=head1 NAME
-perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.4 $, $Date: 2002/01/11 02:31:20 $)
+perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl
=head1 DESCRIPTION
source and documentation for Perl, support, and
related matters.
-=head2 What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?
+=head2 What machines support perl? Where do I get it?
-The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the perl
-development team) is distributed only in source code form. You
-can find this at http://www.cpan.org/src/latest.tar.gz , which
-is in a standard Internet format (a gzipped archive in POSIX tar format).
+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/README.html .
-Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually
-all known and current Unix derivatives are supported (Perl's native
+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, including
-Apple systems, 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).
+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).
-=head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl?
+=head2 How can I get a binary version of perl?
-If you don't have a C compiler because your vendor for whatever
-reasons did not include one with your system, the best thing to do is
-grab a binary version of gcc from the net and use that to compile perl
-with. CPAN only has binaries for systems that are terribly hard to
-get free compilers for, not for Unix systems.
+(contributed by brian d foy)
-Some URLs that might help you are:
+ActiveState: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX
- http://www.cpan.org/ports/
- http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html
+ http://www.activestate.com/
-Someone looking for a Perl for Win16 might look to Laszlo Molnar's djgpp
-port in http://www.cpan.org/ports/#msdos , which comes with clear
-installation instructions. A simple installation guide for MS-DOS using
-Ilya Zakharevich's OS/2 port is available at
-http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perl5dos.html
-and similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perlwin3.html .
+Sunfreeware.com: Solaris 2.5 to Solaris 10 (SPARC and x86)
-=head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
+ http://www.sunfreeware.com/
+
+Strawberry Perl: Windows, Perl 5.8.8 and 5.10.0
+
+ http://www.strawberryperl.com
+
+IndigoPerl: Windows
+
+ http://indigostar.com/
+
+=head2 I don't have a C compiler. How can I build my own Perl interpreter?
Since you don't have a C compiler, you're doomed and your vendor
-should be sacrificed to the Sun gods. But that doesn't help you.
+should be sacrificed to the Sun gods. But that doesn't help you.
-What you need to do is get a binary version of gcc for your system
-first. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system for
+What you need to do is get a binary version of C<gcc> for your system
+first. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system for
information on where to get such a binary version.
-=head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
+You might look around the net for a pre-built binary of Perl (or a
+C compiler!) that meets your needs, though:
+
+For Windows, Vanilla Perl ( http://vanillaperl.com/ ) and Strawberry Perl
+( http://strawberryperl.com/ ) come with a
+bundled C compiler. ActivePerl is a pre-compiled version of Perl
+ready-to-use.
+
+For Sun systems, SunFreeware.com provides binaries of most popular
+applications, including compilers and Perl.
+
+=head2 I copied the perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
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 C<make install>. Most other
+eventually live on, and then type C<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:
+the hard-coded C<@INC> that perl looks through for libraries:
- % perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
+ % 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
+symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. C<@INC> is also printed as
part of the output of
% perl -V
You might also want to check out
L<perlfaq8/"How do I keep my own module/library directory?">.
-=head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
+=head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
Read the F<INSTALL> 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
+C<Configure> script can't work around for any given system or
architecture.
-=head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
+=head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
-CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a ~700mb archive
-replicated on nearly 200 machines all over the world. CPAN contains
-source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and many
-third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from
+CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a multi-gigabyte
+archive replicated on hundreds of machines all over the world. CPAN
+contains source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and
+many third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from
commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web
-walking and CGI scripts. The master web site for CPAN is
+walking and CGI scripts. The master web site for CPAN is
http://www.cpan.org/ and there is the CPAN Multiplexer at
-http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you
-via DNS. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the
-end) for how this process works. Also, http://mirror.cpan.org/
-has a nice interface to the http://www.cpan.org/MIRRORED.BY
-mirror directory.
-
-See the CPAN FAQ at http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html for
-answers to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN
-including how to become a mirror.
-
-CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPAN
-sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the
-rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For
+http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you via
+DNS. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the end) for
+how this process works. Also, http://mirror.cpan.org/ has a nice
+interface to the http://www.cpan.org/MIRRORED.BY mirror directory.
+
+See the CPAN FAQ at http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html for answers
+to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN including how to
+become a mirror.
+
+F<CPAN/path/...> is a naming convention for files available on CPAN
+sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the
+rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For
instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN
-as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh is downloadable as
+as your CPAN site, the file F<CPAN/misc/japh> is downloadable as
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .
-Considering that there are close to two thousand existing modules in
-the archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of.
-Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include Perl core
-modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking,
-devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database
-interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames,
-file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; world
-wide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving and
-compression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flow
-utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; and
-miscellaneous modules.
+Considering that, as of 2006, there are over ten thousand existing
+modules in the archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you
+can think of. Current categories under C<CPAN/modules/by-category/>
+include Perl core modules; development support; operating system
+interfaces; networking, devices, and interprocess communication; data
+type utilities; database interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to
+other languages; filenames, file systems, and file locking;
+internationalization and locale; world wide web support; server and
+daemon utilities; archiving and compression; image manipulation; mail
+and news; control flow utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft
+Windows modules; and miscellaneous modules.
See http://www.cpan.org/modules/00modlist.long.html or
-http://search.cpan.org/ for a more complete list of modules by category.
+http://search.cpan.org/ for a more complete list of modules by
+category.
-CPAN is not affiliated with O'Reilly and Associates.
+CPAN is a free service and is not affiliated with O'Reilly Media.
=head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
-Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
+Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
=head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a system resembling Unix.
This will lead you to other important man pages, including how to set your
-$MANPATH. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
-will be different; for example, documentation might only be in HTML format. All
-proper Perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
+C<$MANPATH>. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
+will be different; for example, documentation might only be in HTML format. All
+proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't
-have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't
-work, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation.
+have a proper C<man> command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't
+work, try looking in C</usr/local/lib/perl5/pod> for documentation.
-If all else fails, consult http://perldoc.cpan.org/ or
-http://www.perldoc.com/ both offer the complete documentation
-in html format.
+If all else fails, consult http://perldoc.perl.org/ which has the
+complete documentation in HTML and PDF format.
-Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section below
-for more details.
+Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section later in
+L<perlfaq2> for more details.
-Tutorial documents are included in current or upcoming Perl releases
+Tutorial documents included in current or upcoming Perl releases
include L<perltoot> for objects or L<perlboot> for a beginner's
approach to objects, L<perlopentut> for file opening semantics,
L<perlreftut> for managing references, L<perlretut> for regular
expressions, L<perlthrtut> for threads, L<perldebtut> for debugging,
-and L<perlxstut> for linking C and Perl together. There may be more
-by the time you read this. The following URLs might also be of
-assistance:
+and L<perlxstut> for linking C and Perl together. There may be more
+by the time you read this. These URLs might also be useful:
- http://perldoc.cpan.org/
- http://www.perldoc.com/
- http://reference.perl.com/query.cgi?tutorials
+ http://perldoc.perl.org/
http://bookmarks.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Training%2FTutorials
-=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions?
+=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions?
+
+Several groups devoted to the Perl language are on Usenet:
-The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the
-following groups:
+ comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
+ comp.lang.perl.misc High traffic general Perl discussion
+ comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
+ comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
+ comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
- comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
- comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general
- comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
- comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
- comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
+Some years ago, comp.lang.perl was divided into those groups, and
+comp.lang.perl itself officially removed. While that group may still
+be found on some news servers, it is unwise to use it, because
+postings there will not appear on news servers which honour the
+official list of group names. Use comp.lang.perl.misc for topics
+which do not have a more-appropriate specific group.
- comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
+There is also a Usenet gateway to Perl mailing lists sponsored by
+perl.org at nntp://nntp.perl.org , a web interface to the same lists
+at http://nntp.perl.org/group/ and these lists are also available
+under the C<perl.*> hierarchy at http://groups.google.com . Other
+groups are listed at http://lists.perl.org/ ( also known as
+http://lists.cpan.org/ ).
-There is also Usenet gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
-Perl development team (perl5-porters) at
-news://nntp.perl.org/perl.perl5.porters or its web interface at
-http://nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters .
+A nice place to ask questions is the PerlMonks site,
+http://www.perlmonks.org/ , or the Perl Beginners mailing list
+http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=beginners .
+
+Note that none of the above are supposed to write your code for you:
+asking questions about particular problems or general advice is fine,
+but asking someone to write your code for free is not very cool.
=head2 Where should I post source code?
You should post source code to whichever group is most appropriate, but
-feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to cross-post
+feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to cross-post
to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting standards,
including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT include alt.sources;
-see their FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/) for details.
+see their FAQ ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/ ) for details.
If you're just looking for software, first use Google
-(http://www.google.com), Deja (http://www.deja.com), and
-CPAN Search (http://search.cpan.org). This is faster and more
-productive than just posting a request.
+( http://www.google.com ), Google's Usenet search interface
+( http://groups.google.com ), and CPAN Search ( http://search.cpan.org ).
+This is faster and more productive than just posting a request.
=head2 Perl Books
-A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
-these are good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
-Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive
-reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html .
-
-The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by
-the creator of Perl, is now (July 2000) in its third edition:
-
- Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
- by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
- 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
- (English, translations to several languages are also available)
-
-The companion volume to the Camel containing thousands
-of real-world examples, mini-tutorials, and complete programs is:
-
- The Perl Cookbook (the "Ram Book"):
- by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
- with Foreword by Larry Wall
- ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st Edition August 1998]
- http://perl.oreilly.com/cookbook/
-
-If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might
-suffice for you to learn Perl from. If you're not, check out the
-Llama book:
-
- Learning Perl (the "Llama Book")
- by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix
- ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
-
-If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and
-possibly even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much
-hand-holding as we try to provide in the Llama, please check out the
-delightful book
-
- Perl: The Programmer's Companion
- by Nigel Chapman
- ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
-
-If you are more at home in Windows the following is available
-(though unfortunately rather dated).
-
- Learning Perl on Win32 Systems (the "Gecko Book")
- by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
- with foreword by Larry Wall
- ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
-
-Addison-Wesley (http://www.awlonline.com/) and Manning
-(http://www.manning.com/) are also publishers of some fine Perl books
-such as I<Object Oriented Programming with Perl> by Damian Conway and
-I<Network Programming with Perl> by Lincoln Stein.
-
-An excellent technical book discounter is Bookpool at
-http://www.bookpool.com/ where a 30% discount or more is not unusual.
-
-What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally
-useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
-
-Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item References
-
- Programming Perl
- by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
- ISBN 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
-
- Perl 5 Pocket Reference
- by Johan Vromans
- ISBN 0-596-00032-4 [3rd edition May 2000]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/
-
- Perl in a Nutshell
- by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
- ISBN 1-56592-286-7 [1st edition December 1998]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/
-
-=item Tutorials
-
- Elements of Programming with Perl
- by Andrew L. Johnson
- ISBN 1884777805 [1st edition October 1999]
- http://www.manning.com/Johnson/
-
- Learning Perl
- by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix
- ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
-
- Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
- by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
- with foreword by Larry Wall
- ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
-
- Perl: The Programmer's Companion
- by Nigel Chapman
- ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
-
- Cross-Platform Perl
- by Eric Foster-Johnson
- ISBN 1-55851-483-X [2nd edition September 2000]
- http://www.pconline.com/~erc/perlbook.htm
-
- MacPerl: Power and Ease
- by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor,
- with foreword by Matthias Neeracher
- ISBN 1-881957-32-2 [1st edition May 1998]
- http://www.macperl.com/ptf_book/
-
-=item Task-Oriented
-
- The Perl Cookbook
- by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
- with foreword by Larry Wall
- ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st edition August 1998]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cookbook/
-
- Effective Perl Programming
- by Joseph Hall
- ISBN 0-201-41975-0 [1st edition 1998]
- http://www.awl.com/
-
-
-=item Special Topics
-
- Mastering Regular Expressions
- by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
- ISBN 1-56592-257-3 [1st edition January 1997]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/
-
- Network Programming with Perl
- by Lincoln Stein
- ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
