=head1 NAME
-perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.15 $, $Date: 1997/03/25 18:15:48 $)
+perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.3 $, $Date: 2001/11/09 08:06:04 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find
-source and documentation for Perl, support and training, and
+source and documentation for Perl, support, and
related matters.
=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.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz, which is a
-gzipped archive in POSIX tar format. This source builds with no
-porting whatsoever on most Unix systems (Perl's native environment),
-as well as Plan 9, VMS, QNX, OS/2, and the Amiga.
-
-Although it's rumored that the (imminent) 5.004 release may build
-on Windows NT, this is yet to be proven. Binary distributions
-for 32-bit Microsoft systems and for Apple systems can be found
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/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).
-
-A useful FAQ for Win32 Perl users is
-http://www.endcontsw.com/people/evangelo/Perl_for_Win32_FAQ.html
+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).
+
+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).
=head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl?
-If you don't have a C compiler because for whatever reasons your
-vendor did not include one with your system, the best thing to do is
+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.
-Your first stop should be http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports to see what
-information is already available. A simple installation guide for
-MS-DOS is available at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perl5dos.html , and
-similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perlwin3.html
-.
+Some URLs that might help you are:
+
+ http://www.cpan.org/ports/
+ http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html
+
+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 .
=head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
approaches are doomed to failure.
One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out
-the hardcoded @INC which perl is looking for.
+the hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries:
- perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
+ % perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
-If this command lists any paths which don't exist on your system, then you
+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
-symlinks, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately.
+symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed as
+part of the output of
+
+ % perl -V
-You might also want to check out L<perlfaq8/"How do I keep my own
-module/library directory?">.
+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 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
-CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a huge archive
-replicated on dozens of machines all over the world. CPAN contains
-source code, nonnative ports, documentation, scripts, and many
+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
commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web
-walking and CGI scripts. The master machine for CPAN is
-ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/, but you can use the
-address http://www.perl.com/CPAN/CPAN.html to fetch a copy from a
-"site near you". See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the
-end) for how this process works.
+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
instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN
-as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh file is downloadable as
+as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh is downloadable as
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .
-Considering that there are hundreds of 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
+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,
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.
+
+
=head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
=head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
-The complete Perl documentation is available with the perl
-distribution. If you have perl installed locally, you probably have
-the documentation installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a
-system resembling Unix. This will lead you to other important man
-pages. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
-will be different; for example, it might be only in HTML format. But
-all proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
+The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution.
+If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
+installed as well: type 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.
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.
-If all else fails, consult the CPAN/doc directory, which contains the
-complete documentation in various formats, including native pod,
-troff, html, and plain text. There's also a web page at
-http://www.perl.com/perl/info/documentation.html that might help.
-
-It's also worth noting that there's a PDF version of the complete
-documentation for perl available in the CPAN/authors/id/BMIDD
-directory.
+If all else fails, consult http://perldoc.cpan.org/ or
+http://www.perldoc.com/ both offer the complete documentation
+in html format.
-Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section below
+Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section below
for more details.
-=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
+Tutorial documents are 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:
+
+ http://perldoc.cpan.org/
+ http://www.perldoc.com/
+ http://reference.perl.com/query.cgi?tutorials
+ http://bookmarks.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Training%2FTutorials
+
+=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions?
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 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
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
-There is also USENET gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
+There is also Usenet gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
Perl development team (perl5-porters) at
-news://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ .
+news://news.perl.com/perl.porters-gw/ .
=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 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 for details.
+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
+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.
+
+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.
=head2 Perl Books
-A number 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
+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.
+reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html .
-The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by the
-creator of Perl and his apostles, is now in its second edition and
-fourth printing.
+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"):
- Authors: Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz
- ISBN 1-56592-149-6 (English)
- ISBN 4-89052-384-7 (Japanese)
- (French and German translations in progress)
-
-Note that O'Reilly books are color-coded: turquoise (some would call
-it teal) covers indicate perl5 coverage, while magenta (some would
-call it pink) covers indicate perl4 only. Check the cover color
-before you buy!
+ 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.
