MAN page from Old RedHat 5.X perl-5.004-4.i386.rpm

PERLFAQ2

Section: Perl Programmers Reference Guide (1)
Updated: perl 5.004, patch 04
Index

NAME

perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.16 $, $Date: 1997/04/23 18:04:09 $)

DESCRIPTION

This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to findsource and documentation for Perl, support and training, andrelated matters.

What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?

The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the perldevelopment team) is distributed only in source code form. You canfind this at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz, which is agzipped archive in POSIX tar format. This source builds with noporting 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 buildon Windows NT, this is yet to be proven. Binary distributionsfor 32-bit Microsoft systems and for Apple systems can be foundhttp://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/ directory. Because these are not part ofthe standard distribution, they may and in fact do differ from the basePerl port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check their respectiverelease notes to see just what the differences are. These differencescan be either positive (e.g. extensions for the features of the particularplatform 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 ishttp://www.endcontsw.com/people/evangelo/Perl_for_Win32_FAQ.html

How can I get a binary version of Perl?

If you don't have a C compiler because for whatever reasons yourvendor did not include one with your system, the best thing to do isgrab a binary version of gcc from the net and use that to compile perlwith. CPAN only has binaries for systems that are terribly hard toget free compilers for, not for Unix systems.

Your first stop should be http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports to see whatinformation is already available. A simple installation guide forMS-DOS is available at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perl5dos.html , andsimilarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perlwin3.html.

I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?

Since you don't have a C compiler, you're doomed and your vendorshould 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 systemfirst. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system forinformation on where to get such a binary version.

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 willeventually live on, and then type make install. Most otherapproaches are doomed to failure.

One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print outthe hard-coded @INC which perl is looking for.

        perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'

If this command lists any paths which don't exist on your system, then youmay need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or createsymlinks, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately.

You might also want to check out the section on How do I keep my ownmodule/library directory? in the perlfaq8 manpage.

I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?

Read the INSTALL file, which is part of the source distribution.It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncracies that theConfigure script can't work around for any given system orarchitecture.

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 archivereplicated on dozens of machines all over the world. CPAN containssource code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and manythird-party modules and extensions, designed for everything fromcommercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to webwalking and CGI scripts. The master machine for CPAN isftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/, but you can use theaddress 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 theend) for how this process works.

CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPANsites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and therest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. Forinstance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPANas your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh file is downloadable asftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .

Considering that there are hundreds of existing modules in thearchive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of.Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include perl coremodules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking,devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; databaseinterfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames,file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; worldwide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving andcompression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flowutilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; andmiscellaneous modules.

Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?

Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.

Where can I get information on Perl?

The complete Perl documentation is available with the perldistribution. If you have perl installed locally, you probably havethe documentation installed as well: type man perl if you're on asystem resembling Unix. This will lead you to other important manpages. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentationwill be different; for example, it might be only in HTML format. Butall proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.

You might also try perldoc perl in case your system doesn'thave a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn'twork, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation.

If all else fails, consult the CPAN/doc directory, which contains thecomplete documentation in various formats, including native pod,troff, html, and plain text. There's also a web page athttp://www.perl.com/perl/info/documentation.html that might help.

It's also worth noting that there's a PDF version of the completedocumentation for perl available in the CPAN/authors/id/BMIDDdirectory.

Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section belowfor more details.

What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?

The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by thefollowing groups:

    comp.lang.perl.announce             Moderated announcement group    comp.lang.perl.misc                 Very busy group about Perl in general    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 crackPerl development team (perl5-porters) atnews://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ .

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 tocross-post to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their postingstandards, including setting the Followup-To header line to NOTinclude alt.sources; see their FAQ for details.

Perl Books

A number books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few ofthese are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. TomChristiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensivereviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html.

The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by thecreator of Perl and his apostles, is now in its second edition andfourth printing.

    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 callit teal) covers indicate perl5 coverage, while magenta (some wouldcall it pink) covers indicate perl4 only. Check the cover colorbefore you buy!

What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personallyuseful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.

If you're already a hard-core systems programmer, then the Camel Bookjust 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 the2nd 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 ``HipOwls'' book. It covers regular expressions inside and out, with quite abit devoted exclusively to Perl:

    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 locatean O'Reilly order form, you can also fax to 1-707-829-0104. Seehttp://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

   CGI Programming in C & Perl,        Author: Thomas Boutell        ISBN: 0-201-42219-0

Note that some of these address specific application areas (e.g. theWeb) and are not general-purpose programming books.

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(http://tpj.comor via email to subscriptionsAATTtpj.com.

Beyond this, two other magazines that frequently carry high-qualityarticles on Perl are Web Techniques (seehttp://www.webtechniques.com/) and Unix Review(http://www.unixreview.com/). Randal Schwartz's Web Technique'scolumns are available on the web athttp://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ .

Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access

To get the best (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site fromthe list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites.From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, thefollowing list is not the complete list of CPAN mirrors.

  http://www.perl.com/CPAN      (redirects to another mirror)  http://www.perl.org/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/

http:/www.oasis.leo.org/perl/ has, amongst other things, source toversions 1 through 5 of Perl.

What mailing lists are there for perl?

Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their ownmailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module forsubscription information. The following are a list of mailing listsrelated to perl itself.

If you subscribe to a mailing list, it behooves you to know how tounsubscribe from it. Strident pleas to the list itself to get you offwill not be favorably received.

MacPerl

There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact``mac-perl-requestAATTiis.ee.ethz.ch''.

Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl)webpage at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html formany links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPWtools, precompiled.

Perl5-Porters

The core development team have a mailing list for discussing fixes andchanges to the language. Send mail to``perl5-porters-requestAATTperl.org'' with help in the body of the messagefor information on subscribing.

NTPerl

This list is used to discuss issues involving Win32 Perl 5 (Windows NTand Win95). Subscribe by emailing ListManagerAATTActiveWare.com with themessage body:

    subscribe Perl-Win32-Users

The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determineyour address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, emailthe 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.

Perl-Packrats

Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly theComprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailingmajordomoAATTcis.ufl.edu:

    subscribe perl-packrats

The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determineyour address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, simpleprepend the same command with an ``un'', and mail to the same addresslike so:

    unsubscribe perl-packrats

Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc

Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista?

ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/perl/comp.lang.perl.*/monthly has an almostcomplete collection dating back to 12/89 (missing 08/91 through12/93). They are kept as one large file for each month.

You'll probably want more a sophisticated query and retrieval mechanismthan a file listing, preferably one that allows you to retrievearticles using a fast-access indices, keyed on at least author, date,subject, thread (as in ``trn") and probably keywords. The bestsolution the FAQ authors know of is the MH pick command, but it isvery slow to select on 18000 articles.

If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, pleaselet perlfaq-suggestionsAATTperl.com know.

Perl Training

While some large training companies offer their own courses on Perl,you may prefer to contact individuals near and dear to the heart ofPerl development. Two well-known members of the Perl development teamwho offer such things are Tom Christiansen <perl-classesAATTperl.com>and Randal Schwartz <perl-training-infoAATTstonehenge.com>, plus theirrespective minions, who offer a variety of professional tutorialsand 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.

Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?

In a sense, Perl already is commercial software: It has a licencethat you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It isdistributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is avery large user community and an extensive literature. Thecomp.lang.perl.* newsgroups and several of the mailing lists providefree answers to your questions in near real-time. Perl hastraditionally been supported by Larry, dozens of software designersand developers, and thousands of programmers, all working for freeto create a useful thing to make life better for everyone.

However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require apurchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything gowrong. Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractualobligations. Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available fromseveral sources if that will help.

Or you can purchase a real support contract. Although Cygnus historicallyprovided this service, they no longer sell support contracts for Perl.Instead, the Paul Ingram Group will be taking up the slack through ThePerl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:

``Do you need professional support for Perl and/or Oraperl? Do you needa support contract with defined levels of service? Do you want to payonly for what you need?

``The Paul Ingram Group has provided quality software development andsupport services to some of the world's largest corporations for tenyears. We are now offering the same quality support services for Perlat The Perl Clinic. This service is led by Tim Bunce, an active perlporter since 1994 and well known as the author and maintainer of theDBI, DBD::Oracle, and Oraperl modules and author/co-maintainer of ThePerl 5 Module List. We also offer Oracle users support for Perl5Oraperl and related modules (which Oracle is planning to ship as partof Oracle Web Server 3). 20% of the profit from our Perl support workwill 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.BunceAATTig.co.uk

Where do I send bug reports?

If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modulesshipped with perl, use the perlbug program in the perl distribution oremail your report to perlbugAATTperl.com.

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 anon-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see thedocumentation that came with it to determine the correct place to postbugs.

Read the perlbug man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.

What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?

perl.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto ofTPI is ``helping people help Perl help people'' (or something likethat). It's a non-profit organization supporting development,documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPIinclude Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom youmay have heard of somewhere else around here.

The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as apublic service long before perl.org came about. It's the original PBSof the Perl world, a clearinghouse for information about all thingsPerlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy gifs, or (gasp!)java applets on its pages.

How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?

the perltoot manpage (distributed with 5.004 or later) is a good place to start.Also, the perlobj manpage, the perlref manpage, and the perlmod manpage are useful references,while the perlbot manpage has some excellent tips and tricks.

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

Index

NAME
DESCRIPTION
What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?
How can I get a binary version of Perl?
I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
Where can I get information on Perl?
What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
Where should I post source code?
Perl Books
Perl in Magazines
Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
What mailing lists are there for perl?
Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
Perl Training
Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
Where do I send bug reports?
What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

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