffceb7 | 514 | $ perl -pi'*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file |
66606d78 | 515 | |
ddffceb7 BD |
516 | $ perl -pi'.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig' |
517 | $ perl -pi'*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig' | |
66606d78 | 518 | |
2d259d92 | 519 | From the shell, saying |
a0d0e21e | 520 | |
19799a22 | 521 | $ perl -p -i.orig -e "s/foo/bar/; ... " |
a0d0e21e | 522 | |
19799a22 | 523 | is the same as using the program: |
a0d0e21e | 524 | |
19799a22 | 525 | #!/usr/bin/perl -pi.orig |
a0d0e21e LW |
526 | s/foo/bar/; |
527 | ||
528 | which is equivalent to | |
529 | ||
530 | #!/usr/bin/perl | |
19799a22 GS |
531 | $extension = '.orig'; |
532 | LINE: while (<>) { | |
a0d0e21e | 533 | if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) { |
66606d78 CK |
534 | if ($extension !~ /\*/) { |
535 | $backup = $ARGV . $extension; | |
536 | } | |
537 | else { | |
538 | ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$ARGV/g; | |
539 | } | |
540 | rename($ARGV, $backup); | |
a0d0e21e LW |
541 | open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV"); |
542 | select(ARGVOUT); | |
543 | $oldargv = $ARGV; | |
544 | } | |
545 | s/foo/bar/; | |
546 | } | |
547 | continue { | |
548 | print; # this prints to original filename | |
549 | } | |
550 | select(STDOUT); | |
551 | ||
552 | except that the B<-i> form doesn't need to compare $ARGV to $oldargv to | |
553 | know when the filename has changed. It does, however, use ARGVOUT for | |
66606d78 CK |
554 | the selected filehandle. Note that STDOUT is restored as the default |
555 | output filehandle after the loop. | |
556 | ||
557 | As shown above, Perl creates the backup file whether or not any output | |
558 | is actually changed. So this is just a fancy way to copy files: | |
559 | ||
cd2d1bac | 560 | $ perl -p -i'/some/file/path/*' -e 1 file1 file2 file3... |
19799a22 | 561 | or |
cd2d1bac | 562 | $ perl -p -i'.orig' -e 1 file1 file2 file3... |
66606d78 CK |
563 | |
564 | You can use C<eof> without parentheses to locate the end of each input | |
565 | file, in case you want to append to each file, or reset line numbering | |
566 | (see example in L<perlfunc/eof>). | |
567 | ||
568 | If, for a given file, Perl is unable to create the backup file as | |
569 | specified in the extension then it will skip that file and continue on | |
570 | with the next one (if it exists). | |
571 | ||
19799a22 | 572 | For a discussion of issues surrounding file permissions and B<-i>, |
cea6626f | 573 | see L<perlfaq5/Why does Perl let me delete read-only files? Why does -i clobber protected files? Isn't this a bug in Perl?>. |
66606d78 CK |
574 | |
575 | You cannot use B<-i> to create directories or to strip extensions from | |
576 | files. | |
a0d0e21e | 577 | |
19799a22 GS |
578 | Perl does not expand C<~> in filenames, which is good, since some |
579 | folks use it for their backup files: | |
a0d0e21e | 580 | |
19799a22 GS |
581 | $ perl -pi~ -e 's/foo/bar/' file1 file2 file3... |
582 | ||
a66b22ca | 583 | Note that because B<-i> renames or deletes the original file before |
0cb0633f DM |
584 | creating a new file of the same name, UNIX-style soft and hard links will |
585 | not be preserved. | |
a66b22ca | 586 | |
19799a22 | 587 | Finally, the B<-i> switch does not impede execution when no |
a2008d6d GS |
588 | files are given on the command line. In this case, no backup is made |
589 | (the original file cannot, of course, be determined) and processing | |
590 | proceeds from STDIN to STDOUT as might be expected. | |
591 | ||
a0d0e21e | 592 | =item B<-I>I<directory> |
d74e8afc | 593 | X<-I> X<@INC> |
a0d0e21e | 594 | |
e0ebc809 | 595 | Directories specified by B<-I> are prepended to the search path for |
1fef88e7 | 596 | modules (C<@INC>), and also tells the C preprocessor where to search for |
e0ebc809 | 597 | include files. The C preprocessor is invoked with B<-P>; by default it |
598 | searches /usr/include and /usr/lib/perl. | |
a0d0e21e | 599 | |
e0ebc809 | 600 | =item B<-l>[I<octnum>] |
d74e8afc | 601 | X<-l> X<$/> X<$\> |
a0d0e21e | 602 | |
19799a22 GS |
603 | enables automatic line-ending processing. It has two separate |
604 | effects. First, it automatically chomps C<$/> (the input record | |
605 | separator) when used with B<-n> or B<-p>. Second, it assigns C<$\> | |
606 | (the output record separator) to have the value of I<octnum> so | |
607 | that any print statements will have that separator added back on. | |
608 | If I<octnum> is omitted, sets C<$\> to the current value of | |
609 | C<$/>. For instance, to trim lines to 80 columns: | |
a0d0e21e LW |
610 | |
611 | perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""' | |
612 | ||
613 | Note that the assignment C<$\ = $/> is done when the switch is processed, | |
614 | so the input record separator can be different than the output record | |
615 | separator if the B<-l> switch is followed by a B<-0> switch: | |
616 | ||
617 | gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p' | |
618 | ||
1fef88e7 | 619 | This sets C<$\> to newline and then sets C<$/> to the null character. |
a0d0e21e | 620 | |
e0ebc809 | 621 | =item B<-m>[B<->]I<module> |
d74e8afc | 622 | X<-m> X<-M> |
e0ebc809 | 623 | |
624 | =item B<-M>[B<->]I<module> | |
