3 perl - The Perl 5 language interpreter
7 B<perl> S<[ B<-sTtuUWX> ]>
8 S<[ B<-hv> ] [ B<-V>[:I<configvar>] ]>
9 S<[ B<-cw> ] [ B<-d>[B<t>][:I<debugger>] ] [ B<-D>[I<number/list>] ]>
10 S<[ B<-pna> ] [ B<-F>I<pattern> ] [ B<-l>[I<octal>] ] [ B<-0>[I<octal/hexadecimal>] ]>
11 S<[ B<-I>I<dir> ] [ B<-m>[B<->]I<module> ] [ B<-M>[B<->]I<'module...'> ] [ B<-f> ]>
12 S<[ B<-C [I<number/list>] >]>
15 S<[ B<-i>[I<extension>] ]>
16 S<[ [B<-e>|B<-E>] I<'command'> ] [ B<--> ] [ I<programfile> ] [ I<argument> ]...>
20 The F<perldoc> program gives you access to all the documentation that comes
21 with Perl. You can get more documentation, tutorials and community support
22 online at L<http://www.perl.org/>.
24 If you're new to Perl, you should start by running C<perldoc perlintro>,
25 which is a general intro for beginners and provides some background to help
26 you navigate the rest of Perl's extensive documentation. Run C<perldoc
27 perldoc> to learn more things you can do with F<perldoc>.
29 For ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into several sections.
33 perl Perl overview (this section)
34 perlintro Perl introduction for beginners
35 perltoc Perl documentation table of contents
39 perlreftut Perl references short introduction
40 perldsc Perl data structures intro
41 perllol Perl data structures: arrays of arrays
43 perlrequick Perl regular expressions quick start
44 perlretut Perl regular expressions tutorial
46 perlootut Perl OO tutorial for beginners
48 perlperf Perl Performance and Optimization Techniques
50 perlstyle Perl style guide
52 perlcheat Perl cheat sheet
53 perltrap Perl traps for the unwary
54 perldebtut Perl debugging tutorial
56 perlfaq Perl frequently asked questions
57 perlfaq1 General Questions About Perl
58 perlfaq2 Obtaining and Learning about Perl
59 perlfaq3 Programming Tools
60 perlfaq4 Data Manipulation
61 perlfaq5 Files and Formats
63 perlfaq7 Perl Language Issues
64 perlfaq8 System Interaction
67 =head2 Reference Manual
70 perldata Perl data structures
71 perlop Perl operators and precedence
72 perlsub Perl subroutines
73 perlfunc Perl built-in functions
74 perlopentut Perl open() tutorial
75 perlpacktut Perl pack() and unpack() tutorial
76 perlpod Perl plain old documentation
77 perlpodspec Perl plain old documentation format specification
78 perlpodstyle Perl POD style guide
79 perlrun Perl execution and options
80 perldiag Perl diagnostic messages
81 perllexwarn Perl warnings and their control
82 perldebug Perl debugging
83 perlvar Perl predefined variables
84 perlre Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
85 perlrebackslash Perl regular expression backslash sequences
86 perlrecharclass Perl regular expression character classes
87 perlreref Perl regular expressions quick reference
88 perlref Perl references, the rest of the story
91 perltie Perl objects hidden behind simple variables
92 perldbmfilter Perl DBM filters
94 perlipc Perl interprocess communication
95 perlfork Perl fork() information
96 perlnumber Perl number semantics
98 perlthrtut Perl threads tutorial
100 perlport Perl portability guide
101 perllocale Perl locale support
102 perluniintro Perl Unicode introduction
103 perlunicode Perl Unicode support
104 perlunifaq Perl Unicode FAQ
105 perluniprops Index of Unicode Version 6.0.0 properties in Perl
106 perlunitut Perl Unicode tutorial
107 perlebcdic Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
109 perlsec Perl security
111 perlmod Perl modules: how they work
112 perlmodlib Perl modules: how to write and use
113 perlmodstyle Perl modules: how to write modules with style
114 perlmodinstall Perl modules: how to install from CPAN
115 perlnewmod Perl modules: preparing a new module for distribution
116 perlpragma Perl modules: writing a user pragma
118 perlutil utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
120 perlfilter Perl source filters
122 perldtrace Perl's support for DTrace
124 perlglossary Perl Glossary
126 =head2 Internals and C Language Interface
128 perlembed Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
129 perldebguts Perl debugging guts and tips
130 perlxstut Perl XS tutorial
131 perlxs Perl XS application programming interface
132 perlclib Internal replacements for standard C library functions
133 perlguts Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
134 perlcall Perl calling conventions from C
135 perlmroapi Perl method resolution plugin interface
136 perlreapi Perl regular expression plugin interface
