3 perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.13 $)
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 =head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.
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.
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.
52 perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
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.
58 =head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
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
65 =head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
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.
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 .
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.
97 =head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
99 Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is.
101 =head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
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.
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.
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.
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
124 Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section below
127 =head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
129 The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the
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
137 comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
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/ .
143 =head2 Where should I post source code?
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.
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.
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
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)
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
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.
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:
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)
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:
192 Mastering Regular Expressions (the Cute Owls Book):
193 Author: Jeffrey Friedl
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.
201 Recommended Perl books that are not from O'Reilly are the following:
203 Cross-Platform Perl, (for Unix and Windows NT)
204 Author: Eric F. Johnson
207 How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site, (2nd edition)
208 Author: Lincoln Stein, M.D., Ph.D.
211 CGI Programming in C & Perl,
212 Author: Thomas Boutell
215 Note that some of these address specific application areas (e.g. the
216 Web) and are not general-purpose programming books.
218 =head2 Perl in Magazines
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.
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/).
229 =head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
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.
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/
242 =head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
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.
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.
257 There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact
258 "mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch".
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
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.
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
278 subscribe Perl-Win32-Users
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:
284 unsubscribe Perl-Win32-Users
286 You can also check http://www.activeware.com/ and select "Mailing Lists"
287 to join or leave this list.
291 Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the
292 Comprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
293 majordomo@cis.ufl.edu:
295 subscribe perl-packrats
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
302 unsubscribe perl-packrats
306 =head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
308 Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista?
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.
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.
321 If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, please
322 let perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com know.
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.
336 =head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
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.
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.
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:
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?
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."
374 For more information, contact the The Perl Clinic:
378 Web: http://www.perl.co.uk/
379 Email: perl-support-info@perl.co.uk or Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk
381 =head2 Where do I send bug reports?
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.
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
393 Read the perlbug man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
395 =head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
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.
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.
410 =head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
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.
416 =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
418 Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
419 All rights reserved. See L<perlfaq> for distribution information.