c07a80fd | 625 | |
e0ebc809 | 626 | =item B<-M>[B<->]I<'module ...'> |
627 | ||
628 | =item B<-[mM]>[B<->]I<module=arg[,arg]...> | |
3c81428c | 629 | |
19799a22 GS |
630 | B<-m>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<();> before executing your |
631 | program. | |
3c81428c | 632 | |
19799a22 GS |
633 | B<-M>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<;> before executing your |
634 | program. You can use quotes to add extra code after the module name, | |
635 | e.g., C<'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)'>. | |
3c81428c | 636 | |
19799a22 | 637 | If the first character after the B<-M> or B<-m> is a dash (C<->) |
a5f75d66 AD |
638 | then the 'use' is replaced with 'no'. |
639 | ||
54310121 | 640 | A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say |
19799a22 GS |
641 | B<-mmodule=foo,bar> or B<-Mmodule=foo,bar> as a shortcut for |
642 | C<'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)'>. This avoids the need to use quotes when | |
643 | importing symbols. The actual code generated by B<-Mmodule=foo,bar> is | |
e0ebc809 | 644 | C<use module split(/,/,q{foo,bar})>. Note that the C<=> form |
19799a22 | 645 | removes the distinction between B<-m> and B<-M>. |
3c81428c | 646 | |
642d0c2f RGS |
647 | A consequence of this is that B<-MFoo=number> never does a version check |
648 | (unless C<Foo::import()> itself is set up to do a version check, which | |
649 | could happen for example if Foo inherits from Exporter.) | |
650 | ||
a0d0e21e | 651 | =item B<-n> |
d74e8afc | 652 | X<-n> |
a0d0e21e | 653 | |
19799a22 | 654 | causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which |
a0d0e21e LW |
655 | makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed -n> or |
656 | B<awk>: | |
657 | ||
19799a22 | 658 | LINE: |
a0d0e21e | 659 | while (<>) { |
19799a22 | 660 | ... # your program goes here |
a0d0e21e LW |
661 | } |
662 | ||
663 | Note that the lines are not printed by default. See B<-p> to have | |
08e9d68e | 664 | lines printed. If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for |
19799a22 | 665 | some reason, Perl warns you about it and moves on to the next file. |
08e9d68e | 666 | |
fa11829f | 667 | Here is an efficient way to delete all files that haven't been modified for |
9976c5c7 | 668 | at least a week: |
a0d0e21e | 669 | |
19799a22 | 670 | find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle unlink |
a0d0e21e | 671 | |
19799a22 GS |
672 | This is faster than using the B<-exec> switch of B<find> because you don't |
673 | have to start a process on every filename found. It does suffer from | |
674 | the bug of mishandling newlines in pathnames, which you can fix if | |
44a4342c | 675 | you follow the example under B<-0>. |
a0d0e21e LW |
676 | |
677 | C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after | |
19799a22 | 678 | the implicit program loop, just as in B<awk>. |
a0d0e21e LW |
679 | |
680 | =item B<-p> | |
d74e8afc | 681 | X<-p> |
a0d0e21e | 682 | |
19799a22 | 683 | causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which |
a0d0e21e LW |
684 | makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed>: |
685 | ||
686 | ||
19799a22 | 687 | LINE: |
a0d0e21e | 688 | while (<>) { |
19799a22 | 689 | ... # your program goes here |
a0d0e21e | 690 | } continue { |
08e9d68e | 691 | print or die "-p destination: $!\n"; |
a0d0e21e LW |
692 | } |
693 | ||
08e9d68e DD |
694 | If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for some reason, Perl |
695 | warns you about it, and moves on to the next file. Note that the | |
c2611fb3 | 696 | lines are printed automatically. An error occurring during printing is |
08e9d68e DD |
697 | treated as fatal. To suppress printing use the B<-n> switch. A B<-p> |
698 | overrides a B<-n> switch. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
699 | |
700 | C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after | |
19799a22 | 701 | the implicit loop, just as in B<awk>. |
a0d0e21e LW |
702 | |
703 | =item B<-P> | |
d74e8afc | 704 | X<-P> |
a0d0e21e | 705 | |
079a94c4 JH |
706 | B<NOTE: Use of -P is strongly discouraged because of its inherent |
707 | problems, including poor portability.> | |
708 | ||
709 | This option causes your program to be run through the C preprocessor before | |
efdf3af0 | 710 | compilation by Perl. Because both comments and B<cpp> directives begin |
a0d0e21e | 711 | with the # character, you should avoid starting comments with any words |
efdf3af0 | 712 | recognized by the C preprocessor such as C<"if">, C<"else">, or C<"define">. |
079a94c4 JH |
713 | |
714 | If you're considering using C<-P>, you might also want to look at the | |
715 | Filter::cpp module from CPAN. | |
716 | ||
717 | The problems of -P include, but are not limited to: | |
718 | ||
719 | =over 10 | |
720 | ||
721 | =item * | |
722 | ||
723 | The C<#!> line is stripped, so any switches there don't apply. | |
724 | ||
725 | =item * | |
726 | ||
727 | A C<-P> on a C<#!> line doesn't work. | |
728 | ||
729 | =item * | |
730 | ||
731 | B<All> lines that begin with (whitespace and) a C<#> but | |
732 | do not look like cpp commands, are stripped, including anything | |
44a4342c | 733 | inside Perl strings, regular expressions, and here-docs . |
079a94c4 JH |
734 | |
735 | =item * | |
736 | ||
737 | In some platforms the C preprocessor knows too much: it knows about | |
738 | the C++ -style until-end-of-line comments starting with C<"//">. | |
efdf3af0 JH |
739 | This will cause problems with common Perl constructs like |
740 | ||
741 | s/foo//; | |
742 | ||
743 | because after -P this will became illegal code | |
744 | ||
745 | s/foo | |
746 | ||
747 | The workaround is to use some other quoting separator than C<"/">, | |
748 | like for example C<"!">: | |
749 | ||
750 | s!foo!!; | |
a0d0e21e | 751 | |
079a94c4 JH |
752 | |
753 | ||
754 | =item * | |
755 | ||
756 | It requires not only a working C preprocessor but also a working | |
757 | F<sed>. If not on UNIX, you are probably out of luck on this. | |
758 | ||
759 | =item * | |
760 | ||
761 | Script line numbers are not preserved. | |
762 | ||
763 | =item * | |
764 | ||
765 | The C<-x> does not work with C<-P>. | |
766 | ||
767 | =back | |
9a1f07e7 | 768 | |
a0d0e21e | 769 | =item B<-s> |
d74e8afc | 770 | X<-s> |
a0d0e21e | 771 | |
19799a22 GS |
772 | enables rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the command |
773 | line after the program name but before any filename arguments (or before | |
74ac850a | 774 | an argument of B<-->). Any switch found there is removed from @ARGV and sets the |
19799a22 | 775 | corresponding variable in the Perl program. The following program |
3c0facb2 GS |
776 | prints "1" if the program is invoked with a B<-xyz> switch, and "abc" |
777 | if it is invoked with B<-xyz=abc>. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
778 | |
779 | #!/usr/bin/perl -s | |
3c0facb2 | 780 | if ($xyz) { print "$xyz\n" } |
a0d0e21e | 781 | |
74ac850a | 782 | Do note that a switch like B<--help> creates the variable ${-help}, which is not compliant |
50b5b186 SP |
783 | with C<strict refs>. Also, when using this option on a script with |
784 | warnings enabled you may get a lot of spurious "used only once" warnings. | |
3bbcc830 | 785 | |
a0d0e21e | 786 | =item B<-S> |
d74e8afc | 787 | X<-S> |
a0d0e21e LW |
788 | |
789 | makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search for the | |
19799a22 GS |
790 | program (unless the name of the program contains directory separators). |
791 | ||
2a92aaa0 GS |
792 | On some platforms, this also makes Perl append suffixes to the |
793 | filename while searching for it. For example, on Win32 platforms, | |
794 | the ".bat" and ".cmd" suffixes are appended if a lookup for the | |
795 | original name fails, and if the name does not already end in one | |
796 | of those suffixes. If your Perl was compiled with DEBUGGING turned | |
797 | on, using the -Dp switch to Perl shows how the search progresses. | |
798 | ||
fa3aa65a JC |
799 | Typically this is used to emulate #! startup on platforms that don't |
800 | support #!. Its also convenient when debugging a script that uses #!, | |
801 | and is thus normally found by the shell's $PATH search mechanism. | |
802 | ||
803 | This example works on many platforms that have a shell compatible with | |
804 | Bourne shell: | |
a0d0e21e LW |
805 | |
806 | #!/usr/bin/perl | |
a3cb178b | 807 | eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}' |
a0d0e21e LW |
808 | if $running_under_some_shell; |
809 | ||
19799a22 GS |
810 | The system ignores the first line and feeds the program to F</bin/sh>, |
811 | which proceeds to try to execute the Perl program as a shell script. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
812 | The shell executes the second line as a normal shell command, and thus |
813 | starts up the Perl interpreter. On some systems $0 doesn't always | |
814 | contain the full pathname, so the B<-S> tells Perl to search for the | |
19799a22 | 815 | program if necessary. After Perl locates the program, it parses the |
a0d0e21e | 816 | lines and ignores them because the variable $running_under_some_shell |
19799a22 | 817 | is never true. If the program will be interpreted by csh, you will need |
a3cb178b GS |
818 | to replace C<${1+"$@"}> with C<$*>, even though that doesn't understand |
819 | embedded spaces (and such) in the argument list. To start up sh rather | |
a0d0e21e LW |
820 | than csh, some systems may have to replace the #! line with a line |
821 | containing just a colon, which will be politely ignored by Perl. Other | |
822 | systems can't control that, and need a totally devious construct that | |
19799a22 | 823 | will work under any of B<csh>, B<sh>, or Perl, such as the following: |
a0d0e21e | 824 | |
19799a22 | 825 | eval '(exit $?0)' && eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}' |
a3cb178b | 826 | & eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 $argv:q' |
5f05dabc | 827 | if $running_under_some_shell; |
a0d0e21e | 828 | |
19799a22 GS |
829 | If the filename supplied contains directory separators (i.e., is an |
830 | absolute or relative pathname), and if that file is not found, | |
831 | platforms that append file extensions will do so and try to look | |
832 | for the file with those extensions added, one by one. | |
833 | ||
834 | On DOS-like platforms, if the program does not contain directory | |
835 | separators, it will first be searched for in the current directory | |