137 perlreguts Perl regular expression engine internals
139 perlapi Perl API listing (autogenerated)
140 perlintern Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
141 perliol C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layers
142 perlapio Perl internal IO abstraction interface
144 perlhack Perl hackers guide
145 perlsource Guide to the Perl source tree
146 perlinterp Overview of the Perl interpreter source and how it works
147 perlhacktut Walk through the creation of a simple C code patch
148 perlhacktips Tips for Perl core C code hacking
149 perlpolicy Perl development policies
150 perlgit Using git with the Perl repository
154 perlbook Perl book information
155 perlcommunity Perl community information
156 perltodo Perl things to do
158 perldoc Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
160 perlhist Perl history records
161 perldelta Perl changes since previous version
162 perl5154delta Perl changes in version 5.15.4
163 perl5153delta Perl changes in version 5.15.3
164 perl5152delta Perl changes in version 5.15.2
165 perl5151delta Perl changes in version 5.15.1
166 perl5150delta Perl changes in version 5.15.0
167 perl5142delta Perl changes in version 5.14.2
168 perl5141delta Perl changes in version 5.14.1
169 perl5140delta Perl changes in version 5.14.0
170 perl5124delta Perl changes in version 5.12.4
171 perl5123delta Perl changes in version 5.12.3
172 perl5122delta Perl changes in version 5.12.2
173 perl5121delta Perl changes in version 5.12.1
174 perl5120delta Perl changes in version 5.12.0
175 perl5101delta Perl changes in version 5.10.1
176 perl5100delta Perl changes in version 5.10.0
177 perl589delta Perl changes in version 5.8.9
178 perl588delta Perl changes in version 5.8.8
179 perl587delta Perl changes in version 5.8.7
180 perl586delta Perl changes in version 5.8.6
181 perl585delta Perl changes in version 5.8.5
182 perl584delta Perl changes in version 5.8.4
183 perl583delta Perl changes in version 5.8.3
184 perl582delta Perl changes in version 5.8.2
185 perl581delta Perl changes in version 5.8.1
186 perl58delta Perl changes in version 5.8.0
187 perl561delta Perl changes in version 5.6.1
188 perl56delta Perl changes in version 5.6
189 perl5005delta Perl changes in version 5.005
190 perl5004delta Perl changes in version 5.004
192 perlexperiment A listing of experimental features in Perl
194 perlartistic Perl Artistic License
195 perlgpl GNU General Public License
197 =head2 Language-Specific
199 perlcn Perl for Simplified Chinese (in EUC-CN)
200 perljp Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)
201 perlko Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)
202 perltw Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)
204 =head2 Platform-Specific
206 perlaix Perl notes for AIX
207 perlamiga Perl notes for AmigaOS
208 perlbeos Perl notes for BeOS
209 perlbs2000 Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000
210 perlce Perl notes for WinCE
211 perlcygwin Perl notes for Cygwin
212 perldgux Perl notes for DG/UX
213 perldos Perl notes for DOS
214 perlepoc Perl notes for EPOC
215 perlfreebsd Perl notes for FreeBSD
216 perlhaiku Perl notes for Haiku
217 perlhpux Perl notes for HP-UX
218 perlhurd Perl notes for Hurd
219 perlirix Perl notes for Irix
220 perllinux Perl notes for Linux
221 perlmacos Perl notes for Mac OS (Classic)
222 perlmacosx Perl notes for Mac OS X
223 perlmpeix Perl notes for MPE/iX
224 perlnetware Perl notes for NetWare
225 perlopenbsd Perl notes for OpenBSD
226 perlos2 Perl notes for OS/2
227 perlos390 Perl notes for OS/390
228 perlos400 Perl notes for OS/400
229 perlplan9 Perl notes for Plan 9
230 perlqnx Perl notes for QNX
231 perlriscos Perl notes for RISC OS
232 perlsolaris Perl notes for Solaris
233 perlsymbian Perl notes for Symbian
234 perltru64 Perl notes for Tru64
235 perluts Perl notes for UTS
236 perlvmesa Perl notes for VM/ESA
237 perlvms Perl notes for VMS
238 perlvos Perl notes for Stratus VOS
239 perlwin32 Perl notes for Windows
241 =head2 Stubs for Deleted Documents
249 On a Unix-like system, these documentation files will usually also be
250 available as manpages for use with the F<man> program.
252 In general, if something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're
253 not sure where you should look for help, try the B<-w> switch first. It will
254 often point out exactly where the trouble is.
258 Perl officially stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language,
259 except when it doesn't.
261 Perl was originally a language optimized for scanning arbitrary
262 text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing
263 reports based on that information. It quickly became a good language
264 for many system management tasks. Over the years, Perl has grown into
265 a general-purpose programming language. It's widely used for everything
266 from quick "one-liners" to full-scale application development.
268 The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient,
269 complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal).
271 Perl combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some of the best
272 features of C, B<sed>, B<awk>, and B<sh>, so people familiar with
273 those languages should have little difficulty with it. (Language
274 historians will also note some vestiges of B<csh>, Pascal, and even
275 BASIC-PLUS.) Expression syntax corresponds closely to C
276 expression syntax. Unlike most Unix utilities, Perl does not
277 arbitrarily limit the size of your data--if you've got the memory,
278 Perl can slurp in your whole file as a single string. Recursion is of
279 unlimited depth. And the tables used by hashes (sometimes called
280 "associative arrays") grow as necessary to prevent degraded
281 performance. Perl can use sophisticated pattern matching techniques to
282 scan large amounts of data quickly. Although optimized for
283 scanning text, Perl also has many excellent tools for slicing
284 and dicing binary data.
286 But wait, there's more...
288 Begun in 1993 (see L<perlhist>), Perl version 5 is nearly a complete
289 rewrite that provides the following additional benefits:
295 modularity and reusability using innumerable modules
297 Described in L<perlmod>, L<perlmodlib>, and L<perlmodinstall>.
301 embeddable and extensible
303 Described in L<perlembed>, L<perlxstut>, L<perlxs>, L<perlcall>,
304 L<perlguts>, and L<xsubpp>.
308 roll-your-own magic variables (including multiple simultaneous DBM
311 Described in L<perltie> and L<AnyDBM_File>.
315 subroutines can now be overridden, autoloaded, and prototyped
317 Described in L<perlsub>.
321 arbitrarily nested data structures and anonymous functions
323 Described in L<perlreftut>, L<perlref>, L<perldsc>, and L<perllol>.
327 object-oriented programming
329 Described in L<perlobj> and L<perlootut>.
333 support for light-weight processes (threads)
335 Described in L<perlthrtut> and L<threads>.
339 support for Unicode, internationalization, and localization
341 Described in L<perluniintro>, L<perllocale> and L<Locale::Maketext>.
347 Described in L<perlsub>.
351 regular expression enhancements
353 Described in L<perlre>, with additional examples in L<perlop>.
357 enhanced debugger and interactive Perl environment,
358 with integrated editor support
360 Described in L<perldebtut>, L<perldebug> and L<perldebguts>.
364 POSIX 1003.1 compliant library
366 Described in L<POSIX>.
370 Okay, that's I<definitely> enough hype.
374 Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually
375 all Unix-like platforms. See L<perlport/"Supported Platforms">
384 Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>, with the help of oodles of other folks.
386 If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others
387 who wish to advocate the use of Perl in their applications,
388 or if you wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and the
389 Perl developers, please write to perl-thanks@perl.org .
393 "@INC" locations of perl libraries
397 http://www.perl.org/ the Perl homepage
398 http://www.perl.com/ Perl articles (O'Reilly)
399 http://www.cpan.org/ the Comprehensive Perl Archive
400 http://www.pm.org/ the Perl Mongers
404 The C<use warnings> pragma (and the B<-w> switch) produces some
407 See L<perldiag> for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics. The C<use
408 diagnostics> pragma automatically turns Perl's normally terse warnings
409 and errors into these longer forms.
411 Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an
412 indication of the next token or token type that was to be examined.
413 (In a script passed to Perl via B<-e> switches, each
414 B<-e> is counted as one line.)
416 Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error
417 messages such as "Insecure dependency". See L<perlsec>.
419 Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the B<-w>
424 The B<-w> switch is not mandatory.
426 Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various
427 operations such as type casting, atof(), and floating-point
428 output with sprintf().
430 If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a
431 particular stream, so does Perl. (This doesn't apply to sysread()
434 While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits
435 (apart from memory size), there are still a few arbitrary limits: a
436 given variable name may not be longer than 251 characters. Line numbers
437 displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short integers,
438 so they are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers usually being
439 affected by wraparound).
441 You may mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration
442 information as output by the myconfig program in the perl source
443 tree, or by C<perl -V>) to perlbug@perl.org . If you've succeeded
444 in compiling perl, the L<perlbug> script in the F<utils/> subdirectory
445 can be used to help mail in a bug report.
447 Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but
448 don't tell anyone I said that.
452 The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." Divining
453 how many more is left as an exercise to the reader.
455 The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness,
456 Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.