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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
32explanation) into a man page, and then run F<man> to display it; if
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
38As well as these two, there are two other convertors: F<pod2html> will
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 (<>) {
100 chop;
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
126=head2 Development
127
128There are a set of utilities which help you in developing Perl programs,
129and in particular, extending Perl with C.
130
131=over 3
132
133=item L<perlbug|perlbug>
134
135F<perlbug> is the recommended way to report bugs in the perl interpreter
136itself or any of the standard library modules back to the developers;
137please read through the documentation for F<perlbug> thoroughly before
138using it to submit a bug report.
139
140=item L<h2ph|h2ph>
141
142Back before Perl had the XS system for connecting with C libraries,
143programmers used to get library constants by reading through the C
144header files. You may still see C<require 'syscall.ph'> or similar
145around - the F<.ph> file should be created by running F<h2ph> on the
146corresponding F<.h> file. See the F<h2ph> documentation for more on how
147to convert a whole bunch of header files at ones.
148
149=item L<c2ph|c2ph> and L<pstruct|pstruct>
150
151F<c2ph> and F<pstruct>, which are actually the same program but behave
152differently depending on how they are called, provide another way of
153getting at C with Perl - they'll convert C structures and union declarations
154to Perl code. This is deprecated in favour of F<h2xs> these days.
155
156=item L<h2xs|h2xs>
157
158F<h2xs> converts C header files into XS modules, and will try and write
159as much glue between C libraries and Perl modules as it can. It's also
160very useful for creating skeletons of pure Perl modules.
161
162=item L<dprofpp|dprofpp>
163
164Perl comes with a profiler, the F<Devel::Dprof> module. The
165F<dprofpp> utility analyzes the output of this profiler and tells you
166which subroutines are taking up the most run time. See L<Devel::Dprof>
167for more information.
168
169=item L<perlcc|perlcc>
170
171F<perlcc> is the interface to the experimental Perl compiler suite.
172
7ab03db8 173=item L<perlbc|perlbc>
174
175F<perlbc> is the interface to the experimental Perl bytecompiler suite.
176
497711e7 177=back
178
179=head2 SEE ALSO
180
181L<perldoc|perldoc>, L<pod2man|pod2man>, L<perlpod>,
182L<pod2html|pod2html>, L<pod2usage|pod2usage>, L<podselect|podselect>,
183L<podchecker|podchecker>, L<splain|splain>, L<perldiag>,
184L<roffitall|roffitall>, L<a2p|a2p>, L<s2p|s2p>, L<find2perl|find2perl>,
185L<File::Find|File::Find>, L<pl2pm|pl2pm>, L<perlbug|perlbug>,
186L<h2ph|h2ph>, L<c2ph|c2ph>, L<h2xs|h2xs>, L<dprofpp|dprofpp>,
7ab03db8 187L<Devel::Dprof>, L<perlcc|perlcc>, L<perlbc|perlbc>
497711e7 188
189=cut