3 perlrun - how to execute the Perl interpreter
7 B<perl> S<[ B<-sTuU> ]>
8 S<[ B<-hv> ] [ B<-V>[:I<configvar>] ]>
9 S<[ B<-cw> ] [ B<-d>[:I<debugger>] ] [ B<-D>[I<number/list>] ]>
10 S<[ B<-pna> ] [ B<-F>I<pattern> ] [ B<-l>[I<octal>] ] [ B<-0>[I<octal>] ]>
11 S<[ B<-I>I<dir> ] [ B<-m>[B<->]I<module> ] [ B<-M>[B<->]I<'module...'> ]>
15 S<[ B<-i>[I<extension>] ]>
16 S<[ B<-e> I<'command'> ] [ B<--> ] [ I<programfile> ] [ I<argument> ]...>
20 Upon startup, Perl looks for your script in one of the following
27 Specified line by line via B<-e> switches on the command line.
31 Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line.
32 (Note that systems supporting the #! notation invoke interpreters this
33 way. See L<Location of Perl>.)
37 Passed in implicitly via standard input. This works only if there are
38 no filename arguments--to pass arguments to a STDIN script you
39 must explicitly specify a "-" for the script name.
43 With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file from the
44 beginning, unless you've specified a B<-x> switch, in which case it
45 scans for the first line starting with #! and containing the word
46 "perl", and starts there instead. This is useful for running a script
47 embedded in a larger message. (In this case you would indicate the end
48 of the script using the C<__END__> token.)
50 The #! line is always examined for switches as the line is being
51 parsed. Thus, if you're on a machine that allows only one argument
52 with the #! line, or worse, doesn't even recognize the #! line, you
53 still can get consistent switch behavior regardless of how Perl was
54 invoked, even if B<-x> was used to find the beginning of the script.
56 Because many operating systems silently chop off kernel interpretation of
57 the #! line after 32 characters, some switches may be passed in on the
58 command line, and some may not; you could even get a "-" without its
59 letter, if you're not careful. You probably want to make sure that all
60 your switches fall either before or after that 32 character boundary.
61 Most switches don't actually care if they're processed redundantly, but
62 getting a - instead of a complete switch could cause Perl to try to
63 execute standard input instead of your script. And a partial B<-I> switch
64 could also cause odd results.
66 Some switches do care if they are processed twice, for instance combinations
67 of B<-l> and B<-0>. Either put all the switches after the 32 character
68 boundary (if applicable), or replace the use of B<-0>I<digits> by
69 C<BEGIN{ $/ = "\0digits"; }>.
71 Parsing of the #! switches starts wherever "perl" is mentioned in the line.
72 The sequences "-*" and "- " are specifically ignored so that you could,
73 if you were so inclined, say
75 #!/bin/sh -- # -*- perl -*- -p
76 eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
77 if $running_under_some_shell;
79 to let Perl see the B<-p> switch.
81 If the #! line does not contain the word "perl", the program named after
82 the #! is executed instead of the Perl interpreter. This is slightly
83 bizarre, but it helps people on machines that don't do #!, because they
84 can tell a program that their SHELL is /usr/bin/perl, and Perl will then
85 dispatch the program to the correct interpreter for them.
87 After locating your script, Perl compiles the entire script to an
88 internal form. If there are any compilation errors, execution of the
89 script is not attempted. (This is unlike the typical shell script,
90 which might run part-way through before finding a syntax error.)
92 If the script is syntactically correct, it is executed. If the script
93 runs off the end without hitting an exit() or die() operator, an implicit
94 C<exit(0)> is provided to indicate successful completion.
96 =head2 #! and quoting on non-Unix systems
98 Unix's #! technique can be simulated on other systems:
106 extproc perl -S -your_switches
108 as the first line in C<*.cmd> file (C<-S> due to a bug in cmd.exe's
113 Create a batch file to run your script, and codify it in
114 C<ALTERNATIVE_SHEBANG> (see the F<dosish.h> file in the source
115 distribution for more information).
119 The Win95/NT installation, when using the Activeware port of Perl,
120 will modify the Registry to associate the F<.pl> extension with the perl
121 interpreter. If you install another port of Perl, including the one
122 in the Win32 directory of the Perl distribution, then you'll have to
123 modify the Registry yourself. Note that this means you can no
124 longer tell the difference between an executable Perl program
125 and a Perl library file.
129 Macintosh perl scripts will have the appropriate Creator and
130 Type, so that double-clicking them will invoke the perl application.
136 $ perl -mysw 'f$env("procedure")' 'p1' 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 'p5' 'p6' 'p7' 'p8' !