- http://www.awlonline.com/
-
- Object Oriented Perl
- Damian Conway
- with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
- ISBN 1884777791 [1st edition August 1999]
- http://www.manning.com/Conway/
-
- Data Munging with Perl
- Dave Cross
- ISBN 1930110006 [1st edition 2001]
- http://www.manning.com/cross
-
- Learning Perl/Tk
- by Nancy Walsh
- ISBN 1-56592-314-6 [1st edition January 1999]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperltk/
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Perl in Magazines
-
-The first and only periodical devoted to All Things Perl,
-I<The Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies,
-announcements, contests, and much more. I<TPJ> has columns on web
-development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming, regular
-expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl Contest
-and the Perl Poetry Contests. As of mid-2001, the dead tree version
-of TPJ will be published as a quarterly supplement of SysAdmin
-magazine ( http://www.sysadmin.com/ ) For more details on TPJ,
-see http://www.tpj.com/
-
-Beyond this, magazines that frequently carry quality articles on
-Perl are I<Web Techniques> ( http://www.webtechniques.com/ ),
-I<Unix Review> ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ),
-I<Linux Magazine> ( http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ),
-and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to its members, I<login:>
-( http://www.usenix.org/ )
+There are many good books on Perl. See the L<perlbook> documentation or
+( http://books.perl.org ).
+
+=head2 Which magazines have Perl content?
+
+There's also I<$foo Magazin>, a German magazine dedicated to Perl, at
+( http://www.foo-magazin.de ). The I<Perl-Zeitung> is another
+German-speaking magazine for Perl beginners (see
+http://perl-zeitung.at.tf ).
+
+Magazines that frequently carry quality articles on Perl include
+I<Unix Review> ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ), I<Linux Magazine> (
+http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ), and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to
+its members, I<login:> ( http://www.usenix.org/ ).
The Perl columns of Randal L. Schwartz are available on the web at
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ ,
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/ , and
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/ .
-=head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
-
-To get the best performance, pick a site from
-the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites
-which is at /CPAN/MIRRORED.BY or at http://mirror.cpan.org/.
-From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
-following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors
-(the complete list contains 165 sites as of January 2001):
-
- http://www.cpan.org/
- http://www.perl.com/CPAN/
- http://download.sourceforge.net/mirrors/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/plan/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.uvsq.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/lang/CPAN/
- ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://cpan.if.usp.br/pub/mirror/CPAN/
-
-One may also use xx.cpan.org where "xx" is the 2-letter country code
-for your domain; e.g. Australia would use au.cpan.org.
-[Note: This only applies to countries that host at least one mirror.]
+The first (and for a long time, only) periodical devoted to All Things
+Perl, I<The Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case
+studies, announcements, contests, and much more. I<TPJ> has columns
+on web development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming,
+regular expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl
+Contest and the Perl Poetry Contests. Beginning in November 2002, I<TPJ>
+moved to a reader-supported monthly e-zine format in which subscribers
+can download issues as PDF documents. In 2006, I<TPJ> merged with Dr.
+Dobbs Journal (online edition). To read old I<TPJ> articles, see
+http://www.ddj.com/ or brian d foy's index of online TPJ content
+( http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=711609 ).
=head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl?
-Most of the major modules (Tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
-mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
+Most of the major modules (C<Tk>, C<CGI>, C<libwww-perl>) have their own
+mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
subscription information.
- http://lists.cpan.org/
+A comprehensive list of Perl-related mailing lists can be found at:
+
+ http://lists.perl.org/
-=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
+=head2 Where are the archives for comp.lang.perl.misc?
The Google search engine now carries archived and searchable newsgroup
-content.
+content.
-http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&group=comp.lang.perl.misc
+http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/topics
If you have a question, you can be sure someone has already asked the
same question at some point on c.l.p.m. It requires some time and patience
to sift through all the content but often you will find the answer you
seek.
-=head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
+=head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of perl?
-In a real sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: it has a license
+In a real sense, perl already I<is> 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
-user community and an extensive literature. The comp.lang.perl.*
+user community and an extensive literature. The comp.lang.perl.*
newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide free answers to your
-questions in near real-time. Perl has traditionally been supported by
+questions in near real-time. Perl has traditionally been supported by
Larry, scores of software designers and developers, and myriad
programmers, all working for free to create a useful thing to make life
better for everyone.
