3 perlrun - how to execute the Perl interpreter
7 B<perl> S<[ B<-sTtuUWX> ]>
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> ]...>
17 S<[ B<-C [I<number/list>] >]> ]>
21 The normal way to run a Perl program is by making it directly
22 executable, or else by passing the name of the source file as an
23 argument on the command line. (An interactive Perl environment
24 is also possible--see L<perldebug> for details on how to do that.)
25 Upon startup, Perl looks for your program in one of the following
32 Specified line by line via B<-e> switches on the command line.
36 Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line.
37 (Note that systems supporting the #! notation invoke interpreters this
38 way. See L<Location of Perl>.)
42 Passed in implicitly via standard input. This works only if there are
43 no filename arguments--to pass arguments to a STDIN-read program you
44 must explicitly specify a "-" for the program name.
48 With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file from the
49 beginning, unless you've specified a B<-x> switch, in which case it
50 scans for the first line starting with #! and containing the word
51 "perl", and starts there instead. This is useful for running a program
52 embedded in a larger message. (In this case you would indicate the end
53 of the program using the C<__END__> token.)
55 The #! line is always examined for switches as the line is being
56 parsed. Thus, if you're on a machine that allows only one argument
57 with the #! line, or worse, doesn't even recognize the #! line, you
58 still can get consistent switch behavior regardless of how Perl was
59 invoked, even if B<-x> was used to find the beginning of the program.
61 Because historically some operating systems silently chopped off
62 kernel interpretation of the #! line after 32 characters, some
63 switches may be passed in on the command line, and some may not;
64 you could even get a "-" without its letter, if you're not careful.
65 You probably want to make sure that all your switches fall either
66 before or after that 32-character boundary. Most switches don't
67 actually care if they're processed redundantly, but getting a "-"
68 instead of a complete switch could cause Perl to try to execute
69 standard input instead of your program. And a partial B<-I> switch
70 could also cause odd results.
72 Some switches do care if they are processed twice, for instance
73 combinations of B<-l> and B<-0>. Either put all the switches after
74 the 32-character boundary (if applicable), or replace the use of
75 B<-0>I<digits> by C<BEGIN{ $/ = "\0digits"; }>.
77 Parsing of the #! switches starts wherever "perl" is mentioned in the line.
78 The sequences "-*" and "- " are specifically ignored so that you could,
79 if you were so inclined, say
81 #!/bin/sh -- # -*- perl -*- -p
82 eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
83 if $running_under_some_shell;
85 to let Perl see the B<-p> switch.
87 A similar trick involves the B<env> program, if you have it.
91 The examples above use a relative path to the perl interpreter,
92 getting whatever version is first in the user's path. If you want
93 a specific version of Perl, say, perl5.005_57, you should place
94 that directly in the #! line's path.
96 If the #! line does not contain the word "perl", the program named after
97 the #! is executed instead of the Perl interpreter. This is slightly
98 bizarre, but it helps people on machines that don't do #!, because they
99 can tell a program that their SHELL is F</usr/bin/perl>, and Perl will then
100 dispatch the program to the correct interpreter for them.
102 After locating your program, Perl compiles the entire program to an
103 internal form. If there are any compilation errors, execution of the
104 program is not attempted. (This is unlike the typical shell script,
105 which might run part-way through before finding a syntax error.)
107 If the program is syntactically correct, it is executed. If the program
108 runs off the end without hitting an exit() or die() operator, an implicit
109 C<exit(0)> is provided to indicate successful completion.
111 =head2 #! and quoting on non-Unix systems
113 Unix's #! technique can be simulated on other systems:
121 extproc perl -S -your_switches
123 as the first line in C<*.cmd> file (B<-S> due to a bug in cmd.exe's
128 Create a batch file to run your program, and codify it in
129 C<ALTERNATIVE_SHEBANG> (see the F<dosish.h> file in the source
130 distribution for more information).
134 The Win95/NT installation, when using the ActiveState installer for Perl,
135 will modify the Registry to associate the F<.pl> extension with the perl
136 interpreter. If you install Perl by other means (including building from
137 the sources), you may have to modify the Registry yourself. Note that
138 this means you can no longer tell the difference between an executable
139 Perl program and a Perl library file.
143 A Macintosh perl program will have the appropriate Creator and
144 Type, so that double-clicking them will invoke the perl application.
150 $ perl -mysw 'f$env("procedure")' 'p1' 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 'p5' 'p6' 'p7' 'p8' !
151 $ exit++ + ++$status != 0 and $exit = $status = undef;
153 at the top of your program, where B<-mysw> are any command line switches you
154 want to pass to Perl. You can now invoke the program directly, by saying
155 C<perl program>, or as a DCL procedure, by saying C<@program> (or implicitly
156 via F<DCL$PATH> by just using the name of the program).