137 $ exit++ + ++$status != 0 and $exit = $status = undef;
139 at the top of your script, where C<-mysw> are any command line switches you
140 want to pass to Perl. You can now invoke the script directly, by saying
141 C<perl script>, or as a DCL procedure, by saying C<@script> (or implicitly
142 via F<DCL$PATH> by just using the name of the script).
144 This incantation is a bit much to remember, but Perl will display it for
145 you if you say C<perl "-V:startperl">.
149 Command-interpreters on non-Unix systems have rather different ideas
150 on quoting than Unix shells. You'll need to learn the special
151 characters in your command-interpreter (C<*>, C<\> and C<"> are
152 common) and how to protect whitespace and these characters to run
153 one-liners (see C<-e> below).
155 On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to double ones,
156 which you must I<NOT> do on Unix or Plan9 systems. You might also
157 have to change a single % to a %%.
162 perl -e 'print "Hello world\n"'
165 perl -e "print \"Hello world\n\""
168 print "Hello world\n"
169 (then Run "Myscript" or Shift-Command-R)
172 perl -e "print ""Hello world\n"""
174 The problem is that none of this is reliable: it depends on the command
175 and it is entirely possible neither works. If 4DOS was the command shell, this would
176 probably work better:
178 perl -e "print <Ctrl-x>"Hello world\n<Ctrl-x>""
180 CMD.EXE in Windows NT slipped a lot of standard Unix functionality in
181 when nobody was looking, but just try to find documentation for its
184 Under the Macintosh, it depends which environment you are using. The MacPerl
185 shell, or MPW, is much like Unix shells in its support for several
186 quoting variants, except that it makes free use of the Macintosh's non-ASCII
187 characters as control characters.
189 There is no general solution to all of this. It's just a mess.
191 =head2 Location of Perl
193 It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
194 easily find it. When possible, it's good for both B</usr/bin/perl> and
195 B</usr/local/bin/perl> to be symlinks to the actual binary. If that
196 can't be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
197 (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc, into
198 a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another obvious
199 and convenient place.
201 In this documentation, C<#!/usr/bin/perl> on the first line of the script
202 will stand in for whatever method works on your system.
206 A single-character switch may be combined with the following switch, if
209 #!/usr/bin/perl -spi.bak # same as -s -p -i.bak
215 =item B<-0>[I<digits>]
217 specifies the input record separator (C<$/>) as an octal number. If there are
218 no digits, the null character is the separator. Other switches may
219 precede or follow the digits. For example, if you have a version of
220 B<find> which can print filenames terminated by the null character, you
223 find . -name '*.bak' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink
225 The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in paragraph mode.
226 The value 0777 will cause Perl to slurp files whole because there is no
227 legal character with that value.
231 turns on autosplit mode when used with a B<-n> or B<-p>. An implicit
232 split command to the @F array is done as the first thing inside the
233 implicit while loop produced by the B<-n> or B<-p>.
235 perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";'
244 An alternate delimiter may be specified using B<-F>.
248 causes Perl to check the syntax of the script and then exit without
249 executing it. Actually, it I<will> execute C<BEGIN>, C<END>, and C<use> blocks,
250 because these are considered as occurring outside the execution of
255 runs the script under the Perl debugger. See L<perldebug>.
259 runs the script under the control of a debugging or tracing module
260 installed as Devel::foo. E.g., B<-d:DProf> executes the script using the
261 Devel::DProf profiler. See L<perldebug>.
263 =item B<-D>I<letters>
267 sets debugging flags. To watch how it executes your script, use
268 B<-Dtls>. (This works only if debugging is compiled into your
269 Perl.) Another nice value is B<-Dx>, which lists your compiled
270 syntax tree. And B<-Dr> displays compiled regular expressions. As an
271 alternative, specify a number instead of list of letters (e.g., B<-D14> is
272 equivalent to B<-Dtls>):
274 1 p Tokenizing and parsing
276 4 l Context (loop) stack processing
278 16 o Method and overloading resolution
279 32 c String/numeric conversions
280 64 P Print preprocessor command for -P
281 128 m Memory allocation
282 256 f Format processing
283 512 r Regular expression parsing and execution
284 1024 x Syntax tree dump
285 2048 u Tainting checks
286 4096 L Memory leaks (needs C<-DLEAKTEST> when compiling Perl)
287 8192 H Hash dump -- usurps values()
288 16384 X Scratchpad allocation
290 65536 S Thread synchronization
292 All these flags require C<-DDEBUGGING> when you compile the Perl
293 executable. This flag is automatically set if you include C<-g>
294 option when C<Configure> asks you about optimizer/debugger flags.