However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go awry.
Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual obligations.
-Shrink-wrapped CDs with Perl on them are available from several sources if
-that will help. For example, many Perl books include a distribution of Perl,
+Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available from several sources if
+that will help. For example, many Perl books include a distribution of perl,
as do the O'Reilly Perl Resource Kits (in both the Unix flavor
and in the proprietary Microsoft flavor); the free Unix distributions
-also all come with Perl.
-
-Alternatively, you can purchase commercial incidence based support
-through the Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:
-
-"The Perl Clinic is a commercial Perl support service operated by
-ActiveState Tool Corp. and The Ingram Group. The operators have many
-years of in-depth experience with Perl applications and Perl internals
-on a wide range of platforms.
-
-"Through our group of highly experienced and well-trained support engineers,
-we will put our best effort into understanding your problem, providing an
-explanation of the situation, and a recommendation on how to proceed."
-
-Contact The Perl Clinic at
+also all come with perl.
- www.PerlClinic.com
+=head2 Where do I send bug reports?
- North America Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8)
- Tel: 1 604 606-4611 hours 8am-6pm
- Fax: 1 604 606-4640
+(contributed by brian d foy)
- Europe (GMT)
- Tel: 00 44 1483 862814
- Fax: 00 44 1483 862801
+First, ensure that you've found an actual bug. Second, ensure you've
+found an actual bug.
-See also www.perl.com for updates on tutorials, training, and support.
+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 use the
+L<perlbug> utility that comes with Perl (>= 5.004). It collects
+information about your installation to include with your message, then
+sends the message to the right place.
-=head2 Where do I send bug reports?
+To determine if a module came with your version of Perl, you can
+use the C<Module::CoreList> module. It has the information about
+the modules (with their versions) included with each release of Perl.
-If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
-shipped with Perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the Perl distribution or
-mail your report to perlbug@perl.org .
+If C<Module::CoreList> is not installed on your system, check out
+http://perlpunks.de/corelist .
-If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to
-"What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a
-non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
-documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post
-bugs.
+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-E<lt>distribution-nameE<gt>@rt.cpan.org . For example, if you
+wanted to report a bug in C<Business::ISBN>, you could send a message to
+bug-Business-ISBN@rt.cpan.org .
-Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
+Some modules might have special reporting requirements, such as a
+Sourceforge or Google Code tracking system, so you should check the
+module documentation too.
=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?
-The Perl Home Page at http://www.perl.com/ is currently hosted by
-The O'Reilly Network, a subsidiary of O'Reilly and Associates.
+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.
+
+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, Perl news,
+jobs in Perl, such as:
-Perl Mongers 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.
+ http://www.perl.org/
+ http://learn.perl.org/
+ http://jobs.perl.org/
+ http://lists.perl.org/
Perl Mongers uses the pm.org domain for services related to Perl user
-groups, including the hosting of mailing lists and web sites. See the
-Perl user group web site at http://www.pm.org/ for more information about
+groups, including the hosting of mailing lists and web sites. See the
+Perl Mongers website ( http://www.pm.org/ ) for more information about
joining, starting, or requesting services for a Perl user group.
-Perl Mongers also maintain the perl.org domain to provide general
-support services to the Perl community, including the hosting of mailing
-lists, web sites, and other services. The web site
-http://www.perl.org/ is a general advocacy site for the Perl language,
-and there are many other sub-domains for special topics, such as
-
- http://bugs.perl.org/
- http://history.perl.org/
- http://lists.perl.org/
- http://news.perl.org/
- http://use.perl.org/
-
-http://www.cpan.org/ is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network,
-a replicated worlwide repository of Perl software, see
-the I<What is CPAN?> question earlier in this document.
+CPAN, or the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (
+http://www.cpan.org/ ), is a replicated, worldwide repository of Perl
+software.
+See L<What is CPAN?|/"What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPANE<sol>srcE<sol>... mean?">.
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
-Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
-All rights reserved.
+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
+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
+see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
be courteous but is not required.
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff