extra code in pp_concat, Take 2
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / pod / perlfaq2.pod
CommitLineData
68dc0745 1=head1 NAME
2
7678cced 3perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.31 $, $Date: 2005/01/31 15:54:44 $)
68dc0745 4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find
92c2ed05 8source and documentation for Perl, support, and
68dc0745 9related matters.
10
11=head2 What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?
12
13The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the perl
5e3006a4 14development team) is distributed only in source code form. You
c355f4f4 15can find this at http://www.cpan.org/src/latest.tar.gz , which
7ed4b849 16is in a standard Internet format (a gzipped archive in POSIX tar format).
5e3006a4 17
18Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually
19all known and current Unix derivatives are supported (Perl's native
87275199 20platform), as are other systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows,
c355f4f4 21QNX, BeOS, OS X, MPE/iX and the Amiga.
5e3006a4 22
23Binary distributions for some proprietary platforms, including
c355f4f4 24Apple systems, can be found http://www.cpan.org/ports/ directory.
5e3006a4 25Because these are not part of the standard distribution, they may
26and in fact do differ from the base Perl port in a variety of ways.
27You'll have to check their respective release notes to see just
28what the differences are. These differences can be either positive
29(e.g. extensions for the features of the particular platform that
30are not supported in the source release of perl) or negative (e.g.
31might be based upon a less current source release of perl).
92c2ed05 32
68dc0745 33=head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl?
34
65acb1b1 35If you don't have a C compiler because your vendor for whatever
36reasons did not include one with your system, the best thing to do is
68dc0745 37grab a binary version of gcc from the net and use that to compile perl
38with. CPAN only has binaries for systems that are terribly hard to
39get free compilers for, not for Unix systems.
40
65acb1b1 41Some URLs that might help you are:
42
c355f4f4 43 http://www.cpan.org/ports/
5c5bc629 44 http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html
65acb1b1 45
87275199 46Someone looking for a Perl for Win16 might look to Laszlo Molnar's djgpp
c355f4f4 47port in http://www.cpan.org/ports/#msdos , which comes with clear
d92eb7b0 48installation instructions. A simple installation guide for MS-DOS using
87275199 49Ilya Zakharevich's OS/2 port is available at
50http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perl5dos.html
51and similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perlwin3.html .
3fe9a6f1 52
53=head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
54
55Since you don't have a C compiler, you're doomed and your vendor
56should be sacrificed to the Sun gods. But that doesn't help you.
57
58What you need to do is get a binary version of gcc for your system
59first. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system for
60information on where to get such a binary version.
61
68dc0745 62=head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
63
64That's probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ.
65You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it will
66eventually live on, and then type C<make install>. Most other
67approaches are doomed to failure.
68
69One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out
a6dd486b 70the hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries:
68dc0745 71
f0d19b68 72 % perl -le 'print for @INC'
68dc0745 73
a6dd486b 74If this command lists any paths that don't exist on your system, then you
68dc0745 75may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create
87275199 76symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed as
65acb1b1 77part of the output of
78
79 % perl -V
68dc0745 80
c355f4f4 81You might also want to check out
13a2d996 82L<perlfaq8/"How do I keep my own module/library directory?">.
3fe9a6f1 83
68dc0745 84=head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
85
86Read the F<INSTALL> file, which is part of the source distribution.
65acb1b1 87It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that the
68dc0745 88Configure script can't work around for any given system or
89architecture.
90
91=head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
92
49d635f9 93CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a ~1.2Gb archive
c355f4f4 94replicated on nearly 200 machines all over the world. CPAN contains
46fc3d4c 95source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and many
68dc0745 96third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from
97commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web
c355f4f4 98walking and CGI scripts. The master web site for CPAN is
99http://www.cpan.org/ and there is the CPAN Multiplexer at
a93751fa 100http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you
c355f4f4 101via DNS. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the
102end) for how this process works. Also, http://mirror.cpan.org/
103has a nice interface to the http://www.cpan.org/MIRRORED.BY
104mirror directory.
105
106See the CPAN FAQ at http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html for
107answers to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN
108including how to become a mirror.
