=head1 NAME
perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find
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 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
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 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?
(contributed by brian d foy)
ActiveState: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX
http://www.activestate.com/
Sunfreeware.com: Solaris 2.5 to Solaris 10 (SPARC and x86)
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.
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
information on where to get such a binary version.
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. 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:
% 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
part of the output of
% perl -V
You might also want to check out
L.
=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 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
architecture.
=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 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
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 is downloadable as
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .
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 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.
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.
=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 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 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 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 later in
L for more details.
Tutorial documents are included in current or upcoming Perl releases
include L for objects or L for a beginner's
approach to objects, L for file opening semantics,
L for managing references, L for regular
expressions, L for threads, L for debugging,
and L for linking C and Perl together. There may be more
by the time you read this. These URLs might also be useful:
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?
Several groups devoted to the Perl language are on Usenet:
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
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.
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 hierarchy at http://groups.google.com . Other
groups are listed at http://lists.perl.org/ ( also known as
http://lists.cpan.org/ ).
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
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 ), 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.
There is a list of these books, some with extensive reviews, at
http://books.perl.org/ . If you don't see your book listed here, you
can write to perlfaq-workers@perl.org .
The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by
the creator of Perl, is Programming Perl:
Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
ISBN 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 0-596-00313-7 [2nd Edition August 2003]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlckbk2/
If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might
suffice for you to learn Perl. If you're not, check out the
Llama book:
Learning Perl
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
ISBN 0-596-10105-8 [4th edition July 2005]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnperl4/
And for more advanced information on writing larger programs,
presented in the same style as the Llama book, continue your education
with the Alpaca book:
Intermediate Perl (the "Alpaca Book")
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix (foreword by Damian Conway)
ISBN 0-596-10206-2 [1st edition March 2006]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lrnperlorm/
Addison-Wesley ( http://www.awlonline.com/ ) and Manning
( http://www.manning.com/ ) are also publishers of some fine Perl books
such as I