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).
http://www.activestate.com/
Sunfreeware.com provides binaries for many utilities, including Perl, for Solaris on both Intel and SPARC hardware:
http://www.sunfreeware.com/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You might also try "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 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 perlfaq2 for more details.
Tutorial documents are included in current or upcoming Perl releases include perltoot for objects or perlboot for a beginner's approach to objects, perlopentut for file opening semantics, perlreftut for managing references, perlretut for regular expressions, perlthrtut for threads, perldebtut for debugging, and perlxstut 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
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
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
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 "perl.*" 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.
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.
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 Object Oriented Programming with Perl by Damian Conway and 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.
Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow.
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/
Beginning Perl
by James Lee
ISBN 1-59059-391-X [2nd edition August 2004]
http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=344
Elements of Programming with Perl
by Andrew L. Johnson
ISBN 1-884777-80-5 [1st edition October 1999]
http://www.manning.com/johnson/
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/
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/intermediateperl/
Mastering Perl
by brian d foy
ISBN 0-596-52724-1 [1st edition July 2007]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242/
Writing Perl Modules for CPAN
by Sam Tregar
ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition Aug 2002]
http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=14
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/
Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl
by Linchi Shea
ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=171
Perl Best Practices
by Damian Conway
ISBN: 0-596-00173-8 [1st edition July 2005]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlbp/
Higher Order Perl
by Mark-Jason Dominus
ISBN: 1558607013 [1st edition March 2005]
http://hop.perl.plover.com/
Perl 6 Now: The Core Ideas Illustrated with Perl 5
by Scott Walters
ISBN 1-59059-395-2 [1st edition December 2004]
http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=355
Mastering Regular Expressions
by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
ISBN 0-596-00289-0 [2nd edition July 2002]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/
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 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
http://www.manning.com/conway/
Data Munging with Perl
Dave Cross
ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
http://www.manning.com/cross
Mastering Perl/Tk
by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
ISBN 1-56592-716-8 [1st edition January 2002]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mastperltk/
Extending and Embedding Perl
by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
http://www.manning.com/jenness
Perl Debugger Pocket Reference
by Richard Foley
ISBN 0-596-00503-2 [1st edition January 2004]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perldebugpr/
Pro Perl Debugging
by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005]
http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590594541
Magazines that frequently carry quality articles on Perl include The Perl Review ( http://www.theperlreview.com ), Unix Review ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ), Linux Magazine ( http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ), and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to its members, 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/ .
The first (and for a long time, only) periodical devoted to All Things Perl, The Perl Journal contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies, announcements, contests, and much more. 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. Beginning in November 2002, TPJ moved to a reader-supported monthly e-zine format in which subscribers can download issues as PDF documents. In 2006, TPJ merged with Dr. Dobbs Journal (online edition). To read old TPJ articles, see http://www.ddj.com/ .
A comprehensive list of Perl related mailing lists can be found at:
http://lists.perl.org/
http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc
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.
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.
For Perl modules, you can submit bug reports to the Request Tracker set up at http://rt.cpan.org .
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 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(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
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, Perl news, jobs in Perl, such as:
http://learn.perl.org/
http://use.perl.org/
http://jobs.perl.org/
http://lists.perl.org/
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.
http://www.cpan.org/ is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a replicated worldwide repository of Perl software, see the What is CPAN? question earlier in this document.
Date: $Date: 2007-10-31 13:50:01 +0100 (Wed, 31 Oct 2007) $
See perlfaq for source control details and availability.
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.