836 | before being searched for on the PATH. On Unix platforms, the | |
837 | program will be searched for strictly on the PATH. | |
838 | ||
6537fe72 | 839 | =item B<-t> |
d74e8afc | 840 | X<-t> |
6537fe72 MS |
841 | |
842 | Like B<-T>, but taint checks will issue warnings rather than fatal | |
317ea90d MS |
843 | errors. These warnings can be controlled normally with C<no warnings |
844 | qw(taint)>. | |
1dbad523 JH |
845 | |
846 | B<NOTE: this is not a substitute for -T.> This is meant only to be | |
847 | used as a temporary development aid while securing legacy code: | |
848 | for real production code and for new secure code written from scratch | |
849 | always use the real B<-T>. | |
6537fe72 | 850 | |
a0d0e21e | 851 | =item B<-T> |
d74e8afc | 852 | X<-T> |
a0d0e21e | 853 | |
a3cb178b | 854 | forces "taint" checks to be turned on so you can test them. Ordinarily |
19799a22 GS |
855 | these checks are done only when running setuid or setgid. It's a |
856 | good idea to turn them on explicitly for programs that run on behalf | |
857 | of someone else whom you might not necessarily trust, such as CGI | |
858 | programs or any internet servers you might write in Perl. See | |
859 | L<perlsec> for details. For security reasons, this option must be | |
860 | seen by Perl quite early; usually this means it must appear early | |
861 | on the command line or in the #! line for systems which support | |
862 | that construct. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
863 | |
864 | =item B<-u> | |
d74e8afc | 865 | X<-u> |
a0d0e21e | 866 | |
19799a22 GS |
867 | This obsolete switch causes Perl to dump core after compiling your |
868 | program. You can then in theory take this core dump and turn it | |
869 | into an executable file by using the B<undump> program (not supplied). | |
870 | This speeds startup at the expense of some disk space (which you | |
871 | can minimize by stripping the executable). (Still, a "hello world" | |
872 | executable comes out to about 200K on my machine.) If you want to | |
873 | execute a portion of your program before dumping, use the dump() | |
874 | operator instead. Note: availability of B<undump> is platform | |
875 | specific and may not be available for a specific port of Perl. | |
876 | ||
877 | This switch has been superseded in favor of the new Perl code | |
878 | generator backends to the compiler. See L<B> and L<B::Bytecode> | |
879 | for details. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
880 | |
881 | =item B<-U> | |
d74e8afc | 882 | X<-U> |
a0d0e21e LW |
883 | |
884 | allows Perl to do unsafe operations. Currently the only "unsafe" | |
c69adce3 SP |
885 | operations are attempting to unlink directories while running as |
886 | superuser, and running setuid programs with fatal taint checks turned | |
887 | into warnings. Note that the B<-w> switch (or the C<$^W> variable) | |
888 | must be used along with this option to actually I<generate> the | |
889 | taint-check warnings. | |
a0d0e21e LW |
890 | |
891 | =item B<-v> | |
d74e8afc | 892 | X<-v> |
a0d0e21e | 893 | |
19799a22 | 894 | prints the version and patchlevel of your perl executable. |
a0d0e21e | 895 | |
3c81428c | 896 | =item B<-V> |
d74e8afc | 897 | X<-V> |
3c81428c | 898 | |
899 | prints summary of the major perl configuration values and the current | |
19799a22 | 900 | values of @INC. |
3c81428c | 901 | |
307dc113 | 902 | =item B<-V:>I<configvar> |
3c81428c | 903 | |
4a305f6a | 904 | Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration variable(s), |
307dc113 JC |
905 | with multiples when your configvar argument looks like a regex (has |
906 | non-letters). For example: | |
3c81428c | 907 | |
307dc113 JC |
908 | $ perl -V:libc |
909 | libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so'; | |
4a305f6a JC |
910 | $ perl -V:lib. |
911 | libs='-lnsl -lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc'; | |
912 | libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so'; | |
913 | $ perl -V:lib.* | |
914 | libpth='/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib'; | |
915 | libs='-lnsl -lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc'; | |
916 | lib_ext='.a'; | |
917 | libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so'; | |
918 | libperl='libperl.a'; | |
919 | .... | |
920 | ||
921 | Additionally, extra colons can be used to control formatting. A | |
922 | trailing colon suppresses the linefeed and terminator ';', allowing | |
923 | you to embed queries into shell commands. (mnemonic: PATH separator | |
924 | ':'.) | |
925 | ||
926 | $ echo "compression-vars: " `perl -V:z.*: ` " are here !" | |
927 | compression-vars: zcat='' zip='zip' are here ! | |
928 | ||
929 | A leading colon removes the 'name=' part of the response, this allows | |
307dc113 | 930 | you to map to the name you need. (mnemonic: empty label) |
4a305f6a JC |
931 | |
932 | $ echo "goodvfork="`./perl -Ilib -V::usevfork` | |
933 | goodvfork=false; | |
934 | ||
935 | Leading and trailing colons can be used together if you need | |
936 | positional parameter values without the names. Note that in the case | |
937 | below, the PERL_API params are returned in alphabetical order. | |
938 | ||
939 | $ echo building_on `perl -V::osname: -V::PERL_API_.*:` now | |
