+Perl is Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,
+2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Larry Wall and others.
+All rights reserved.
- Perl Kit, Version 5.0
- Copyright (c) 1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994 Larry Wall
- All rights reserved.
- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
- it under the terms of either:
-
- a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
- Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
- later version, or
+ABOUT PERL
+==========
- b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit.
+Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for
+text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including
+system administration, web development, network programming, GUI
+development, and more.
+
+The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient,
+complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). Its major
+features are that it's easy to use, supports both procedural and
+object-oriented (OO) programming, has powerful built-in support for text
+processing, and has one of the world's most impressive collections of
+third-party modules.
+
+For an introduction to the language's features, see pod/perlintro.pod.
+
+For a discussion of the important changes in this release, see
+pod/perl5100delta.pod. (This will also be installed as perldelta.pod).
+
+There are also many Perl books available, covering a wide variety of topics,
+from various publishers. See pod/perlbook.pod for more information.
+
+
+INSTALLATION
+============
+
+If you're using a relatively modern operating system and want to
+install this version of Perl locally, run the following commands:
+
+ ./Configure -des -Dprefix=$HOME/localperl
+ make test
+ make install
+
+This will configure and compile perl for your platform, run the regression
+tests, and install perl in a subdirectory "localperl" of your home directory.
+
+If you run into any trouble whatsoever or you need to install a customized
+version of Perl, you should read the detailed instructions in the "INSTALL"
+file that came with this distribution. Additionally, there are a number of
+"README" files with hints and tips about building and using Perl on a wide
+variety of platforms, some more common than others.
+
+Once you have Perl installed, a wealth of documentation is available to you
+through the 'perldoc' tool. To get started, run this command:
+
+ perldoc perl
- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
- but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
- MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either
- the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
-
- You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this
- Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one.
-
- You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
- along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
- Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
-
- For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License,
- my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl
- script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put
- said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any
- object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the
- terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions
- of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the
- resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I
- consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral
- equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You
- may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide
- or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General
- Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input
- to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of
- a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or
- offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The
- fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file
- is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation
- of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding
- my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License
- spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-Perl is a language that combines some of the features of C, sed, awk
-and shell. See the manual page for more hype. There are also two Nutshell
-Handbooks published by O'Reilly & Assoc. See pod/perlbook.pod
-for more information.
-
-Please read all the directions below before you proceed any further, and
-then follow them carefully.
-
-After you have unpacked your kit, you should have all the files listed
-in MANIFEST.
-
-Installation
-
-1) Run Configure. This will figure out various things about your
- system. Some things Configure will figure out for itself, other
- things it will ask you about. If the test scripts and programs
- run ok, the defaults will usually be right. It will then proceed to
- make config.h, config.sh, and Makefile. You may have to explicitly
- say sh Configure to ensure that Configure is run under sh.
- If you're a hotshot, run Configure -d to take all the defaults
- and edit config.sh to patch up any flaws.
-
- If you later make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
- them to all the .SH files by running Configure -S.
-
- Configure supports a number of useful options. Run Configure -h
- to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
- Configure -Dcc=gcc, or answer 'gcc' at the cc prompt.
-
- If you wish to use gcc (or another alternative compiler)
- you should use Configure -Dcc=gcc. That way, the the hints
- files can set appropriate defaults.
-
- By default, perl will be installed in /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}.
- You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
- directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure
- command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory'.
-
- By default, perl will use dynamic extensions if your system
- supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled statically,
- you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or by using
- the Configure command line option -Uusedl
-
- If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
- probably _not_ re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
- rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
- with the options you want to use.
-
- You can also supply a file config.over to over-ride Configure's
- guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before
- config.sh is created.
-
- You might possibly have to trim # comments from the front of Configure
- if your sh doesn't handle them, but all other # comments will be taken
- care of.
-
- (If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
- config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.)
-
-2) Glance through config.h to make sure system dependencies are correct.
- Most of them should have been taken care of by running the Configure script.
-
- If you have any additional changes to make to the C definitions, they
- can be done in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the optimizer
- on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for toke.c and
- put the command optimize='-g' before the ;;. To change the C flags
- for all the files, edit config.sh and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
- and then re-run Configure -S ; make depend.
-
-
-3) make depend
-
- This will look for all the includes and modify Makefile accordingly.
- Configure will offer to do this for you.
-
-4) make
-
- This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
-
- If you can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC flag.
- (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
- This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that
- get indigestion easily. If that has no effect, try turning off
- optimization. If you have missing routines, you probably need to
- add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature that
- Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete.
-
- Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
- some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
- internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
- cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
- Makefile.SH, since a default rule only takes effect in the
- absence of a specific rule.
-
- If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
- for further tips and information.
-
- If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
- during the building of extensions, you should run
- make minitest
- to test your version of miniperl.
-
- Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or
- perl5:
-
- Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
-
- NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
-
- UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
-
- If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
-
- Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
-
- SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
- that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
-
- If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
-
- If you get duplicate function definitions (a perl function has the
- same name as another function on your system) try -DEMBED.
-
- If you get varags problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
- correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
- and i_varags='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved
- by running fixincludes correctly.
-
- If you wish to use dynamic loading on SunOS or Solaris, and you
- have GNU as and GNU ld installed, you may need to add -B/bin/ to
- your $ccflags and $ldflags so that the system's versions of as
- and ld are used.
-
- If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
- the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
- fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
- of your local set-up.
-
-5) make test
-
- This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made.
- If it doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong.
- See the README in the t subdirectory. Note that you can't run it
- in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty. If "make test"
- bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run TEST by hand to see if
- it makes any difference. If individual tests bomb, you can run
- them by hand, e.g., ./perl op/groups.t
-
-6) make install
-
- This will put perl into a public directory (such as
- /usr/local/bin). It will also try to put the man pages in a
- reasonable place. It will not nroff the man page, however. You
- may need to be root to run make install. If you are not root, you
- must own the directories in question and you should ignore any
- messages about chown not working.
-
- make install will install the following:
- perl,
- perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
- will be a link to perl.
- suidperl,
- sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
- a2p awk-to-perl translator
- cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
- read from stdin.
- c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
- s2p sed-to-perl translator
- find2perl find-to-perl translator
- h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
- perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
- pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
- pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
- pod2man
-
- library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
- Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
- man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
- something like /usr/local/man/man1.
- module in the location specified to Configure, usually
- man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
- pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
-
- Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also
- installed under $archlib so that you may later build new
- extensions even if the Perl source is no longer available.
-
- make install may also offer to install perl in a "standard" location.
-
- Most of the documentation in the pod/ directory is also available
- in HTML and LaTeX format. Type
- cd pod; make html; cd ..
- to generate the html versions, and
- cd pod; make tex; cd ..
- to generate the LaTeX versions.
-
-7) Read the manual entries before running perl.
-
-8) IMPORTANT! Help save the world! Communicate any problems and suggested
- patches to me, lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall), so we can
- keep the world in sync. If you have a problem, there's someone else
- out there who either has had or will have the same problem.
-
- If possible, send in patches such that the patch program will apply them.
- Context diffs are the best, then normal diffs. Don't send ed scripts--
- I've probably changed my copy since the version you have. It's also
- helpful if you send the output of "uname -a".
-
- Watch for perl patches in comp.lang.perl. Patches will generally be
- in a form usable by the patch program. If you are just now bringing up
- perl and aren't sure how many patches there are, write to me and I'll
- send any you don't have. Your current patch level is shown in patchlevel.h.
+
+IF YOU RUN INTO TROUBLE
+=======================
+
+Perl is a large and complex system that's used for everything from
+knitting to rocket science. If you run into trouble, it's quite
+likely that someone else has already solved the problem you're
+facing. Once you've exhausted the documentation, please report bugs to us
+using the 'perlbug' tool. For more information about perlbug, either type
+'perldoc perlbug' or just 'perlbug' on a line by itself.
+
+While it was current when we made it available, Perl is constantly evolving
+and there may be a more recent version that fixes bugs you've run into or
+adds new features that you might find useful.
+
+You can always find the latest version of perl on a CPAN (Comprehensive Perl
+Archive Network) site near you at http://www.cpan.org/src/
Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this
notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-)
The author.
+
+
+LICENSING
+=========
+
+This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of either:
+
+ a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
+ Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
+ later version, or
+
+ b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit.
+
+This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either
+the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
+
+You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this
+Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one.
+
+You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+along with this program in the file named "Copying". If not, write to the
+Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
+Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA or visit their web page on the internet at
+http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
+
+For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License,
+my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl
+script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put
+said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any
+object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the
+terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions
+of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the
+resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I
+consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral
+equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You
+may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide
+or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General
+Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input
+to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of
+a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or
+offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The
+fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file
+is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation
+of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding
+my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License
+spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that.
+
+
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff