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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.13 $) |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
7 | This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find |
8 | source and documentation for Perl, support and training, and |
9 | related matters. |
10 | |
11 | =head2 What machines support Perl? Where do I get it? |
12 | |
13 | The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the perl |
14 | development team) is distributed only in source code form. You can |
15 | find this at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz, which is a |
16 | gzipped archive in POSIX tar format. This source builds with no |
17 | porting whatsoever on most Unix systems (Perl's native environment), |
18 | as well as Plan 9, VMS, QNX, OS/2, and the Amiga. |
19 | |
20 | Although it's rumored that the (imminent) 5.004 release may build |
21 | on Windows NT, this is yet to be proven. Binary distributions |
22 | for 32-bit Microsoft systems and for Apple systems can be found |
23 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/ directory. Because these are not part of |
24 | the standard distribution, they may and in fact do differ from the base |
25 | Perl port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check their respective |
26 | release notes to see just what the differences are. These differences |
27 | can be either positive (e.g. extensions for the features of the particular |
28 | platform that are not supported in the source release of perl) or negative |
29 | (e.g. might be based upon a less current source release of perl). |
30 | |
31 | A useful FAQ for Win32 Perl users is |
32 | http://www.endcontsw.com/people/evangelo/Perl_for_Win32_FAQ.html |
33 | |
34 | =head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl? |
35 | |
36 | If you don't have a C compiler because for whatever reasons your |
37 | vendor did not include one with your system, the best thing to do is |
38 | grab a binary version of gcc from the net and use that to compile perl |
39 | with. CPAN only has binaries for systems that are terribly hard to |
40 | get free compilers for, not for Unix systems. |
41 | |
42 | =head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work. |
43 | |
44 | That's probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ. |
45 | You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it will |
46 | eventually live on, and then type C<make install>. Most other |
47 | approaches are doomed to failure. |
48 | |
49 | One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out |
50 | the hard-coded @INC which perl is looking for. |
51 | |
52 | perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)' |
53 | |
54 | If this command lists any paths which don't exist on your system, then you |
55 | may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create |
56 | symlinks, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. |
57 | |
58 | =head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work? |
59 | |
60 | Read the F<INSTALL> file, which is part of the source distribution. |
61 | It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncracies that the |
62 | Configure script can't work around for any given system or |
63 | architecture. |
64 | |
65 | =head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean? |
66 | |
67 | CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a huge archive |
68 | replicated on dozens of machines all over the world. CPAN contains |
69 | source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and many |
70 | third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from |
71 | commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web |
72 | walking and CGI scripts. The master machine for CPAN is |
73 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/, but you can use the |
74 | address http://www.perl.com/CPAN/CPAN.html to fetch a copy from a |
75 | "site near you". See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the |
76 | end) for how this process works. |
77 | |
78 | CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPAN |
79 | sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the |
80 | rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For |
81 | instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN |
82 | as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh file is downloadable as |
83 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh . |
84 | |
85 | Considering that there are hundreds of existing modules in the |
86 | archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of. |
87 | Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include perl core |
88 | modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking, |
89 | devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database |
90 | interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames, |
91 | file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; world |
92 | wide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving and |
93 | compression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flow |
94 | utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; and |
95 | miscellaneous modules. |
96 | |
97 | =head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl? |
98 | |
99 | Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is. |
100 | |
101 | =head2 Where can I get information on Perl? |
102 | |
103 | The complete Perl documentation is available with the perl |
104 | distribution. If you have perl installed locally, you probably have |
105 | the documentation installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a |
106 | system resembling Unix. This will lead you to other important man |
107 | pages. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation |
108 | will be different; for example, it might be only in HTML format. But |
109 | all proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation. |
110 | |
111 | You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't |
112 | have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't |
113 | work, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation. |
114 | |
115 | If all else fails, consult the CPAN/doc directory, which contains the |
116 | complete documentation in various formats, including native pod, |
117 | troff, html, and plain text. There's also a web page at |
118 | http://www.perl.com/perl/info/documentation.html that might help. |
119 | |
120 | It's also worth noting that there's a PDF version of the complete |
121 | documentation for perl available in the CPAN/authors/id/BMIDD |
122 | directory. |
123 | |
124 | Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section below |
125 | for more details. |
126 | |
127 | =head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions? |
128 | |
129 | The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the |
130 | following groups: |
131 | |