68dc0745 109
110CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPAN
111sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the
112rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For
113instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN
7ed4b849 114as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh is downloadable as
68dc0745 115ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .
116
c355f4f4 117Considering that there are close to two thousand existing modules in
118the archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of.
87275199 119Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include Perl core
68dc0745 120modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking,
121devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database
122interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames,
123file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; world
124wide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving and
125compression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flow
126utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; and
127miscellaneous modules.
128
c355f4f4 129See http://www.cpan.org/modules/00modlist.long.html or
130http://search.cpan.org/ for a more complete list of modules by category.
131
c98c5709 132CPAN is not affiliated with O'Reilly Media.
c355f4f4 133
68dc0745 134=head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
135
136Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
137
138=head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
139
87275199 140The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution.
141If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
5a964f20 142installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a system resembling Unix.
143This will lead you to other important man pages, including how to set your
144$MANPATH. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
a6dd486b 145will be different; for example, documentation might only be in HTML format. All
87275199 146proper Perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
68dc0745 147
148You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't
149have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't
150work, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation.
151
c355f4f4 152If all else fails, consult http://perldoc.cpan.org/ or
153http://www.perldoc.com/ both offer the complete documentation
154in html format.
68dc0745 155
a6dd486b 156Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section below
68dc0745 157for more details.
158
65acb1b1 159Tutorial documents are included in current or upcoming Perl releases
a6dd486b 160include L<perltoot> for objects or L<perlboot> for a beginner's
161approach to objects, L<perlopentut> for file opening semantics,
162L<perlreftut> for managing references, L<perlretut> for regular
163expressions, L<perlthrtut> for threads, L<perldebtut> for debugging,
164and L<perlxstut> for linking C and Perl together. There may be more
165by the time you read this. The following URLs might also be of
65acb1b1 166assistance:
167
c355f4f4 168 http://perldoc.cpan.org/
169 http://www.perldoc.com/
c355f4f4 170 http://bookmarks.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Training%2FTutorials
65acb1b1 171
87275199 172=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions?
68dc0745 173
04d666b1 174Several groups devoted to the Perl language are on Usenet:
68dc0745 175
176 comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
04d666b1 177 comp.lang.perl.misc High traffic general Perl discussion
178 comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
68dc0745 179 comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
180 comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
181
182 comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
183
04d666b1 184Some years ago, comp.lang.perl was divided into those groups, and
185comp.lang.perl itself officially removed. While that group may still
186be found on some news servers, it is unwise to use it, because
187postings there will not appear on news servers which honour the
188official list of group names. Use comp.lang.perl.misc for topics
189which do not have a more-appropriate specific group.
83a70550 190
04d666b1 191There is also a Usenet gateway to Perl mailing lists sponsored by
192perl.org at nntp://nntp.perl.org , a web interface to the same lists
193at http://nntp.perl.org/group/ and these lists are also available
194under the C<perl.*> hierarchy at http://groups.google.com . Other
195groups are listed at http://lists.perl.org/ ( also known as
196http://lists.cpan.org/ ).
197
198A nice place to ask questions is the PerlMonks site,
199http://www.perlmonks.org/ , or the Perl Beginners mailing list
200http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=beginners .
83a70550 201
202Note that none of the above are supposed to write your code for you:
203asking questions about particular problems or general advice is fine,
204but asking someone to write your code for free is not very cool.
68dc0745 205
206=head2 Where should I post source code?
207
65acb1b1 208You should post source code to whichever group is most appropriate, but
209feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to cross-post
210to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting standards,
211including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT include alt.sources;
f224927c 212see their FAQ ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/ ) for details.
68dc0745 213
c355f4f4 214If you're just looking for software, first use Google
f05bbc40 215( http://www.google.com ), Google's usenet search interface
197aec24 216( http://groups.google.com ), and CPAN Search ( http://search.cpan.org ).
0bc0ad85 217This is faster and more productive than just posting a request.
5a964f20 218
68dc0745 219=head2 Perl Books
220
c98c5709 221A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few
222of these are good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money.
223There is a list of these books, some with extensive reviews, at
224http://books.perl.org/ .
68dc0745 225
5e3006a4 226The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by
c98c5709 227the creator of Perl, is now (Sept 2004) in its third edition:
68dc0745 228
c98c5709 229 Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
c2e66d9e 230 by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
c98c5709 231 ISBN 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000]
c2e66d9e 232 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
c98c5709 233 (English, translations to several languages are also available)
68dc0745 234
5e3006a4 235The companion volume to the Camel containing thousands
c355f4f4 236of real-world examples, mini-tutorials, and complete programs is:
5e3006a4 237
c98c5709 238 The Perl Cookbook (the "Ram Book"):
c355f4f4 239 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
c2e66d9e 240 with Foreword by Larry Wall
c98c5709 241 ISBN 0-596-00313-7 [2nd Edition August 2003]
242 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlckbk2/
68dc0745 243
8fc9651a 244If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might
245suffice for you to learn Perl from. If you're not, check out the
246Llama book:
5e3006a4 247
c98c5709 248 Learning Perl (the "Llama Book")
8fc9651a 249 by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix
250 ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
251 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
252
16073f15 253And for more advanced information on writing larger programs,
254presented in the same style as the Llama book, continue your education
255with the Alpaca book:
256
c98c5709 257 Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules (the "Alpaca Book")
258 by Randal L. Schwartz, with Tom Phoenix (foreword by Damian Conway)
259 ISBN 0-596-00478-8 [1st edition June 2003]
260 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lrnperlorm/
16073f15 261
8fc9651a 262If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and
263possibly even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much
264hand-holding as we try to provide in the Llama, please check out the
c29ac39d 265delightful book
5e3006a4 266
c98c5709 267 Perl: The Programmer's Companion
268 by Nigel Chapman
269 ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
270 http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
271 http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
5a964f20 272
c29ac39d 273If you are more at home in Windows the following is available
274(though unfortunately rather dated).
275
c98c5709 276 Learning Perl on Win32 Systems (the "Gecko Book")
8fc9651a 277 by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
278 with foreword by Larry Wall
279 ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997]
280 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
5a964f20 281
f224927c 282Addison-Wesley ( http://www.awlonline.com/ ) and Manning
283( http://www.manning.com/ ) are also publishers of some fine Perl books
8fc9651a 284such as I<Object Oriented Programming with Perl> by Damian Conway and
285I<Network Programming with Perl> by Lincoln Stein.
c355f4f4 286
287An excellent technical book discounter is Bookpool at
288http://www.bookpool.com/ where a 30% discount or more is not unusual.
5a964f20 289
68dc0745 290What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally
291useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
292
c2e66d9e 293Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow.
68dc0745 294
13a2d996 295=over 4
68dc0745 296
5a964f20 297=item References
68dc0745 298
c98c5709 299 Programming Perl
c2e66d9e 300 by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
301 ISBN 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000]
302 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
68dc0745 303
c98c5709 304 Perl 5 Pocket Reference
305 by Johan Vromans
c2e66d9e 306 ISBN 0-596-00032-4 [3rd edition May 2000]
307 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/
87275199 308
c98c5709 309 Perl in a Nutshell
310 by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
c2e66d9e 311 ISBN 1-56592-286-7 [1st edition December 1998]
312 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/
68dc0745 313
5a964f20 314=item Tutorials
c47ff5f1 315
7678cced 316 Beginning Perl
317 by James Lee
318 ISBN 1-59059-391-X [2nd edition August 2004]
319 http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=344
320
c98c5709 321 Elements of Programming with Perl
c2e66d9e 322 by Andrew L. Johnson
ed8cf1fe 323 ISBN 1-884777-80-5 [1st edition October 1999]
c2e66d9e 324 http://www.manning.com/Johnson/
325
c98c5709 326 Learning Perl
8fc9651a 327 by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix
328 ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
329 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
68dc0745 330
c98c5709 331 Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules
332 by Randal L. Schwartz, with Tom Phoenix (foreword by Damian Conway)
333 ISBN 0-596-00478-8 [1st edition June 2003]
334 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lrnperlorm/