940 | building_on 'linux' '5' '1' '9' now | |
a0d0e21e | 941 | |
19799a22 | 942 | =item B<-w> |
d74e8afc | 943 | X<-w> |
774d564b | 944 | |
19799a22 GS |
945 | prints warnings about dubious constructs, such as variable names |
946 | that are mentioned only once and scalar variables that are used | |
947 | before being set, redefined subroutines, references to undefined | |
948 | filehandles or filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting | |
a4d9c8a6 | 949 | to write on, values used as a number that don't look like numbers, |
19799a22 GS |
950 | using an array as though it were a scalar, if your subroutines |
951 | recurse more than 100 deep, and innumerable other things. | |
952 | ||
b40da996 | 953 | This switch really just enables the internal C<$^W> variable. You |
19799a22 GS |
954 | can disable or promote into fatal errors specific warnings using |
955 | C<__WARN__> hooks, as described in L<perlvar> and L<perlfunc/warn>. | |
956 | See also L<perldiag> and L<perltrap>. A new, fine-grained warning | |
957 | facility is also available if you want to manipulate entire classes | |
9f1b1f2d | 958 | of warnings; see L<warnings> or L<perllexwarn>. |
a0d0e21e | 959 | |
0453d815 | 960 | =item B<-W> |
d74e8afc | 961 | X<-W> |
0453d815 | 962 | |
3c0facb2 | 963 | Enables all warnings regardless of C<no warnings> or C<$^W>. |
0453d815 PM |
964 | See L<perllexwarn>. |
965 | ||
966 | =item B<-X> | |
d74e8afc | 967 | X<-X> |
0453d815 | 968 | |
3c0facb2 | 969 | Disables all warnings regardless of C<use warnings> or C<$^W>. |
0453d815 PM |
970 | See L<perllexwarn>. |
971 | ||
136e4fd6 | 972 | =item B<-x> |
d74e8afc | 973 | X<-x> |
136e4fd6 | 974 | |
a0d0e21e LW |
975 | =item B<-x> I<directory> |
976 | ||
19799a22 GS |
977 | tells Perl that the program is embedded in a larger chunk of unrelated |
978 | ASCII text, such as in a mail message. Leading garbage will be | |
979 | discarded until the first line that starts with #! and contains the | |
980 | string "perl". Any meaningful switches on that line will be applied. | |
981 | If a directory name is specified, Perl will switch to that directory | |
982 | before running the program. The B<-x> switch controls only the | |
983 | disposal of leading garbage. The program must be terminated with | |
984 | C<__END__> if there is trailing garbage to be ignored (the program | |
985 | can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the DATA filehandle | |
986 | if desired). | |
a0d0e21e | 987 | |
1e422769 | 988 | =back |
989 | ||
990 | =head1 ENVIRONMENT | |
d74e8afc | 991 | X<perl, environment variables> |
1e422769 | 992 | |
993 | =over 12 | |
994 | ||
995 | =item HOME | |
d74e8afc | 996 | X<HOME> |
1e422769 | 997 | |
998 | Used if chdir has no argument. | |
999 | ||
1000 | =item LOGDIR | |
d74e8afc | 1001 | X<LOGDIR> |
1e422769 | 1002 | |
1003 | Used if chdir has no argument and HOME is not set. | |
1004 | ||
1005 | =item PATH | |
d74e8afc | 1006 | X<PATH> |
1e422769 | 1007 | |
19799a22 | 1008 | Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding the program if B<-S> is |
1e422769 | 1009 | used. |
1010 | ||
1011 | =item PERL5LIB | |
d74e8afc | 1012 | X<PERL5LIB> |
1e422769 | 1013 | |
48b971ca | 1014 | A list of directories in which to look for Perl library |
1e422769 | 1015 | files before looking in the standard library and the current |
951ba7fe GS |
1016 | directory. Any architecture-specific directories under the specified |
1017 | locations are automatically included if they exist. If PERL5LIB is not | |
48b971ca RGS |
1018 | defined, PERLLIB is used. Directories are separated (like in PATH) by |
1019 | a colon on unixish platforms and by a semicolon on Windows (the proper | |
1020 | path separator being given by the command C<perl -V:path_sep>). | |
951ba7fe GS |
1021 | |
1022 | When running taint checks (either because the program was running setuid | |
1023 | or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), neither variable is used. | |
1024 | The program should instead say: | |
1e422769 | 1025 | |
1026 | use lib "/my/directory"; | |
1027 | ||
54310121 | 1028 | =item PERL5OPT |
d74e8afc | 1029 | X<PERL5OPT> |
54310121 | 1030 | |
1031 | Command-line options (switches). Switches in this variable are taken | |
e4af53b0 | 1032 | as if they were on every Perl command line. Only the B<-[CDIMUdmtwA]> |
19799a22 | 1033 | switches are allowed. When running taint checks (because the program |
54310121 | 1034 | was running setuid or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), this |
74288ac8 GS |
1035 | variable is ignored. If PERL5OPT begins with B<-T>, tainting will be |
1036 | enabled, and any subsequent options ignored. | |
54310121 | 1037 | |
16537909 | 1038 | =item PERLIO |
d74e8afc | 1039 | X<PERLIO> |
16537909 | 1040 | |
44a4342c | 1041 | A space (or colon) separated list of PerlIO layers. If perl is built |
03d9e98a | 1042 | to use PerlIO system for IO (the default) these layers effect perl's IO. |
44a4342c NIS |
1043 | |
1044 | It is conventional to start layer names with a colon e.g. C<:perlio> to | |
1045 | emphasise their similarity to variable "attributes". But the code that parses | |
1046 | layer specification strings (which is also used to decode the PERLIO | |
1047 | environment variable) treats the colon as a separator. | |