-If you're already a hardcore systems programmer, then the Camel Book
-just might suffice for you to learn Perl from. But if you're not,
-check out the "Llama Book". It currently doesn't cover perl5, but the
-2nd edition is nearly done and should be out by summer 97:
-
- Learning Perl (the Llama Book):
- Author: Randal Schwartz, with intro by Larry Wall
- ISBN 1-56592-042-2 (English)
- ISBN 4-89502-678-1 (Japanese)
- ISBN 2-84177-005-2 (French)
- ISBN 3-930673-08-8 (German)
-
-Another stand-out book in the turquoise O'Reilly Perl line is the "Hip
-Owls" book. It covers regular expressions inside and out, with quite a
-bit devoted exclusively to Perl:
+Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow.
- Mastering Regular Expressions (the Cute Owls Book):
- Author: Jeffrey Friedl
- ISBN 1-56592-257-3
-
-You can order any of these books from O'Reilly & Associates,
-1-800-998-9938. Local/overseas is 1-707-829-0515. If you can locate
-an O'Reilly order form, you can also fax to 1-707-829-0104. See
-http://www.ora.com/ on the Web.
-
-Recommended Perl books that are not from O'Reilly are the following:
-
- Cross-Platform Perl, (for Unix and Windows NT)
- Author: Eric F. Johnson
- ISBN: 1-55851-483-X
-
- How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site, (2nd edition)
- Author: Lincoln Stein, M.D., Ph.D.
- ISBN: 0-201-63462-7
+=over 4
- CGI Programming in C & Perl,
- Author: Thomas Boutell
- ISBN: 0-201-42219-0
+=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/
-Note that some of these address specific application areas (e.g. the
-Web) and are not general-purpose programming books.
+=back
=head2 Perl in Magazines
-The Perl Journal is the first and only magazine dedicated to Perl.
-It is published (on paper, not online) quarterly by Jon Orwant
-(orwant@tpj.com), editor. Subscription information is at http://tpj.com
-or via email to subscriptions@tpj.com.
-
-Beyond this, two other magazines that frequently carry high-quality
-articles on Perl are Web Techniques (see
-http://www.webtechniques.com/) and Unix Review
-(http://www.unixreview.com/). Randal Schwartz's Web Technique's
-columns are available on the web at
-http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ .
+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/ )
+
+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 (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site from
-the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites.
+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.
-
- http://www.perl.com/CPAN (redirects to another mirror)
- http://www.perl.org/CPAN
+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/
- http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/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/
-=head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
+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.]
-Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
-mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
-subscription information. The following are a list of mailing lists
-related to perl itself.
+=head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl?
-If you subscribe to a mailing list, it behooves you to know how to
-unsubscribe from it. Strident pleas to the list itself to get you off
-will not be favorably received.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item MacPerl
-
-There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact
-"mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch".
-
-Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl)
-web page at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for
-many links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPW
-tools, precompiled.
-
-=item Perl5-Porters
-
-The core development team have a mailing list for discussing fixes and
-changes to the language. Send mail to
-"perl5-porters-request@perl.org" with help in the body of the message
-for information on subscribing.
-
-=item NTPerl
-
-This list is used to discuss issues involving Win32 Perl 5 (Windows NT
-and Win95). Subscribe by emailing ListManager@ActiveWare.com with the
-message body:
-
- subscribe Perl-Win32-Users
-
-The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
-your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, email
-the following in the message body to the same address like so:
-
- unsubscribe Perl-Win32-Users
-
-You can also check http://www.activeware.com/ and select "Mailing Lists"
-to join or leave this list.
+Most of the major modules (Tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
+mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
+subscription information.
-=item Perl-Packrats
+ http://lists.cpan.org/
-Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the
-Comprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
-majordomo@cis.ufl.edu:
+=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
- subscribe perl-packrats
+The Google search engine now carries archived and searchable newsgroup
+content.
-The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
-your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, simple
-prepend the same command with an "un", and mail to the same address
-like so:
+http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&group=comp.lang.perl.misc
- unsubscribe perl-packrats
+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.
-=back
+=head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
-=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
+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.*
+newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide free answers to your
+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.
-Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista?
+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,
+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.
-ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/perl/comp.lang.perl.*/monthly has an almost
-complete collection dating back to 12/89 (missing 08/91 through
-12/93). They are kept as one large file for each month.
