3 perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.15 $, $Date: 1997/03/25 18:15:48 $)
7 This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find
8 source and documentation for Perl, support and training, and
11 =head2 What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?
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.
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).
31 A useful FAQ for Win32 Perl users is
32 http://www.endcontsw.com/people/evangelo/Perl_for_Win32_FAQ.html
34 =head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl?
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.
42 Your first stop should be http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports to see what
43 information is already available. A simple installation guide for
44 MS-DOS is available at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perl5dos.html , and
45 similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perlwin3.html
48 =head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
50 Since you don't have a C compiler, you're doomed and your vendor
51 should be sacrificed to the Sun gods. But that doesn't help you.
53 What you need to do is get a binary version of gcc for your system
54 first. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system for
55 information on where to get such a binary version.
57 =head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
59 That's probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ.
60 You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it will
61 eventually live on, and then type C<make install>. Most other
62 approaches are doomed to failure.
64 One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out
65 the hardcoded @INC which perl is looking for.
67 perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
69 If this command lists any paths which don't exist on your system, then you
70 may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create
71 symlinks, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately.
73 You might also want to check out L<perlfaq8/"How do I keep my own
74 module/library directory?">.
76 =head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
78 Read the F<INSTALL> file, which is part of the source distribution.
79 It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that the
80 Configure script can't work around for any given system or
83 =head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
85 CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a huge archive
86 replicated on dozens of machines all over the world. CPAN contains
87 source code, nonnative ports, documentation, scripts, and many
88 third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from
89 commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web
90 walking and CGI scripts. The master machine for CPAN is
91 ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/, but you can use the
92 address http://www.perl.com/CPAN/CPAN.html to fetch a copy from a
93 "site near you". See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the
94 end) for how this process works.
96 CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPAN
97 sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the
98 rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For
99 instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN
100 as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh file is downloadable as
101 ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh .
103 Considering that there are hundreds of existing modules in the
104 archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of.
105 Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include perl core
106 modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking,
107 devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database
108 interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames,
109 file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; world
110 wide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving and
111 compression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flow
112 utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; and
113 miscellaneous modules.
115 =head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
117 Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
119 =head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
121 The complete Perl documentation is available with the perl
122 distribution. If you have perl installed locally, you probably have
123 the documentation installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a
124 system resembling Unix. This will lead you to other important man
125 pages. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
126 will be different; for example, it might be only in HTML format. But
127 all proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
129 You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't
130 have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't
131 work, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation.
133 If all else fails, consult the CPAN/doc directory, which contains the
134 complete documentation in various formats, including native pod,
135 troff, html, and plain text. There's also a web page at
136 http://www.perl.com/perl/info/documentation.html that might help.
138 It's also worth noting that there's a PDF version of the complete
139 documentation for perl available in the CPAN/authors/id/BMIDD
142 Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section below
145 =head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
147 The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the
150 comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
151 comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general
152 comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
153 comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
155 comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
157 There is also USENET gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
158 Perl development team (perl5-porters) at
159 news://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ .
161 =head2 Where should I post source code?
163 You should post source code to whichever group is most appropriate,
164 but feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to
165 cross-post to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting
166 standards, including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT
167 include alt.sources; see their FAQ for details.
171 A number books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
172 these are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
173 Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive
174 reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html.
176 The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by the
177 creator of Perl and his apostles, is now in its second edition and
180 Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
181 Authors: Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz
182 ISBN 1-56592-149-6 (English)
183 ISBN 4-89052-384-7 (Japanese)
184 (French and German translations in progress)
186 Note that O'Reilly books are color-coded: turquoise (some would call
187 it teal) covers indicate perl5 coverage, while magenta (some would
188 call it pink) covers indicate perl4 only. Check the cover color
191 What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally
192 useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
194 If you're already a hardcore systems programmer, then the Camel Book
195 just might suffice for you to learn Perl from. But if you're not,
196 check out the "Llama Book". It currently doesn't cover perl5, but the
197 2nd edition is nearly done and should be out by summer 97:
199 Learning Perl (the Llama Book):
200 Author: Randal Schwartz, with intro by Larry Wall
201 ISBN 1-56592-042-2 (English)
202 ISBN 4-89502-678-1 (Japanese)
203 ISBN 2-84177-005-2 (French)
204 ISBN 3-930673-08-8 (German)
206 Another stand-out book in the turquoise O'Reilly Perl line is the "Hip
207 Owls" book. It covers regular expressions inside and out, with quite a
208 bit devoted exclusively to Perl:
210 Mastering Regular Expressions (the Cute Owls Book):
211 Author: Jeffrey Friedl
214 You can order any of these books from O'Reilly & Associates,
215 1-800-998-9938. Local/overseas is 1-707-829-0515. If you can locate
216 an O'Reilly order form, you can also fax to 1-707-829-0104. See
217 http://www.ora.com/ on the Web.
219 Recommended Perl books that are not from O'Reilly are the following:
221 Cross-Platform Perl, (for Unix and Windows NT)
222 Author: Eric F. Johnson
225 How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site, (2nd edition)
226 Author: Lincoln Stein, M.D., Ph.D.
229 CGI Programming in C & Perl,
230 Author: Thomas Boutell
233 Note that some of these address specific application areas (e.g. the
234 Web) and are not general-purpose programming books.
236 =head2 Perl in Magazines
238 The Perl Journal is the first and only magazine dedicated to Perl.
239 It is published (on paper, not online) quarterly by Jon Orwant
240 (orwant@tpj.com), editor. Subscription information is at http://tpj.com
241 or via email to subscriptions@tpj.com.
243 Beyond this, two other magazines that frequently carry high-quality
244 articles on Perl are Web Techniques (see
245 http://www.webtechniques.com/) and Unix Review
246 (http://www.unixreview.com/). Randal Schwartz's Web Technique's
247 columns are available on the web at
248 http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ .
250 =head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
252 To get the best (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site from
253 the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites.
254 From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
255 following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors.
257 http://www.perl.com/CPAN (redirects to another mirror)
258 http://www.perl.org/CPAN
259 ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
260 http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/
261 ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
263 =head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
265 Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
266 mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
267 subscription information. The following are a list of mailing lists
268 related to perl itself.
270 If you subscribe to a mailing list, it behooves you to know how to
271 unsubscribe from it. Strident pleas to the list itself to get you off
272 will not be favorably received.
278 There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact
279 "mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch".
281 Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl)
282 web page at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for
283 many links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPW
288 The core development team have a mailing list for discussing fixes and
289 changes to the language. Send mail to
290 "perl5-porters-request@perl.org" with help in the body of the message
291 for information on subscribing.
295 This list is used to discuss issues involving Win32 Perl 5 (Windows NT
296 and Win95). Subscribe by emailing ListManager@ActiveWare.com with the
299 subscribe Perl-Win32-Users
301 The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
302 your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, email
303 the following in the message body to the same address like so:
305 unsubscribe Perl-Win32-Users
307 You can also check http://www.activeware.com/ and select "Mailing Lists"
308 to join or leave this list.
312 Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the
313 Comprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
314 majordomo@cis.ufl.edu:
316 subscribe perl-packrats
318 The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
319 your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, simple
320 prepend the same command with an "un", and mail to the same address
323 unsubscribe perl-packrats
327 =head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
329 Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista?
331 ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/perl/comp.lang.perl.*/monthly has an almost
332 complete collection dating back to 12/89 (missing 08/91 through
333 12/93). They are kept as one large file for each month.
335 You'll probably want more a sophisticated query and retrieval mechanism
336 than a file listing, preferably one that allows you to retrieve
337 articles using a fast-access indices, keyed on at least author, date,
338 subject, thread (as in "trn") and probably keywords. The best
339 solution the FAQ authors know of is the MH pick command, but it is
340 very slow to select on 18000 articles.
342 If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, please
343 let perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com know.
347 While some large training companies offer their own courses on Perl,
348 you may prefer to contact individuals near and dear to the heart of
349 Perl development. Two well-known members of the Perl development team
350 who offer such things are Tom Christiansen <perl-classes@perl.com>
351 and Randal Schwartz <perl-training-info@stonehenge.com>, plus their
352 respective minions, who offer a variety of professional tutorials
353 and seminars on Perl. These courses include large public seminars,
354 private corporate training, and fly-ins to Colorado and Oregon.
355 See http://www.perl.com/perl/info/training.html for more details.
357 =head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
359 In a sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: It has a licence
360 that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is
361 distributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a
362 very large user community and an extensive literature. The
363 comp.lang.perl.* newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide
364 free answers to your questions in near real-time. Perl has
365 traditionally been supported by Larry, dozens of software designers
366 and developers, and thousands of programmers, all working for free
367 to create a useful thing to make life better for everyone.
369 However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
370 purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go
371 wrong. Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual
372 obligations. Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available from
373 several sources if that will help.
375 Or you can purchase a real support contract. Although Cygnus historically
376 provided this service, they no longer sell support contracts for Perl.
377 Instead, the Paul Ingram Group will be taking up the slack through The
378 Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:
380 "Do you need professional support for Perl and/or Oraperl? Do you need
381 a support contract with defined levels of service? Do you want to pay
382 only for what you need?
384 "The Paul Ingram Group has provided quality software development and
385 support services to some of the world's largest corporations for ten
386 years. We are now offering the same quality support services for Perl
387 at The Perl Clinic. This service is led by Tim Bunce, an active perl
388 porter since 1994 and well known as the author and maintainer of the
389 DBI, DBD::Oracle, and Oraperl modules and author/co-maintainer of The
390 Perl 5 Module List. We also offer Oracle users support for Perl5
391 Oraperl and related modules (which Oracle is planning to ship as part
392 of Oracle Web Server 3). 20% of the profit from our Perl support work
393 will be donated to The Perl Institute."
395 For more information, contact the The Perl Clinic:
399 Web: http://www.perl.co.uk/
400 Email: perl-support-info@perl.co.uk or Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk
402 =head2 Where do I send bug reports?
404 If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
405 shipped with perl, use the perlbug program in the perl distribution or
406 email your report to perlbug@perl.com.
408 If you are posting a bug with a nonstandard port (see the answer to
409 "What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a
410 nonstandard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
411 documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post
414 Read the perlbug manpage (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
416 =head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
418 perl.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto of
419 TPI is "helping people help Perl help people" (or something like
420 that). It's a nonprofit organization supporting development,
421 documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPI
422 include Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom you
423 may have heard of somewhere else around here.
425 The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as a
426 public service long before perl.org came about. It's the original PBS
427 of the Perl world, a clearinghouse for information about all things
428 Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy GIFs, or (gasp!)
429 Java applets on its pages.
431 =head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
433 L<perltoot> (distributed with 5.004 or later) is a good place to start.
434 Also, L<perlobj>, L<perlref>, and L<perlmod> are useful references,
435 while L<perlbot> has some excellent tips and tricks.
437 =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
439 Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
440 All rights reserved. See L<perlfaq> for distribution information.