1048 | ||
3b0db4f9 JH |
1049 | An unset or empty PERLIO is equivalent to C<:stdio>. |
1050 | ||
44a4342c NIS |
1051 | The list becomes the default for I<all> perl's IO. Consequently only built-in |
1052 | layers can appear in this list, as external layers (such as :encoding()) need | |
1053 | IO in order to load them!. See L<"open pragma"|open> for how to add external | |
1054 | encodings as defaults. | |
1055 | ||
1056 | The layers that it makes sense to include in the PERLIO environment | |
3d897973 | 1057 | variable are briefly summarised below. For more details see L<PerlIO>. |
16537909 JH |
1058 | |
1059 | =over 8 | |
1060 | ||
1061 | =item :bytes | |
d74e8afc | 1062 | X<:bytes> |
16537909 | 1063 | |
18aba96f JH |
1064 | A pseudolayer that turns I<off> the C<:utf8> flag for the layer below. |
1065 | Unlikely to be useful on its own in the global PERLIO environment variable. | |
1066 | You perhaps were thinking of C<:crlf:bytes> or C<:perlio:bytes>. | |
16537909 JH |
1067 | |
1068 | =item :crlf | |
d74e8afc | 1069 | X<:crlf> |
16537909 | 1070 | |
3d897973 IT |
1071 | A layer which does CRLF to "\n" translation distinguishing "text" and |
1072 | "binary" files in the manner of MS-DOS and similar operating systems. | |
1073 | (It currently does I<not> mimic MS-DOS as far as treating of Control-Z | |
1074 | as being an end-of-file marker.) | |
44a4342c NIS |
1075 | |
1076 | =item :mmap | |
d74e8afc | 1077 | X<:mmap> |
44a4342c NIS |
1078 | |
1079 | A layer which implements "reading" of files by using C<mmap()> to | |
1080 | make (whole) file appear in the process's address space, and then | |
3d897973 | 1081 | using that as PerlIO's "buffer". |
16537909 | 1082 | |
44a4342c | 1083 | =item :perlio |
d74e8afc | 1084 | X<:perlio> |
16537909 | 1085 | |
3d897973 IT |
1086 | This is a re-implementation of "stdio-like" buffering written as a |
1087 | PerlIO "layer". As such it will call whatever layer is below it for | |
1088 | its operations (typically C<:unix>). | |
16537909 | 1089 | |
18aba96f | 1090 | =item :pop |
d74e8afc | 1091 | X<:pop> |
18aba96f JH |
1092 | |
1093 | An experimental pseudolayer that removes the topmost layer. | |
3d897973 | 1094 | Use with the same care as is reserved for nitroglycerin. |
18aba96f | 1095 | |
44a4342c | 1096 | =item :raw |
d74e8afc | 1097 | X<:raw> |
16537909 | 1098 | |
136e4fd6 | 1099 | A pseudolayer that manipulates other layers. Applying the C<:raw> |
18aba96f JH |
1100 | layer is equivalent to calling C<binmode($fh)>. It makes the stream |
1101 | pass each byte as-is without any translation. In particular CRLF | |
1102 | translation, and/or :utf8 intuited from locale are disabled. | |
1cbfc93d | 1103 | |
3d897973 IT |
1104 | Unlike in the earlier versions of Perl C<:raw> is I<not> |
1105 | just the inverse of C<:crlf> - other layers which would affect the | |
1106 | binary nature of the stream are also removed or disabled. | |
16537909 | 1107 | |
44a4342c | 1108 | =item :stdio |
d74e8afc | 1109 | X<:stdio> |
44a4342c NIS |
1110 | |
1111 | This layer provides PerlIO interface by wrapping system's ANSI C "stdio" | |
1112 | library calls. The layer provides both buffering and IO. | |
1113 | Note that C<:stdio> layer does I<not> do CRLF translation even if that | |
1114 | is platforms normal behaviour. You will need a C<:crlf> layer above it | |
1115 | to do that. | |
1116 | ||
1117 | =item :unix | |
d74e8afc | 1118 | X<:unix> |
44a4342c | 1119 | |
3d897973 | 1120 | Low level layer which calls C<read>, C<write> and C<lseek> etc. |
16537909 JH |
1121 | |
1122 | =item :utf8 | |
d74e8afc | 1123 | X<:utf8> |
16537909 | 1124 | |
18aba96f | 1125 | A pseudolayer that turns on a flag on the layer below to tell perl |
3d897973 IT |
1126 | that output should be in utf8 and that input should be regarded as |
1127 | already in utf8 form. May be useful in PERLIO environment | |
1128 | variable to make UTF-8 the default. (To turn off that behaviour | |
1129 | use C<:bytes> layer.) | |
44a4342c NIS |
1130 | |
1131 | =item :win32 | |
d74e8afc | 1132 | X<:win32> |
44a4342c | 1133 | |
ab4f7683 | 1134 | On Win32 platforms this I<experimental> layer uses native "handle" IO |
44a4342c NIS |
1135 | rather than unix-like numeric file descriptor layer. Known to be |
1136 | buggy in this release. | |
16537909 JH |
1137 | |
1138 | =back | |
1139 | ||
44a4342c NIS |
1140 | On all platforms the default set of layers should give acceptable results. |
1141 | ||
ab4f7683 | 1142 | For UNIX platforms that will equivalent of "unix perlio" or "stdio". |
44a4342c NIS |
1143 | Configure is setup to prefer "stdio" implementation if system's library |
1144 | provides for fast access to the buffer, otherwise it uses the "unix perlio" | |
1145 | implementation. | |
1146 | ||
1147 | On Win32 the default in this release is "unix crlf". Win32's "stdio" | |
1148 | has a number of bugs/mis-features for perl IO which are somewhat | |
99366417 | 1149 | C compiler vendor/version dependent. Using our own C<crlf> layer as |
44a4342c NIS |
1150 | the buffer avoids those issues and makes things more uniform. |
1151 | The C<crlf> layer provides CRLF to/from "\n" conversion as well as | |
1152 | buffering. | |
1153 | ||
1154 | This release uses C<unix> as the bottom layer on Win32 and so still uses C | |