132 | comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group |
133 | comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general |
134 | comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules |
135 | comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl |
136 | |
137 | comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web. |
138 | |
139 | There is also USENET gateway to the mailing list used by the crack |
140 | Perl development team (perl5-porters) at |
141 | news://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ . |
142 | |
143 | =head2 Where should I post source code? |
144 | |
145 | You should post source code to whichever group is most appropriate, |
146 | but feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to |
147 | cross-post to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting |
148 | standards, including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT |
149 | include alt.sources; see their FAQ for details. |
150 | |
151 | =head2 Perl Books |
152 | |
153 | A number books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of |
154 | these are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. Tom |
155 | Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive |
156 | reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html. |
157 | |
158 | The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by the |
159 | creator of Perl and his apostles, is now in its second edition and |
160 | fourth printing. |
161 | |
162 | Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"): |
163 | Authors: Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz |
164 | ISBN 1-56592-149-6 (English) |
165 | ISBN 4-89052-384-7 (Japanese) |
166 | (French and German translations in progress) |
167 | |
168 | Note that O'Reilly books are color-coded: turquoise (some would call |
169 | it teal) covers indicate perl5 coverage, while magenta (some would |
170 | call it pink) covers indicate perl4 only. Check the cover color |
171 | before you buy! |
172 | |
173 | What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally |
174 | useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary. |
175 | |
176 | If you're already a hard-core systems programmer, then the Camel Book |
177 | just might suffice for you to learn Perl from. But if you're not, |
178 | check out the "Llama Book". It currently doesn't cover perl5, but the |
179 | 2nd edition is nearly done and should be out by summer 97: |
180 | |
181 | Learning Perl (the Llama Book): |
182 | Author: Randal Schwartz, with intro by Larry Wall |
183 | ISBN 1-56592-042-2 (English) |
184 | ISBN 4-89502-678-1 (Japanese) |
185 | ISBN 2-84177-005-2 (French) |
186 | ISBN 3-930673-08-8 (German) |
187 | |
188 | Another stand-out book in the turquoise O'Reilly Perl line is the "Hip |
189 | Owls" book. It covers regular expressions inside and out, with quite a |
190 | bit devoted exclusively to Perl: |
191 | |
192 | Mastering Regular Expressions (the Cute Owls Book): |
193 | Author: Jeffrey Friedl |
194 | ISBN 1-56592-257-3 |
195 | |
196 | You can order any of these books from O'Reilly & Associates, |
197 | 1-800-998-9938. Local/overseas is 1-707-829-0515. If you can locate |
198 | an O'Reilly order form, you can also fax to 1-707-829-0104. See |
199 | http://www.ora.com/ on the Web. |
200 | |
201 | Recommended Perl books that are not from O'Reilly are the following: |
202 | |
203 | Cross-Platform Perl, (for Unix and Windows NT) |
204 | Author: Eric F. Johnson |
205 | ISBN: 1-55851-483-X |
206 | |
207 | How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site, (2nd edition) |
208 | Author: Lincoln Stein, M.D., Ph.D. |
209 | ISBN: 0-201-63462-7 |
210 | |
211 | CGI Programming in C & Perl, |
212 | Author: Thomas Boutell |
213 | ISBN: 0-201-42219-0 |
214 | |
215 | Note that some of these address specific application areas (e.g. the |
216 | Web) and are not general-purpose programming books. |
217 | |
218 | =head2 Perl in Magazines |
219 | |
220 | The Perl Journal is the first and only magazine dedicated to Perl. |
221 | It is published (on paper, not online) quarterly by Jon Orwant |
222 | (orwant@tpj.com), editor. Subscription information is at http://tpj.com |
223 | or via email to subscriptions@tpj.com. |
224 | |
225 | Beyond this, two other magazines that frequently carry high-quality articles |
226 | on Perl are Web Techniques (see http://www.webtechniques.com/) and |
227 | Unix Review (http://www.unixreview.com/). |
228 | |
229 | =head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access |
230 | |
231 | To get the best (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site from |
232 | the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites. |
233 | >From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the |
234 | following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors. |
235 | |
236 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN (redirects to another mirror) |
237 | http://www.perl.org/CPAN |
238 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/ |
239 | http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/ |
240 | ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/ |
241 | |
242 | =head2 What mailing lists are there for perl? |
243 | |
244 | Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own |
245 | mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for |
246 | subscription information. The following are a list of mailing lists |
247 | related to perl itself. |
248 | |
249 | If you subscribe to a mailing list, it behooves you to know how to |
250 | unsubscribe from it. Strident pleas to the list itself to get you off |
251 | will not be favorably received. |
252 | |
253 | =over 4 |
254 | |
255 | =item MacPerl |
256 | |
257 | There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact |
258 | "mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch". |
259 | |
260 | Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl) |
261 | webpage at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for |
262 | many links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPW |
263 | tools, precompiled. |
264 | |
265 | =item Perl5-Porters |
266 | |
267 | The core development team have a mailing list for discussing fixes and |
268 | changes to the language. Send mail to |
269 | "perl5-porters-request@perl.org" with help in the body of the message |
270 | for information on subscribing. |
271 | |
272 | =item NTPerl |
273 | |
274 | This list is used to discuss issues involving Win32 Perl 5 (Windows NT |
275 | and Win95). Subscribe by emailing ListManager@ActiveWare.com with the |
276 | message body: |
277 | |
278 | subscribe Perl-Win32-Users |
279 | |
280 | The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine |
281 | your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, email |
282 | the following in the message body to the same address like so: |
283 | |
284 | unsubscribe Perl-Win32-Users |
285 | |
286 | You can also check http://www.activeware.com/ and select "Mailing Lists" |
287 | to join or leave this list. |
288 | |
289 | =item Perl-Packrats |
290 | |
291 | Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the |
292 | Comprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing |
293 | majordomo@cis.ufl.edu: |
294 | |
295 | subscribe perl-packrats |
296 | |
297 | The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine |
298 | your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, simple |
299 | prepend the same command with an "un", and mail to the same address |
300 | like so: |
301 | |
302 | unsubscribe perl-packrats |
303 | |
304 | =back |
305 | |
306 | =head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc |
307 | |
308 | Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista? |
309 | |
310 | ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/perl/comp.lang.perl.*/monthly has an almost |
311 | complete collection dating back to 12/89 (missing 08/91 through |
312 | 12/93). They are kept as one large file for each month. |
313 | |
314 | You'll probably want more a sophisticated query and retrieval mechanism |
315 | than a file listing, preferably one that allows you to retrieve |
316 | articles using a fast-access indices, keyed on at least author, date, |
317 | subject, thread (as in "trn") and probably keywords. The best |
318 | solution the FAQ authors know of is the MH pick command, but it is |
319 | very slow to select on 18000 articles. |
320 | |
321 | If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, please |
322 | let perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com know. |
323 | |
324 | =head2 Perl Training |
325 | |
326 | While some large training companies offer their own courses on Perl, |
327 | you may prefer to contact individuals near and dear to the heart of |
328 | Perl development. Two well-known members of the Perl development team |
329 | who offer such things are Tom Christiansen <perl-classes@perl.com> |
330 | and Randal Schwartz <perl-training-info@stonehenge.com>, plus their |
331 | respective minions, who offer a variety of professional tutorials |
332 | and seminars on Perl. These courses include large public seminars, |
333 | private corporate training, and fly-ins to Colorado and Oregon. |
334 | See http://www.perl.com/perl/info/training.html for more details. |
335 | |
336 | =head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl? |
337 | |
338 | In a sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: It has a licence |
339 | that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is |
340 | distributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a |
341 | very large user community and an extensive literature. The |
342 | comp.lang.perl.* newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide |
343 | free answers to your questions in near real-time. Perl has |
344 | traditionally been supported by Larry, dozens of software designers |
345 | and developers, and thousands of programmers, all working for free |
346 | to create a useful thing to make life better for everyone. |
347 | |
348 | However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a |
349 | purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go |
350 | wrong. Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual |
351 | obligations. Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available from |
352 | several sources if that will help. |
353 | |
354 | Or you can purchase a real support contract. Although Cygnus historically |
355 | provided this service, they no longer sell support contracts for Perl. |
356 | Instead, the Paul Ingram Group will be taking up the slack through The |
357 | Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them: |
358 | |
359 | "Do you need professional support for Perl and/or Oraperl? Do you need |
360 | a support contract with defined levels of service? Do you want to pay |
361 | only for what you need? |
362 | |
363 | "The Paul Ingram Group has provided quality software development and |
364 | support services to some of the world's largest corporations for ten |
365 | years. We are now offering the same quality support services for Perl |
366 | at The Perl Clinic. This service is led by Tim Bunce, an active perl |
367 | porter since 1994 and well known as the author and maintainer of the |
368 | DBI, DBD::Oracle, and Oraperl modules and author/co-maintainer of The |
369 | Perl 5 Module List. We also offer Oracle users support for Perl5 |
370 | Oraperl and related modules (which Oracle is planning to ship as part |
371 | of Oracle Web Server 3). 20% of the profit from our Perl support work |
372 | will be donated to The Perl Institute." |
373 | |
374 | For more information, contact the The Perl Clinic: |
375 | |
376 | Tel: +44 1483 424424 |
377 | Fax: +44 1483 419419 |
378 | Web: http://www.perl.co.uk/ |
379 | Email: perl-support-info@perl.co.uk or Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk |
380 | |
381 | =head2 Where do I send bug reports? |
382 | |
383 | If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules |
384 | shipped with perl, use the perlbug program in the perl distribution or |
385 | email your report to perlbug@perl.com. |
386 | |
387 | If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to |
388 | "What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a |
389 | non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the |
390 | documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post |
391 | bugs. |
392 | |
393 | Read the perlbug man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information. |
394 | |
395 | =head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute? |
396 | |
397 | perl.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto of |
398 | TPI is "helping people help Perl help people" (or something like |
399 | that). It's a non-profit organization supporting development, |
400 | documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPI |
401 | include Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom you |
402 | may have heard of somewhere else around here. |
403 | |
404 | The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as a |
405 | public service long before perl.org came about. It's the original PBS |
406 | of the Perl world, a clearinghouse for information about all things |
407 | Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy gifs, or (gasp!) |
408 | java applets on its pages. |
409 | |
410 | =head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming? |
411 | |
412 | L<perltoot> (distributed with 5.004 or later) is a good place to start. |
413 | Also, L<perlobj>, L<perlref>, and L<perlmod> are useful references, |
414 | while L<perlbot> has some excellent tips and tricks. |
415 | |
416 | =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT |
417 | |
418 | Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington. |
419 | All rights reserved. See L<perlfaq> for distribution information. |