3 perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.24 $, $Date: 1998/07/20 23:40:28 $)
7 This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find
8 source and documentation for Perl, support, 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 hard-coded @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 idiosyncracies 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, non-native 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 distribution.
122 If you have perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
123 installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a system resembling Unix.
124 This will lead you to other important man pages, including how to set your
125 $MANPATH. 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 all
127 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 Many good books have been written about Perl -- see the section below
141 =head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
143 The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the
146 comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
147 comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general
148 comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
149 comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
150 comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
152 comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
154 Actually, the moderated group hasn't passed yet, but we're
155 keeping our fingers crossed.
157 There is also USENET gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
158 Perl development team (perl5-porters) at
159 news://news.perl.com/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.
169 If you're just looking for software, first use Alta Vista, Deja News, and
170 search CPAN. This is faster and more productive than just posting
175 A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
176 these are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
177 Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive
178 reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html.
180 The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by the
181 creator of Perl and his apostles, is now in its second edition and
184 Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
185 Authors: Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz
186 ISBN 1-56592-149-6 (English)
187 ISBN 4-89052-384-7 (Japanese)
188 (French, German, and Italian translations also available)
190 Note that O'Reilly books are color-coded: turquoise (some would call
191 it teal) covers indicate perl5 coverage, while magenta (some would
192 call it pink) covers indicate perl4 only. Check the cover color
195 If you're already a hard-core systems programmer, then the Camel Book
196 might suffice for you to learn Perl from. But if you're not, check
197 out I<Learning Perl> by Randal and Tom. The second edition of "Llama
198 Book" has a blue cover, and is updated for the 5.004 release of Perl.
200 If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and possibly
201 even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much hand-holding as
202 we try to provide in the Llama or its defurred cousin the Gecko, please
203 check out the delightful book, I<Perl: The Programmer's Companion>,
204 written by Nigel Chapman.
206 You can order O'Reilly books directly from O'Reilly & Associates,
207 1-800-998-9938. Local/overseas is 1-707-829-0515. If you can
208 locate an O'Reilly order form, you can also fax to 1-707-829-0104.
209 See http://www.ora.com/ on the Web.
211 What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally
212 useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
214 Recommended books on (or muchly on) Perl are the following.
215 Those marked with a star may be ordered from O'Reilly.
222 by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal L. Schwartz
224 *Perl 5 Desktop Reference
229 *Learning Perl [2nd edition]
230 by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen
232 *Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
233 by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
234 with foreword by Larry Wall
236 Perl: The Programmer's Companion
242 MacPerl: Power and Ease
243 by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor, foreword by Matthias Neeracher
248 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
249 with foreword by Larry Wall
251 Perl5 Interactive Course [2nd edition]
254 *Advanced Perl Programming
257 Effective Perl Programming
262 *Mastering Regular Expressions
265 How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site [2nd edition]
270 =head2 Perl in Magazines
272 The first and only periodical devoted to All Things Perl, I<The
273 Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies,
274 announcements, contests, and much more. TPJ has columns on web
275 development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming, regular
276 expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl Contest.
277 It is published quarterly by Jon Orwant. See http://www.tpj.com/ or
278 send mail to subscriptions@tpj.com.
280 Beyond this, magazines that frequently carry high-quality articles
281 on Perl are I<Web Techniques> (see http://www.webtechniques.com/),
282 I<Performance Computing> (http://www.performance-computing.com/), and Usenix's
283 newsletter/magazine to its members, I<login:>, at http://www.usenix.org/.
284 Randal's Web Technique's columns are available on the web at
285 http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/.
287 =head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
289 To get the best (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site from
290 the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites.
291 From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
292 following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors.
294 http://www.perl.com/CPAN (redirects to another mirror)
295 http://www.perl.org/CPAN
296 ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
297 http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/
298 ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
300 http:/www.oasis.leo.org/perl/ has, amongst other things, source to
301 versions 1 through 5 of Perl.
303 =head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
305 Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
306 mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
307 subscription information. The following are a list of mailing lists
308 related to perl itself.
310 If you subscribe to a mailing list, it behooves you to know how to
311 unsubscribe from it. Strident pleas to the list itself to get you off
312 will not be favorably received.
318 There is a mailing list for discussing Macintosh Perl. Contact
319 "mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch".
321 Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl)
322 webpage at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for
323 many links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPW
328 The core development team have a mailing list for discussing fixes and
329 changes to the language. Send mail to
330 "perl5-porters-request@perl.org" with help in the body of the message
331 for information on subscribing.