1155 | compiler's numeric file descriptor routines. There is an experimental native | |
3d897973 IT |
1156 | C<win32> layer which is expected to be enhanced and should eventually be |
1157 | the default under Win32. | |
44a4342c NIS |
1158 | |
1159 | =item PERLIO_DEBUG | |
d74e8afc | 1160 | X<PERLIO_DEBUG> |
44a4342c NIS |
1161 | |
1162 | If set to the name of a file or device then certain operations of PerlIO | |
1163 | sub-system will be logged to that file (opened as append). Typical uses | |
1164 | are UNIX: | |
1165 | ||
1166 | PERLIO_DEBUG=/dev/tty perl script ... | |
1167 | ||
1168 | and Win32 approximate equivalent: | |
1169 | ||
1170 | set PERLIO_DEBUG=CON | |
1171 | perl script ... | |
1172 | ||
923e8b21 RGS |
1173 | This functionality is disabled for setuid scripts and for scripts run |
1174 | with B<-T>. | |
16537909 | 1175 | |
1e422769 | 1176 | =item PERLLIB |
d74e8afc | 1177 | X<PERLLIB> |
1e422769 | 1178 | |
48b971ca | 1179 | A list of directories in which to look for Perl library |
1e422769 | 1180 | files before looking in the standard library and the current directory. |
1181 | If PERL5LIB is defined, PERLLIB is not used. | |
1182 | ||
1183 | =item PERL5DB | |
d74e8afc | 1184 | X<PERL5DB> |
1e422769 | 1185 | |
1186 | The command used to load the debugger code. The default is: | |
1187 | ||
1188 | BEGIN { require 'perl5db.pl' } | |
1189 | ||
2cbb2ee1 | 1190 | =item PERL5DB_THREADED |
d74e8afc | 1191 | X<PERL5DB_THREADED> |
2cbb2ee1 RGS |
1192 | |
1193 | If set to a true value, indicates to the debugger that the code being | |
1194 | debugged uses threads. | |
1195 | ||
19799a22 | 1196 | =item PERL5SHELL (specific to the Win32 port) |
d74e8afc | 1197 | X<PERL5SHELL> |
174c211a GS |
1198 | |
1199 | May be set to an alternative shell that perl must use internally for | |
11998fdb | 1200 | executing "backtick" commands or system(). Default is C<cmd.exe /x/d/c> |
ce1da67e | 1201 | on WindowsNT and C<command.com /c> on Windows95. The value is considered |
19799a22 | 1202 | to be space-separated. Precede any character that needs to be protected |
ce1da67e GS |
1203 | (like a space or backslash) with a backslash. |
1204 | ||
1205 | Note that Perl doesn't use COMSPEC for this purpose because | |
1206 | COMSPEC has a high degree of variability among users, leading to | |
1207 | portability concerns. Besides, perl can use a shell that may not be | |
1208 | fit for interactive use, and setting COMSPEC to such a shell may | |
1209 | interfere with the proper functioning of other programs (which usually | |
1210 | look in COMSPEC to find a shell fit for interactive use). | |
174c211a | 1211 | |
1c972609 | 1212 | =item PERL_ALLOW_NON_IFS_LSP (specific to the Win32 port) |
d74e8afc | 1213 | X<PERL_ALLOW_NON_IFS_LSP> |
1c972609 SH |
1214 | |
1215 | Set to 1 to allow the use of non-IFS compatible LSP's. | |
1216 | Perl normally searches for an IFS-compatible LSP because this is required | |
1217 | for its emulation of Windows sockets as real filehandles. However, this may | |
1218 | cause problems if you have a firewall such as McAfee Guardian which requires | |
1219 | all applications to use its LSP which is not IFS-compatible, because clearly | |
1220 | Perl will normally avoid using such an LSP. | |
1221 | Setting this environment variable to 1 means that Perl will simply use the | |
1222 | first suitable LSP enumerated in the catalog, which keeps McAfee Guardian | |
1223 | happy (and in that particular case Perl still works too because McAfee | |
1224 | Guardian's LSP actually plays some other games which allow applications | |
1225 | requiring IFS compatibility to work). | |
1226 | ||
1e422769 | 1227 | =item PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS |
d74e8afc | 1228 | X<PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS> |
1e422769 | 1229 | |
67ce8856 | 1230 | Relevant only if perl is compiled with the malloc included with the perl |
a3cb178b GS |
1231 | distribution (that is, if C<perl -V:d_mymalloc> is 'define'). |
1232 | If set, this causes memory statistics to be dumped after execution. If set | |
1e422769 | 1233 | to an integer greater than one, also causes memory statistics to be dumped |
1234 | after compilation. | |
1235 | ||
1236 | =item PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL | |
d74e8afc | 1237 | X<PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL> |
1e422769 | 1238 | |
1239 | Relevant only if your perl executable was built with B<-DDEBUGGING>, | |
1240 | this controls the behavior of global destruction of objects and other | |
64cea5fd | 1241 | references. See L<perlhack/PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL> for more information. |
a0d0e21e | 1242 | |
02c7413a | 1243 | =item PERL_DL_NONLAZY |
d74e8afc | 1244 | X<PERL_DL_NONLAZY> |
02c7413a GA |
1245 | |
1246 | Set to one to have perl resolve B<all> undefined symbols when it loads | |
1247 | a dynamic library. The default behaviour is to resolve symbols when | |
1248 | they are used. Setting this variable is useful during testing of | |
1249 | extensions as it ensures that you get an error on misspelled function | |
1250 | names even if the test suite doesn't call it. | |
1251 | ||
5d170f3a | 1252 | =item PERL_ENCODING |
d74e8afc | 1253 | X<PERL_ENCODING> |
5d170f3a JH |
1254 | |
1255 | If using the C<encoding> pragma without an explicit encoding name, the | |
1256 | PERL_ENCODING environment variable is consulted for an encoding name. | |
1257 | ||
504f80c1 | 1258 | =item PERL_HASH_SEED |
d74e8afc | 1259 | X<PERL_HASH_SEED> |
504f80c1 | 1260 | |
183c3da1 | 1261 | (Since Perl 5.8.1.) Used to randomise Perl's internal hash function. |
4546b9e6 JH |
1262 | To emulate the pre-5.8.1 behaviour, set to an integer (zero means |
1263 | exactly the same order as 5.8.0). "Pre-5.8.1" means, among other | |
1264 | things, that hash keys will be ordered the same between different runs | |
1265 | of Perl. | |
504f80c1 | 1266 | |
4546b9e6 JH |
1267 | The default behaviour is to randomise unless the PERL_HASH_SEED is set. |
1268 | If Perl has been compiled with C<-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>, the default | |
1269 | behaviour is B<not> to randomise unless the PERL_HASH_SEED is set. | |
504f80c1 JH |
1270 | |
1271 | If PERL_HASH_SEED is unset or set to a non-numeric string, Perl uses | |
1272 | the pseudorandom seed supplied by the operating system and libraries. | |
4546b9e6 JH |
1273 | This means that each different run of Perl will have a different |
1274 | ordering of the results of keys(), values(), and each(). | |
504f80c1 | 1275 | |
26a2d347 JH |
1276 | B<Please note that the hash seed is sensitive information>. Hashes are |
1277 | randomized to protect against local and remote attacks against Perl | |
1278 | code. By manually setting a seed this protection may be partially or | |
1279 | completely lost. | |
1280 | ||
1281 | See L<perlsec/"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks"> and | |
1282 | L</PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG> for more information. | |
504f80c1 | 1283 | |
2191697e | 1284 | =item PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG |
d74e8afc | 1285 | X<PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG> |
2191697e | 1286 | |
e67b9e52 | 1287 | (Since Perl 5.8.1.) Set to one to display (to STDERR) the value of |
26a2d347 JH |
1288 | the hash seed at the beginning of execution. This, combined with |
1289 | L</PERL_HASH_SEED> is intended to aid in debugging nondeterministic | |
1290 | behavior caused by hash randomization. | |
1291 | ||
1292 | B<Note that the hash seed is sensitive information>: by knowing it one | |
1293 | can craft a denial-of-service attack against Perl code, even remotely, | |
1294 | see L<perlsec/"Algorithmic Complexity Attacks"> for more information. | |
e67b9e52 | 1295 | B<Do not disclose the hash seed> to people who don't need to know it. |
9a7034eb | 1296 | See also hash_seed() of L<Hash::Util>. |
2191697e | 1297 | |
3d0ae7ba | 1298 | =item PERL_ROOT (specific to the VMS port) |
d74e8afc | 1299 | X<PERL_ROOT> |
3d0ae7ba GS |
1300 | |
1301 | A translation concealed rooted logical name that contains perl and the | |
1302 | logical device for the @INC path on VMS only. Other logical names that | |
44a4342c NIS |
1303 | affect perl on VMS include PERLSHR, PERL_ENV_TABLES, and |
1304 | SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL but are optional and discussed further in | |
3d0ae7ba GS |
1305 | L<perlvms> and in F<README.vms> in the Perl source distribution. |
1306 | ||
4ffa73a3 | 1307 | =item PERL_SIGNALS |
d74e8afc | 1308 | X<PERL_SIGNALS> |
4ffa73a3 JH |
1309 | |
1310 | In Perls 5.8.1 and later. If set to C<unsafe> the pre-Perl-5.8.0 | |
1311 | signals behaviour (immediate but unsafe) is restored. If set to | |
ec488bcf | 1312 | C<safe> the safe (or deferred) signals are used. |
65c3f8ef | 1313 | See L<perlipc/"Deferred Signals (Safe Signals)">. |
4ffa73a3 | 1314 | |
a05d7ebb | 1315 | =item PERL_UNICODE |
d74e8afc | 1316 | X<PERL_UNICODE> |
acae81db | 1317 | |
bf61ac64 JH |
1318 | Equivalent to the B<-C> command-line switch. Note that this is not |
1319 | a boolean variable-- setting this to C<"1"> is not the right way to | |
5b4f334e | 1320 | "enable Unicode" (whatever that would mean). You can use C<"0"> to |
e654d908 JH |
1321 | "disable Unicode", though (or alternatively unset PERL_UNICODE in |
1322 | your shell before starting Perl). See the description of the C<-C> | |
1323 | switch for more information. | |
acae81db | 1324 | |
3d0ae7ba | 1325 | =item SYS$LOGIN (specific to the VMS port) |
d74e8afc | 1326 | X<SYS$LOGIN> |
3d0ae7ba GS |
1327 | |
1328 | Used if chdir has no argument and HOME and LOGDIR are not set. | |
1329 | ||
a0d0e21e | 1330 | =back |
1e422769 | 1331 | |
1332 | Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl handles data | |
1333 | specific to particular natural languages. See L<perllocale>. | |
1334 | ||
1335 | Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables, except | |
19799a22 GS |
1336 | to make them available to the program being executed, and to child |
1337 | processes. However, programs running setuid would do well to execute | |
1e422769 | 1338 | the following lines before doing anything else, just to keep people |
1339 | honest: | |
1340 | ||
19799a22 | 1341 | $ENV{PATH} = '/bin:/usr/bin'; # or whatever you need |
7bac28a0 | 1342 | $ENV{SHELL} = '/bin/sh' if exists $ENV{SHELL}; |
c90c0ff4 | 1343 | delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)}; |