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497711e7 1=head1 NAME
2
3perlutil - utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7Along with the Perl interpreter itself, the Perl distribution installs a
8range of utilities on your system. There are also several utilities
9which are used by the Perl distribution itself as part of the install
10process. This document exists to list all of these utilities, explain
11what they are for and provide pointers to each module's documentation,
12if appropriate.
13
14=head2 DOCUMENTATION
15
16=over 3
17
18=item L<perldoc|perldoc>
19
20The main interface to Perl's documentation is C<perldoc>, although
21if you're reading this, it's more than likely that you've already found
22it. F<perldoc> will extract and format the documentation from any file
23in the current directory, any Perl module installed on the system, or
24any of the standard documentation pages, such as this one. Use
25C<perldoc E<lt>nameE<gt>> to get information on any of the utilities
26described in this document.
27
28=item L<pod2man|pod2man> and L<pod2text|pod2text>
29
30If it's run from a terminal, F<perldoc> will usually call F<pod2man> to
31translate POD (Plain Old Documentation - see L<perlpod> for an
3958b146 32explanation) into a manpage, and then run F<man> to display it; if
497711e7 33F<man> isn't available, F<pod2text> will be used instead and the output
34piped through your favourite pager.
35
36=item L<pod2html|pod2html> and L<pod2latex|pod2latex>
37
a31a806a 38As well as these two, there are two other converters: F<pod2html> will
497711e7 39produce HTML pages from POD, and F<pod2latex>, which produces LaTeX
40files.
41
42=item L<pod2usage|pod2usage>
43
44If you just want to know how to use the utilities described here,
45F<pod2usage> will just extract the "USAGE" section; some of
46the utilities will automatically call F<pod2usage> on themselves when
47you call them with C<-help>.
48
49=item L<podselect|podselect>
50
51F<pod2usage> is a special case of F<podselect>, a utility to extract
52named sections from documents written in POD. For instance, while
53utilities have "USAGE" sections, Perl modules usually have "SYNOPSIS"
54sections: C<podselect -s "SYNOPSIS" ...> will extract this section for
55a given file.
56
57=item L<podchecker|podchecker>
58
59If you're writing your own documentation in POD, the F<podchecker>
60utility will look for errors in your markup.
61
62=item L<splain|splain>
63
64F<splain> is an interface to L<perldiag> - paste in your error message
65to it, and it'll explain it for you.
66
67=item L<roffitall|roffitall>
68
69The C<roffitall> utility is not installed on your system but lives in
70the F<pod/> directory of your Perl source kit; it converts all the
71documentation from the distribution to F<*roff> format, and produces a
72typeset PostScript or text file of the whole lot.
73
74=back
75
76=head2 CONVERTORS
77
78To help you convert legacy programs to Perl, we've included three
79conversion filters:
80
81=over 3
82
83=item L<a2p|a2p>
84
85F<a2p> converts F<awk> scripts to Perl programs; for example, C<a2p -F:>
86on the simple F<awk> script C<{print $2}> will produce a Perl program
87based around this code:
88
89 while (<>) {
90 ($Fld1,$Fld2) = split(/[:\n]/, $_, 9999);
91 print $Fld2;
92 }
93
94=item L<s2p|s2p>
95
96Similarly, F<s2p> converts F<sed> scripts to Perl programs. F<s2p> run
97on C<s/foo/bar> will produce a Perl program based around this:
98
99 while (<>) {
5b3eff12 100 chomp;
497711e7 101 s/foo/bar/g;
102 print if $printit;
103 }
104
105=item L<find2perl|find2perl>
106
107Finally, F<find2perl> translates C<find> commands to Perl equivalents which
108use the L<File::Find|File::Find> module. As an example,
109C<find2perl . -user root -perm 4000 -print> produces the following callback
110subroutine for C<File::Find>:
111
112 sub wanted {
113 my ($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid);
114 (($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid) = lstat($_)) &&
115 $uid == $uid{'root'}) &&
116 (($mode & 0777) == 04000);
117 print("$name\n");
118 }
119
120=back
121
122As well as these filters for converting other languages, the
123L<pl2pm|pl2pm> utility will help you convert old-style Perl 4 libraries to
124new-style Perl5 modules.
125
a6fb92f1 126=head2 Administration
127
128=over 3
129
130=item L<libnetcfg|libnetcfg>
131
132To display and change the libnet configuration run the libnetcfg command.
133
134=back
135
497711e7 136=head2 Development
137
138There are a set of utilities which help you in developing Perl programs,
139and in particular, extending Perl with C.
140
141=over 3
142
143=item L<perlbug|perlbug>
144
145F<perlbug> is the recommended way to report bugs in the perl interpreter
146itself or any of the standard library modules back to the developers;
147please read through the documentation for F<perlbug> thoroughly before
148using it to submit a bug report.
149
150=item L<h2ph|h2ph>
151
152Back before Perl had the XS system for connecting with C libraries,
153programmers used to get library constants by reading through the C
154header files. You may still see C<require 'syscall.ph'> or similar
155around - the F<.ph> file should be created by running F<h2ph> on the
156corresponding F<.h> file. See the F<h2ph> documentation for more on how
c06dc7de 157to convert a whole bunch of header files at once.
497711e7 158
159=item L<c2ph|c2ph> and L<pstruct|pstruct>
160
161F<c2ph> and F<pstruct>, which are actually the same program but behave
162differently depending on how they are called, provide another way of
163getting at C with Perl - they'll convert C structures and union declarations
164to Perl code. This is deprecated in favour of F<h2xs> these days.
165
166=item L<h2xs|h2xs>
167
168F<h2xs> converts C header files into XS modules, and will try and write
169as much glue between C libraries and Perl modules as it can. It's also
170very useful for creating skeletons of pure Perl modules.
171
172=item L<dprofpp|dprofpp>
173
fe854a6f 174Perl comes with a profiler, the F<Devel::DProf> module. The
497711e7 175F<dprofpp> utility analyzes the output of this profiler and tells you
fe854a6f 176which subroutines are taking up the most run time. See L<Devel::DProf>
497711e7 177for more information.
178
179=item L<perlcc|perlcc>
180
181F<perlcc> is the interface to the experimental Perl compiler suite.
182
183=back
184
185=head2 SEE ALSO
186
187L<perldoc|perldoc>, L<pod2man|pod2man>, L<perlpod>,
188L<pod2html|pod2html>, L<pod2usage|pod2usage>, L<podselect|podselect>,
189L<podchecker|podchecker>, L<splain|splain>, L<perldiag>,
190L<roffitall|roffitall>, L<a2p|a2p>, L<s2p|s2p>, L<find2perl|find2perl>,
191L<File::Find|File::Find>, L<pl2pm|pl2pm>, L<perlbug|perlbug>,
192L<h2ph|h2ph>, L<c2ph|c2ph>, L<h2xs|h2xs>, L<dprofpp|dprofpp>,
fe854a6f 193L<Devel::DProf>, L<perlcc|perlcc>
497711e7 194
195=cut