335 This list is used to discuss issues involving Win32 Perl 5 (Windows NT
336 and Win95). Subscribe by mailing ListManager@ActiveWare.com with the
339 subscribe Perl-Win32-Users
341 The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
342 your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, mail
343 the following in the message body to the same address like so:
345 unsubscribe Perl-Win32-Users
347 You can also check http://www.activeware.com/ and select "Mailing Lists"
348 to join or leave this list.
352 Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the
353 Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
354 majordomo@cis.ufl.edu:
356 subscribe perl-packrats
358 The list software, also written in perl, will automatically determine
359 your address, and subscribe you automatically. To unsubscribe, simple
360 prepend the same command with an "un", and mail to the same address
363 unsubscribe perl-packrats
367 =head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
369 Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista?
371 ftp.cis.ufl.edu:/pub/perl/comp.lang.perl.*/monthly has an almost
372 complete collection dating back to 12/89 (missing 08/91 through
373 12/93). They are kept as one large file for each month.
375 You'll probably want more a sophisticated query and retrieval mechanism
376 than a file listing, preferably one that allows you to retrieve
377 articles using a fast-access indices, keyed on at least author, date,
378 subject, thread (as in "trn") and probably keywords. The best
379 solution the FAQ authors know of is the MH pick command, but it is
380 very slow to select on 18000 articles.
382 If you have, or know where can be found, the missing sections, please
383 let perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com know.
385 =head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
387 In a sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: It has a licence
388 that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is
389 distributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a
390 very large user community and an extensive literature. The
391 comp.lang.perl.* newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide
392 free answers to your questions in near real-time. Perl has
393 traditionally been supported by Larry, dozens of software designers
394 and developers, and thousands of programmers, all working for free
395 to create a useful thing to make life better for everyone.
397 However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
398 purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go
399 wrong. Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual
400 obligations. Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available from
401 several sources if that will help.
403 Or you can purchase a real support contract. Although Cygnus historically
404 provided this service, they no longer sell support contracts for Perl.
405 Instead, the Paul Ingram Group will be taking up the slack through The
406 Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them:
408 "Do you need professional support for Perl and/or Oraperl? Do you need
409 a support contract with defined levels of service? Do you want to pay
410 only for what you need?
412 "The Paul Ingram Group has provided quality software development and
413 support services to some of the world's largest corporations for ten
414 years. We are now offering the same quality support services for Perl
415 at The Perl Clinic. This service is led by Tim Bunce, an active perl
416 porter since 1994 and well known as the author and maintainer of the
417 DBI, DBD::Oracle, and Oraperl modules and author/co-maintainer of The
418 Perl 5 Module List. We also offer Oracle users support for Perl5
419 Oraperl and related modules (which Oracle is planning to ship as part
420 of Oracle Web Server 3). 20% of the profit from our Perl support work
421 will be donated to The Perl Institute."
423 For more information, contact the The Perl Clinic:
427 Web: http://www.perl.co.uk/
428 Email: perl-support-info@perl.co.uk or Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk
430 =head2 Where do I send bug reports?
432 If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
433 shipped with perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the perl distribution or
434 mail your report to perlbug@perl.com.
436 If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to
437 "What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a
438 non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
439 documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post
442 Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
444 =head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
446 The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as a
447 public service long before perl.org came about. Despite the name, it's a
448 pretty non-commercial site meant to be a clearinghouse for information
449 about all things Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, bouncy
450 happy gifs, or silly java applets on its pages. The Perl Home Page at
451 http://www.perl.com/ is currently hosted on a T3 line courtesy of Songline
452 Systems, a software-oriented subsidiary of O'Reilly and Associates.
454 perl.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto of
455 TPI is "helping people help Perl help people" (or something like
456 that). It's a non-profit organization supporting development,
457 documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPI
458 include Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom you
459 may have heard of somewhere else around here.
461 =head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
463 L<perltoot> (distributed with 5.004 or later) is a good place to start.
464 Also, L<perlobj>, L<perlref>, and L<perlmod> are useful references,
465 while L<perlbot> has some excellent tips and tricks.
467 =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
469 Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
472 When included as an integrated part of the Standard Distribution
473 of Perl or of its documentation (printed or otherwise), this works is
474 covered under Perl's Artistic Licence. For separate distributions of
475 all or part of this FAQ outside of that, see L<perlfaq>.
477 Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are public
478 domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
479 derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you
480 see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
481 be courteous but is not required.