296 =item B<-e> I<commandline>
298 may be used to enter one line of script.
299 If B<-e> is given, Perl
300 will not look for a script filename in the argument list.
301 Multiple B<-e> commands may
302 be given to build up a multi-line script.
303 Make sure to use semicolons where you would in a normal program.
305 =item B<-F>I<pattern>
307 specifies the pattern to split on if B<-a> is also in effect. The
308 pattern may be surrounded by C<//>, C<"">, or C<''>, otherwise it will be
309 put in single quotes.
313 prints a summary of the options.
315 =item B<-i>[I<extension>]
317 specifies that files processed by the C<E<lt>E<gt>> construct are to be
318 edited in-place. It does this by renaming the input file, opening the
319 output file by the original name, and selecting that output file as the
320 default for print() statements. The extension, if supplied, is used to
321 modify the name of the old file to make a backup copy, following these
324 If no extension is supplied, no backup is made and the current file is
327 If the extension doesn't contain a C<*> then it is appended to the end
328 of the current filename as a suffix.
330 If the extension does contain one or more C<*> characters, then each C<*>
331 is replaced with the current filename. In perl terms you could think of
334 ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$file_name/g;
336 This allows you to add a prefix to the backup file, instead of (or in
337 addition to) a suffix:
339 $ perl -pi'bak_*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'bak_fileA'
341 Or even to place backup copies of the original files into another
342 directory (provided the directory already exists):
344 $ perl -pi'old/*.bak' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'old/fileA.bak'
346 These sets of one-liners are equivalent:
348 $ perl -pi -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
349 $ perl -pi'*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
351 $ perl -pi'.bak' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.bak'
352 $ perl -pi'*.bak' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.bak'
354 From the shell, saying
356 $ perl -p -i.bak -e "s/foo/bar/; ... "
358 is the same as using the script:
360 #!/usr/bin/perl -pi.bak
363 which is equivalent to
368 if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) {
369 if ($extension !~ /\*/) {
370 $backup = $ARGV . $extension;
373 ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$ARGV/g;
375 rename($ARGV, $backup);
376 open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV");
383 print; # this prints to original filename
387 except that the B<-i> form doesn't need to compare $ARGV to $oldargv to
388 know when the filename has changed. It does, however, use ARGVOUT for
389 the selected filehandle. Note that STDOUT is restored as the default
390 output filehandle after the loop.
392 As shown above, Perl creates the backup file whether or not any output
393 is actually changed. So this is just a fancy way to copy files:
395 $ perl -p -i'/some/file/path/*' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
397 $ perl -p -i'.bak' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
399 You can use C<eof> without parentheses to locate the end of each input
400 file, in case you want to append to each file, or reset line numbering
401 (see example in L<perlfunc/eof>).
403 If, for a given file, Perl is unable to create the backup file as
404 specified in the extension then it will skip that file and continue on
405 with the next one (if it exists).
407 For a discussion of issues surrounding file permissions and C<-i>, see
408 L<perlfaq5/Why does Perl let me delete read-only files? Why does -i clobber protected files? Isn't this a bug in Perl?>.
410 You cannot use B<-i> to create directories or to strip extensions from
413 Perl does not expand C<~>, so don't do that.
415 Finally, note that the B<-i> switch does not impede execution when no
416 files are given on the command line. In this case, no backup is made
417 (the original file cannot, of course, be determined) and processing
418 proceeds from STDIN to STDOUT as might be expected.
420 =item B<-I>I<directory>
422 Directories specified by B<-I> are prepended to the search path for
423 modules (C<@INC>), and also tells the C preprocessor where to search for
424 include files. The C preprocessor is invoked with B<-P>; by default it
425 searches /usr/include and /usr/lib/perl.
427 =item B<-l>[I<octnum>]
429 enables automatic line-ending processing. It has two effects: first,
430 it automatically chomps "C<$/>" (the input record separator) when used
431 with B<-n> or B<-p>, and second, it assigns "C<$\>"
432 (the output record separator) to have the value of I<octnum> so that
433 any print statements will have that separator added back on. If
434 I<octnum> is omitted, sets "C<$\>" to the current value of "C<$/>". For
435 instance, to trim lines to 80 columns:
437 perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""'
439 Note that the assignment C<$\ = $/> is done when the switch is processed,
440 so the input record separator can be different than the output record
441 separator if the B<-l> switch is followed by a B<-0> switch:
443 gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p'
445 This sets C<$\> to newline and then sets C<$/> to the null character.
447 =item B<-m>[B<->]I<module>
449 =item B<-M>[B<->]I<module>
451 =item B<-M>[B<->]I<'module ...'>
453 =item B<-[mM]>[B<->]I<module=arg[,arg]...>
455 C<-m>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<();> before executing your
458 C<-M>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<;> before executing your
459 script. You can use quotes to add extra code after the module name,
460 e.g., C<-M'module qw(foo bar)'>.
462 If the first character after the C<-M> or C<-m> is a dash (C<->)
463 then the 'use' is replaced with 'no'.
465 A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say
466 C<-mmodule=foo,bar> or C<-Mmodule=foo,bar> as a shortcut for
467 C<-M'module qw(foo bar)'>. This avoids the need to use quotes when
468 importing symbols. The actual code generated by C<-Mmodule=foo,bar> is
469 C<use module split(/,/,q{foo,bar})>. Note that the C<=> form
470 removes the distinction between C<-m> and C<-M>.
474 causes Perl to assume the following loop around your script, which
475 makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed -n> or
479 ... # your script goes here
482 Note that the lines are not printed by default. See B<-p> to have
483 lines printed. If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for
484 some reason, Perl warns you about it, and moves on to the next file.
486 Here is an efficient way to delete all files older than a week:
488 find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle 'unlink;'
490 This is faster than using the C<-exec> switch of B<find> because you don't
491 have to start a process on every filename found.
493 C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
494 the implicit loop, just as in B<awk>.
498 causes Perl to assume the following loop around your script, which
499 makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed>:
503 ... # your script goes here
505 print or die "-p destination: $!\n";
508 If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for some reason, Perl
509 warns you about it, and moves on to the next file. Note that the
510 lines are printed automatically. An error occuring during printing is
511 treated as fatal. To suppress printing use the B<-n> switch. A B<-p>
512 overrides a B<-n> switch.
514 C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
515 the implicit loop, just as in awk.
519 causes your script to be run through the C preprocessor before
520 compilation by Perl. (Because both comments and cpp directives begin
521 with the # character, you should avoid starting comments with any words
522 recognized by the C preprocessor such as "if", "else", or "define".)
526 enables some rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the command
527 line after the script name but before any filename arguments (or before
528 a B<-->). Any switch found there is removed from @ARGV and sets the
529 corresponding variable in the Perl script. The following script
530 prints "true" if and only if the script is invoked with a B<-xyz> switch.
533 if ($xyz) { print "true\n"; }
537 makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search for the
538 script (unless the name of the script contains directory separators).
539 On some platforms, this also makes Perl append suffixes to the
540 filename while searching for it. For example, on Win32 platforms,
541 the ".bat" and ".cmd" suffixes are appended if a lookup for the
542 original name fails, and if the name does not already end in one
543 of those suffixes. If your Perl was compiled with DEBUGGING turned
544 on, using the -Dp switch to Perl shows how the search progresses.
546 If the filename supplied contains directory separators (i.e. it is an
547 absolute or relative pathname), and if the file is not found,
548 platforms that append file extensions will do so and try to look
549 for the file with those extensions added, one by one.
551 On DOS-like platforms, if the script does not contain directory
552 separators, it will first be searched for in the current directory
553 before being searched for on the PATH. On Unix platforms, the
554 script will be searched for strictly on the PATH.
556 Typically this is used to emulate #! startup on platforms that
557 don't support #!. This example works on many platforms that
558 have a shell compatible with Bourne shell:
561 eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
562 if $running_under_some_shell;
564 The system ignores the first line and feeds the script to /bin/sh,
565 which proceeds to try to execute the Perl script as a shell script.
566 The shell executes the second line as a normal shell command, and thus
567 starts up the Perl interpreter. On some systems $0 doesn't always
568 contain the full pathname, so the B<-S> tells Perl to search for the
569 script if necessary. After Perl locates the script, it parses the
570 lines and ignores them because the variable $running_under_some_shell
571 is never true. If the script will be interpreted by csh, you will need
572 to replace C<${1+"$@"}> with C<$*>, even though that doesn't understand
573 embedded spaces (and such) in the argument list. To start up sh rather
574 than csh, some systems may have to replace the #! line with a line
575 containing just a colon, which will be politely ignored by Perl. Other
576 systems can't control that, and need a totally devious construct that
577 will work under any of csh, sh, or Perl, such as the following:
579 eval '(exit $?0)' && eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
580 & eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 $argv:q'
581 if $running_under_some_shell;
585 forces "taint" checks to be turned on so you can test them. Ordinarily
586 these checks are done only when running setuid or setgid. It's a good
587 idea to turn them on explicitly for programs run on another's behalf,
588 such as CGI programs. See L<perlsec>. Note that (for security reasons)
589 this option must be seen by Perl quite early; usually this means it must
590 appear early on the command line or in the #! line (for systems which
595 causes Perl to dump core after compiling your script. You can then
596 in theory take this core dump and turn it into an executable file by using the
597 B<undump> program (not supplied). This speeds startup at the expense of
598 some disk space (which you can minimize by stripping the executable).