+Alternatively, you can purchase commercial incidence based support
+through the Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:
-You'll probably want more a sophisticated query and retrieval mechanism
-than a file listing, preferably one that allows you to retrieve
-articles using a fast-access indices, keyed on at least author, date,
-subject, thread (as in "trn") and probably keywords. The best
-solution the FAQ authors know of is the MH pick command, but it is
-very slow to select on 18000 articles.
+"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.
-If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, please
-let perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com know.
+"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."
-=head2 Perl Training
+Contact The Perl Clinic at
-While some large training companies offer their own courses on Perl,
-you may prefer to contact individuals near and dear to the heart of
-Perl development. Two well-known members of the Perl development team
-who offer such things are Tom Christiansen <perl-classes@perl.com>
-and Randal Schwartz <perl-training-info@stonehenge.com>, plus their
-respective minions, who offer a variety of professional tutorials
-and seminars on Perl. These courses include large public seminars,
-private corporate training, and fly-ins to Colorado and Oregon.
-See http://www.perl.com/perl/info/training.html for more details.
+ www.PerlClinic.com
-=head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
+ North America Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8)
+ Tel: 1 604 606-4611 hours 8am-6pm
+ Fax: 1 604 606-4640
-In a sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: It has a licence
-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.* newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide
-free answers to your questions in near real-time. Perl has
-traditionally been supported by Larry, dozens of software designers
-and developers, and thousands of programmers, all working for free
-to create a useful thing to make life better for everyone.
+ Europe (GMT)
+ Tel: 00 44 1483 862814
+ Fax: 00 44 1483 862801
-However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
-purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go
-wrong. 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.
-
-Or you can purchase a real support contract. Although Cygnus historically
-provided this service, they no longer sell support contracts for Perl.
-Instead, the Paul Ingram Group will be taking up the slack through The
-Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:
-
-"Do you need professional support for Perl and/or Oraperl? Do you need
-a support contract with defined levels of service? Do you want to pay
-only for what you need?
-
-"The Paul Ingram Group has provided quality software development and
-support services to some of the world's largest corporations for ten
-years. We are now offering the same quality support services for Perl
-at The Perl Clinic. This service is led by Tim Bunce, an active perl
-porter since 1994 and well known as the author and maintainer of the
-DBI, DBD::Oracle, and Oraperl modules and author/co-maintainer of The
-Perl 5 Module List. We also offer Oracle users support for Perl5
-Oraperl and related modules (which Oracle is planning to ship as part
-of Oracle Web Server 3). 20% of the profit from our Perl support work
-will be donated to The Perl Institute."
-
-For more information, contact the The Perl Clinic:
-
- Tel: +44 1483 424424
- Fax: +44 1483 419419
- Web: http://www.perl.co.uk/
- Email: perl-support-info@perl.co.uk or Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk
+See also www.perl.com for updates on tutorials, training, and support.
=head2 Where do I send bug reports?
If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
-shipped with perl, use the perlbug program in the perl distribution or
-email your report to perlbug@perl.com.
+shipped with Perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the Perl distribution or
+mail your report to perlbug@perl.org .
-If you are posting a bug with a nonstandard port (see the answer to
+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
-nonstandard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
+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.
-Read the perlbug manpage (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
+Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
+
+=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org?
-=head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
+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.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto of
-TPI is "helping people help Perl help people" (or something like
-that). It's a nonprofit organization supporting development,
-documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPI
-include Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom you
-may have heard of somewhere else around here.
+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.
-The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as a
-public service long before perl.org came about. It's the original PBS
-of the Perl world, a clearinghouse for information about all things
-Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy GIFs, or (gasp!)
-Java applets on its pages.
+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
+joining, starting, or requesting services for a Perl user group.
-=head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
+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
-L<perltoot> (distributed with 5.004 or later) is a good place to start.
-Also, L<perlobj>, L<perlref>, and L<perlmod> are useful references,
-while L<perlbot> has some excellent tips and tricks.
+ http://bugs.perl.org/
+ http://history.perl.org/
+ http://lists.perl.org/
+ http://news.perl.org/
+ http://use.perl.org/
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
-Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
-All rights reserved. See L<perlfaq> for distribution information.
+Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
+All rights reserved.
+
+This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+under the same terms as Perl itself.
+
+Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the public
+domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
+derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you
+see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
+be courteous but is not required.
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff