PERLFAQ2(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLFAQ2(1)
NAME
perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl
VERSION
version 5.20240218
DESCRIPTION
This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find source and
documentation for Perl, support, and related matters.
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/>.
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).
How can I get a binary version of Perl?
See CPAN Ports <http://www.cpan.org/ports/>
I don't have a C compiler. How can I build my own Perl interpreter?
For Windows, use a binary version of Perl, Strawberry Perl
<http://strawberryperl.com/> and ActivePerl
<http://www.activestate.com/activeperl> come with a bundled C compiler.
Otherwise if you really do want to build Perl, you need to get a binary
version of "gcc" for your system first. Use a search engine to find out
how to do this for your operating system.
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 "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:
% 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 "How do I keep my own module/library
directory?" in perlfaq8.
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 idiosyncrasies that the
"Configure" script can't work around for any given system or
architecture.
What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN?
CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a multi-gigabyte
archive replicated on hundreds of machines all over the world. CPAN
contains tens of thousands of modules and extensions, source code and
documentation, designed for everything from commercial database
interfaces to keyboard/screen control and running large web sites.
You can search CPAN on <http://metacpan.org>.
The master web site for CPAN is <http://www.cpan.org/>,
<http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html> lists all mirrors.
See the CPAN FAQ at <http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html> for answers
to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN.
The Task::Kensho module has a list of recommended modules which you
should review as a good starting point.
Where can I get information on Perl?
• <http://www.perl.org/>
• <http://perldoc.perl.org/>
• <http://learn.perl.org/>
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 "perldoc perl" in a terminal or view online
<http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html>.
(Some operating system distributions may ship the documentation in a
different package; for instance, on Debian, you need to install the
"perl-doc" package.)
Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section later in
perlfaq2 for more details.
What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?
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 <http://www.perlfoundation.org/>.
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 and jobs in Perl, such
as:
• <http://www.perl.org/>
• <http://learn.perl.org/>
• <http://jobs.perl.org/>
• <http://lists.perl.org/>
Perl Mongers <http://www.pm.org/> uses the pm.org domain for services
related to local Perl user groups, including the hosting of mailing
lists and web sites. See the Perl Mongers web site <http://www.pm.org/>
for more information about joining, starting, or requesting services for
a Perl user group.
CPAN, or the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network <http://www.cpan.org/>,
is a replicated, worldwide repository of Perl software. See What is
CPAN?.
Where can I post questions?
There are many Perl mailing lists for various topics, specifically the
beginners list <http://lists.perl.org/list/beginners.html> may be of
use.
Other places to ask questions are on the PerlMonks site
<http://www.perlmonks.org/> or stackoverflow
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/perl>.
Perl Books
There are many good books on Perl
<http://www.perl.org/books/library.html>.
Which magazines have Perl content?
There are no current magazines that focus on Perl, although you
sometimes will find Perl content in more general interest programming
titles.
In the distant past, there have been a few Perl magazines. The first was
The Perl Journal, published by Jon Orwant. After that, there was The
Perl Review, published by brian d foy, and $foo Magazin, published by
Renée Bäcker (<http://www.foo-magazin.de>).
The closest you might find today is Perl Weekly,
(<https://perlweekly.com>), an online newsletter with a magazine-like
format.
Which Perl blogs should I read?
Perl News <http://perlnews.org/> covers some of the major events in the
Perl world, Perl Weekly <http://perlweekly.com/> is a weekly e-mail (and
RSS feed) of hand-picked Perl articles.
<http://blogs.perl.org/> hosts many Perl blogs, there are also several
blog aggregators: Perlsphere <http://perlsphere.net/> and IronMan
<http://ironman.enlightenedperl.org/> are two of them.
What mailing lists are there for Perl?
A comprehensive list of Perl-related mailing lists can be found at
<http://lists.perl.org/>
Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
Perl already 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 and supportive
user community and an extensive literature.
If you still need commercial support ActiveState
<http://www.activestate.com/activeperl> offers this.
Where do I send bug reports?
(contributed by brian d foy)
First, ensure that you've found an actual bug. Second, ensure you've
found an actual bug.
If you've found a bug with the perl interpreter or one of the modules in
the standard library (those that come with Perl), submit a bug report to
the GitHub issue tracker at <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.
To determine if a module came with your version of Perl, you can install
and use Module::CoreList. It knows the modules (with their versions)
included with each release of Perl:
$ corelist File::Copy
Data for 2023-07-02
File::Copy was first released with perl 5.002
$ corelist Business::ISBN
Data for 2023-07-02
Business::ISBN was not in CORE (or so I think)
If the module does not come with Perl, report its issues using the tool
that the particular module author decided to use, such as a GitHub or
Google Code. The quickest way may be to check the MetaCPAN page for the
module (for example, <https://metacpan.org/pod/Business::ISBN>), which
shows the denoted bugtracker in the left sidebar as the "Issues" link.
Also check the module's documentation, README, the build files
(Makefile.PL or "Build.PL"), or META.{json,yml} files. Although many
module authors follow the same pattern, some have their own way. Use
the directions you find.
Sometimes the module author does not declare a bugtracker. For a long
time, everyone assumed that the CPAN Request Tracker
(<https://rt.cpan.org>) was the bugtracker since every distribution had
an RT queue generated automatically. In somes cases, the author might
use CPAN RT. They also might have not declared a different bugtracker
but don't use CPAN RT.
Submit bugs to RT either through its web interface,
<https://rt.cpan.org>, or by email. Send email to
bug-<distribution-name>@rt.cpan.org. For example, if you wanted to
report a bug in the example module Foo::Bar, you could send a message to
bug-Foo-Bar@rt.cpan.org.
AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
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
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.
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