599 (Still, a "hello world" executable comes out to about 200K on my
600 machine.) If you want to execute a portion of your script before dumping,
601 use the dump() operator instead. Note: availability of B<undump> is
602 platform specific and may not be available for a specific port of
603 Perl. It has been superseded by the new perl-to-C compiler, which is more
604 portable, even though it's still only considered beta.
608 allows Perl to do unsafe operations. Currently the only "unsafe"
609 operations are the unlinking of directories while running as superuser,
610 and running setuid programs with fatal taint checks turned into
611 warnings. Note that the B<-w> switch (or the C<$^W> variable) must
612 be used along with this option to actually B<generate> the
613 taint-check warnings.
617 prints the version and patchlevel of your Perl executable.
621 prints summary of the major perl configuration values and the current
626 Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration variable.
630 prints warnings about variable names that are mentioned only once, and
631 scalar variables that are used before being set. Also warns about
632 redefined subroutines, and references to undefined filehandles or
633 filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting to write on. Also
634 warns you if you use values as a number that doesn't look like numbers,
635 using an array as though it were a scalar, if your subroutines recurse
636 more than 100 deep, and innumerable other things.
638 You can disable specific warnings using C<__WARN__> hooks, as described
639 in L<perlvar> and L<perlfunc/warn>. See also L<perldiag> and L<perltrap>.
641 =item B<-x> I<directory>
643 tells Perl that the script is embedded in a message. Leading
644 garbage will be discarded until the first line that starts with #! and
645 contains the string "perl". Any meaningful switches on that line will
646 be applied. If a directory name is specified, Perl will switch to
647 that directory before running the script. The B<-x> switch controls
648 only the disposal of leading garbage. The script must be
649 terminated with C<__END__> if there is trailing garbage to be ignored (the
650 script can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the DATA
651 filehandle if desired).
661 Used if chdir has no argument.
665 Used if chdir has no argument and HOME is not set.
669 Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding the script if B<-S> is
674 A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
675 files before looking in the standard library and the current
676 directory. If PERL5LIB is not defined, PERLLIB is used. When running
677 taint checks (because the script was running setuid or setgid, or the
678 B<-T> switch was used), neither variable is used. The script should
681 use lib "/my/directory";
685 Command-line options (switches). Switches in this variable are taken
686 as if they were on every Perl command line. Only the B<-[DIMUdmw]>
687 switches are allowed. When running taint checks (because the script
688 was running setuid or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), this
693 A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
694 files before looking in the standard library and the current directory.
695 If PERL5LIB is defined, PERLLIB is not used.
699 The command used to load the debugger code. The default is:
701 BEGIN { require 'perl5db.pl' }
703 =item PERL5SHELL (specific to WIN32 port)
705 May be set to an alternative shell that perl must use internally for
706 executing "backtick" commands or system(). Default is C<cmd.exe /x/c>
707 on WindowsNT and C<command.com /c> on Windows95. The value is considered
708 to be space delimited. Precede any character that needs to be protected
709 (like a space or backslash) with a backslash.
711 Note that Perl doesn't use COMSPEC for this purpose because
712 COMSPEC has a high degree of variability among users, leading to
713 portability concerns. Besides, perl can use a shell that may not be
714 fit for interactive use, and setting COMSPEC to such a shell may
715 interfere with the proper functioning of other programs (which usually
716 look in COMSPEC to find a shell fit for interactive use).
718 =item PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS
720 Relevant only if perl is compiled with the malloc included with the perl
721 distribution (that is, if C<perl -V:d_mymalloc> is 'define').
722 If set, this causes memory statistics to be dumped after execution. If set
723 to an integer greater than one, also causes memory statistics to be dumped
726 =item PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
728 Relevant only if your perl executable was built with B<-DDEBUGGING>,
729 this controls the behavior of global destruction of objects and other
734 Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl handles data
735 specific to particular natural languages. See L<perllocale>.
737 Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables, except
738 to make them available to the script being executed, and to child
739 processes. However, scripts running setuid would do well to execute
740 the following lines before doing anything else, just to keep people
743 $ENV{PATH} = '/bin:/usr/bin'; # or whatever you need
744 $ENV{SHELL} = '/bin/sh' if exists $ENV{SHELL};
745 delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};