16073f15 335
c98c5709 336 Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
5a964f20 337 by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
338 with foreword by Larry Wall
c2e66d9e 339 ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997]
340 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
68dc0745 341
c98c5709 342 Perl: The Programmer's Companion
5a964f20 343 by Nigel Chapman
c29ac39d 344 ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
c98c5709 345 http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
346 http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
68dc0745 347
c98c5709 348 Cross-Platform Perl
c2e66d9e 349 by Eric Foster-Johnson
350 ISBN 1-55851-483-X [2nd edition September 2000]
351 http://www.pconline.com/~erc/perlbook.htm
68dc0745 352
c98c5709 353 MacPerl: Power and Ease
c2e66d9e 354 by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor,
355 with foreword by Matthias Neeracher
356 ISBN 1-881957-32-2 [1st edition May 1998]
357 http://www.macperl.com/ptf_book/
68dc0745 358
c355f4f4 359=item Task-Oriented
5a964f20 360
7678cced 361 Writing Perl Modules for CPAN
362 by Sam Tregar
363 ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition Aug 2002]
364 http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=14
365
c98c5709 366 The Perl Cookbook
5a964f20 367 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
368 with foreword by Larry Wall
c2e66d9e 369 ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st edition August 1998]
370 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cookbook/
5a964f20 371
c98c5709 372 Effective Perl Programming
5a964f20 373 by Joseph Hall
c2e66d9e 374 ISBN 0-201-41975-0 [1st edition 1998]
375 http://www.awl.com/
68dc0745 376
7678cced 377 Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl
378 by Linchi Shea
379 ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
380 http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=171
381
5a964f20 382=item Special Topics
383
7678cced 384 Perl 6 Now: The Core Ideas Illustrated with Perl 5
385 by Scott Walters
386 ISBN 1-59059-395-2 [1st edition December 2004
387 http://apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=355
388
c98c5709 389 Mastering Regular Expressions
c2e66d9e 390 by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
02d51d12 391 ISBN 0-596-00289-0 [2nd edition July 2002]
392 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/
5a964f20 393
7678cced 394 Network Programming with Perl
5a964f20 395 by Lincoln Stein
c355f4f4 396 ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
397 http://www.awlonline.com/
5a964f20 398
7678cced 399 Object Oriented Perl
c2e66d9e 400 Damian Conway
401 with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
ed8cf1fe 402 ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
c2e66d9e 403 http://www.manning.com/Conway/
404
7678cced 405 Data Munging with Perl
ed8cf1fe 406 Dave Cross
407 ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
408 http://www.manning.com/cross
c355f4f4 409
7678cced 410 Mastering Perl/Tk
ed8cf1fe 411 by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
412 ISBN 1-56592-716-8 [1st edition January 2002]
413 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mastperltk/
87275199 414
c98c5709 415 Extending and Embedding Perl
416 by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
417 ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
418 http://www.manning.com/jenness
c74d0ee8 419
c98c5709 420 Perl Debugger Pocket Reference
421 by Richard Foley
422 ISBN 0-596-00503-2 [1st edition January 2004]
423 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perldebugpr/
024e7d0c 424
5a964f20 425=back
426
427=head2 Perl in Magazines
428
ccbb3b41 429The first (and for a long time, only) periodical devoted to All Things Perl,
41eb6b36 430I<The Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies,
e00b594c 431announcements, contests, and much more. I<TPJ> has columns on web
5a964f20 432development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming, regular
41eb6b36 433expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl Contest
793f5136 434and the Perl Poetry Contests. Beginning in November 2002, TPJ moved to a
435reader-supported monthly e-zine format in which subscribers can download
436issues as PDF documents. For more details on TPJ, see http://www.tpj.com/
41eb6b36 437
438Beyond this, magazines that frequently carry quality articles on
ed8cf1fe 439Perl are I<The Perl Review> ( http://www.theperlreview.com ),
41eb6b36 440I<Unix Review> ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ),
441I<Linux Magazine> ( http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ),
442and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to its members, I<login:>
443( http://www.usenix.org/ )
444
ae6d88cb 445The Perl columns of Randal L. Schwartz are available on the web at
41eb6b36 446http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ ,
447http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/ , and
448http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/ .
68dc0745 449
450=head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
451
49d635f9 452To get the best performance, pick a site from the list at
453http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html . From there you can find the quickest
454site for you.
455
456You may also use xx.cpan.org where "xx" is the 2-letter country code
457for your domain; e.g. Australia would use au.cpan.org. [Note: This
458only applies to countries that host at least one mirror.]
c355f4f4 459
87275199 460=head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl?
68dc0745 461
87275199 462Most of the major modules (Tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
68dc0745 463mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
c355f4f4 464subscription information.
68dc0745 465
ccbb3b41 466A comprehensive list of Perl related mailing lists can be found at:
467
49d635f9 468 http://lists.perl.org/
83a70550 469
65acb1b1 470=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
68dc0745 471
b0bd3af0 472The Google search engine now carries archived and searchable newsgroup
197aec24 473content.
68dc0745 474
83ded9ee 475http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc
68dc0745 476
b0bd3af0 477If you have a question, you can be sure someone has already asked the
478same question at some point on c.l.p.m. It requires some time and patience
479to sift through all the content but often you will find the answer you
480seek.
68dc0745 481
68dc0745 482=head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
483
a6dd486b 484In a real sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: it has a license
65acb1b1 485that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is distributed
486in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a very large
487user community and an extensive literature. The comp.lang.perl.*
488newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide free answers to your
489questions in near real-time. Perl has traditionally been supported by
8305e449 490Larry, scores of software designers and developers, and myriad
65acb1b1 491programmers, all working for free to create a useful thing to make life
492better for everyone.
68dc0745 493
494However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
65acb1b1 495purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go awry.
496Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual obligations.
87275199 497Shrink-wrapped CDs with Perl on them are available from several sources if
a6dd486b 498that will help. For example, many Perl books include a distribution of Perl,
499as do the O'Reilly Perl Resource Kits (in both the Unix flavor
65acb1b1 500and in the proprietary Microsoft flavor); the free Unix distributions
501also all come with Perl.
68dc0745 502
68dc0745 503=head2 Where do I send bug reports?
504
505If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
87275199 506shipped with Perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the Perl distribution or
7f2de2d2 507mail your report to perlbug@perl.org .
68dc0745 508
46fc3d4c 509If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to
68dc0745 510"What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a
46fc3d4c 511non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
68dc0745 512documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post
513bugs.
514
5a964f20 515Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
68dc0745 516
06a5f41f 517=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?
68dc0745 518
c98c5709 519Perl.com at http://www.perl.com/ is part of the O'Reilly Network, a
520subsidiary of O'Reilly Media.
68dc0745 521
c98c5709 522The Perl Foundation is an advocacy organization for the Perl language
523which maintains the web site http://www.perl.org/ as a general
524advocacy site for the Perl language. It uses the domain to provide
525general support services to the Perl community, including the hosting
526of mailing lists, web sites, and other services. The web site
527http://www.perl.org/ is a general advocacy site for the Perl language,
528and there are many other sub-domains for special topics, such as
529
530 http://learn.perl.org/
531 http://use.perl.org/
532 http://jobs.perl.org/
533 http://lists.perl.org/
90bb42f6 534
535Perl Mongers uses the pm.org domain for services related to Perl user
74078192 536groups, including the hosting of mailing lists and web sites. See the
537Perl user group web site at http://www.pm.org/ for more information about
538joining, starting, or requesting services for a Perl user group.
90bb42f6 539
06a5f41f 540http://www.cpan.org/ is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network,
541a replicated worlwide repository of Perl software, see
542the I<What is CPAN?> question earlier in this document.
543
68dc0745 544=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
545
7678cced 546Copyright (c) 1997-2005 Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, and
547other authors as noted. All rights reserved.
5a964f20 548
5a7beb56 549This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
550under the same terms as Perl itself.
c8db1d39 551
87275199 552Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the public
c8db1d39 553domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
554derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you
555see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
556be courteous but is not required.