158 This incantation is a bit much to remember, but Perl will display it for
159 you if you say C<perl "-V:startperl">.
163 Command-interpreters on non-Unix systems have rather different ideas
164 on quoting than Unix shells. You'll need to learn the special
165 characters in your command-interpreter (C<*>, C<\> and C<"> are
166 common) and how to protect whitespace and these characters to run
167 one-liners (see B<-e> below).
169 On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to double ones,
170 which you must I<not> do on Unix or Plan 9 systems. You might also
171 have to change a single % to a %%.
176 perl -e 'print "Hello world\n"'
179 perl -e "print \"Hello world\n\""
182 print "Hello world\n"
183 (then Run "Myscript" or Shift-Command-R)
186 perl -e "print ""Hello world\n"""
188 The problem is that none of this is reliable: it depends on the
189 command and it is entirely possible neither works. If B<4DOS> were
190 the command shell, this would probably work better:
192 perl -e "print <Ctrl-x>"Hello world\n<Ctrl-x>""
194 B<CMD.EXE> in Windows NT slipped a lot of standard Unix functionality in
195 when nobody was looking, but just try to find documentation for its
198 Under the Macintosh, it depends which environment you are using. The MacPerl
199 shell, or MPW, is much like Unix shells in its support for several
200 quoting variants, except that it makes free use of the Macintosh's non-ASCII
201 characters as control characters.
203 There is no general solution to all of this. It's just a mess.
205 =head2 Location of Perl
207 It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
208 easily find it. When possible, it's good for both F</usr/bin/perl>
209 and F</usr/local/bin/perl> to be symlinks to the actual binary. If
210 that can't be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged
211 to put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities into a
212 directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in some other
213 obvious and convenient place.
215 In this documentation, C<#!/usr/bin/perl> on the first line of the program
216 will stand in for whatever method works on your system. You are
217 advised to use a specific path if you care about a specific version.
219 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00554
221 or if you just want to be running at least version, place a statement
222 like this at the top of your program:
226 =head2 Command Switches
228 As with all standard commands, a single-character switch may be
229 clustered with the following switch, if any.
231 #!/usr/bin/perl -spi.orig # same as -s -p -i.orig
237 =item B<-0>[I<digits>]
239 specifies the input record separator (C<$/>) as an octal number. If there are
240 no digits, the null character is the separator. Other switches may
241 precede or follow the digits. For example, if you have a version of
242 B<find> which can print filenames terminated by the null character, you
245 find . -name '*.orig' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink
247 The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in paragraph mode.
248 The value 0777 will cause Perl to slurp files whole because there is no
249 legal character with that value.
253 turns on autosplit mode when used with a B<-n> or B<-p>. An implicit
254 split command to the @F array is done as the first thing inside the
255 implicit while loop produced by the B<-n> or B<-p>.
257 perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";'
266 An alternate delimiter may be specified using B<-F>.
268 =item B<-C [I<number/list>]>
270 The C<-C> flag controls some Unicode of the Perl Unicode features.
272 As of 5.8.1, the C<-C> can be followed either by a number or a list
273 of option letters. The letters and their numeric values are as follows;
274 listing the letters is equal to summing the numbers.
276 I 1 STDIN is assumed to be in UTF-8
277 O 2 STDOUT will be in UTF-8
278 E 4 STDERR will be in UTF-8
280 i 8 the default input layer expects UTF-8
281 o 16 the default output layer enforces UTF-8
283 A 32 the @ARGV elements are supposed to be in UTF-8
284 L 64 normally the IOEio (SD) are unconditional,
285 the L makes them conditional on the locale environment
286 variables (the LC_ALL, LC_TYPE, and LANG; in the order
287 of decreasing precedence)
289 For example, C<-COE> and C<-C6> will both turn on UTF-8-ness on both
290 STDOUT and STDERR. Repeating letters is just redundant, not cumulative
293 The C<-C> on its own (not followed by any number or option list) has
294 the same effect as <-CSDL>. In other words, the standard I/O handles
295 and the default C<open()> layer are UTF-8-fied B<but> only if the locale
296 environment variables indicate a UTF-8 locale. This behavior follows
297 the I<implicit> behaviour of Perl 5.8.0.
299 You can use C<-C0> to explicitly disable all the above Unicode features.
301 See L<perluniintro>, L<perlfunc/open>, and L<open> for more information.
303 The magic variable C<${^UNICODE}> reflects the state of this setting,
304 see L<perlvar/"${^UNICODE}">. (Another way of setting this variable
305 is to set the environment variable PERL_UNICODE.)
307 (In Perls earlier than 5.8.1 the C<-C> switch was a Win32-only switch
308 that enabled the use of Unicode-aware "wide system call" Win32 APIs.
309 This feature was practically unused, however, and the command line
310 switch was therefore "recycled".)
314 causes Perl to check the syntax of the program and then exit without
315 executing it. Actually, it I<will> execute C<BEGIN>, C<CHECK>, and
316 C<use> blocks, because these are considered as occurring outside the
317 execution of your program. C<INIT> and C<END> blocks, however, will
322 runs the program under the Perl debugger. See L<perldebug>.
324 =item B<-d:>I<foo[=bar,baz]>
326 runs the program under the control of a debugging, profiling, or
327 tracing module installed as Devel::foo. E.g., B<-d:DProf> executes
328 the program using the Devel::DProf profiler. As with the B<-M>
329 flag, options may be passed to the Devel::foo package where they
330 will be received and interpreted by the Devel::foo::import routine.
331 The comma-separated list of options must follow a C<=> character.
334 =item B<-D>I<letters>
338 sets debugging flags. To watch how it executes your program, use
339 B<-Dtls>. (This works only if debugging is compiled into your
340 Perl.) Another nice value is B<-Dx>, which lists your compiled
341 syntax tree. And B<-Dr> displays compiled regular expressions;
342 the format of the output is explained in L<perldebguts>.
344 As an alternative, specify a number instead of list of letters (e.g.,
345 B<-D14> is equivalent to B<-Dtls>):
347 1 p Tokenizing and parsing
349 with v, displays all stacks
350 4 l Context (loop) stack processing
352 16 o Method and overloading resolution
353 32 c String/numeric conversions
354 64 P Print profiling info, preprocessor command for -P, source file input state
355 128 m Memory allocation
356 256 f Format processing
357 512 r Regular expression parsing and execution
358 1024 x Syntax tree dump
359 2048 u Tainting checks
360 4096 (Obsolete, previously used for LEAKTEST)
361 8192 H Hash dump -- usurps values()
362 16384 X Scratchpad allocation
364 65536 S Thread synchronization
366 262144 R Include reference counts of dumped variables (eg when using -Ds)
367 524288 J Do not s,t,P-debug (Jump over) opcodes within package DB
368 1048576 v Verbose: use in conjunction with other flags
369 2097152 C Copy On Write
371 All these flags require B<-DDEBUGGING> when you compile the Perl
372 executable (but see L<Devel::Peek>, L<re> which may change this).
373 See the F<INSTALL> file in the Perl source distribution
374 for how to do this. This flag is automatically set if you include B<-g>
375 option when C<Configure> asks you about optimizer/debugger flags.
377 If you're just trying to get a print out of each line of Perl code
378 as it executes, the way that C<sh -x> provides for shell scripts,
379 you can't use Perl's B<-D> switch. Instead do this
381 # If you have "env" utility
382 env=PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program
384 # Bourne shell syntax
385 $ PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program
388 % (setenv PERLDB_OPTS "NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2"; perl -dS program)
390 See L<perldebug> for details and variations.
392 =item B<-e> I<commandline>
394 may be used to enter one line of program. If B<-e> is given, Perl
395 will not look for a filename in the argument list. Multiple B<-e>
396 commands may be given to build up a multi-line script. Make sure
397 to use semicolons where you would in a normal program.
399 =item B<-F>I<pattern>
401 specifies the pattern to split on if B<-a> is also in effect. The
402 pattern may be surrounded by C<//>, C<"">, or C<''>, otherwise it will be
403 put in single quotes.
407 prints a summary of the options.
409 =item B<-i>[I<extension>]
411 specifies that files processed by the C<E<lt>E<gt>> construct are to be
412 edited in-place. It does this by renaming the input file, opening the
413 output file by the original name, and selecting that output file as the
414 default for print() statements. The extension, if supplied, is used to
415 modify the name of the old file to make a backup copy, following these
418 If no extension is supplied, no backup is made and the current file is
421 If the extension doesn't contain a C<*>, then it is appended to the
422 end of the current filename as a suffix. If the extension does
423 contain one or more C<*> characters, then each C<*> is replaced
424 with the current filename. In Perl terms, you could think of this
427 ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$file_name/g;
429 This allows you to add a prefix to the backup file, instead of (or in
430 addition to) a suffix:
432 $ perl -pi 'orig_*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'orig_fileA'
434 Or even to place backup copies of the original files into another
435 directory (provided the directory already exists):
437 $ perl -pi 'old/*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'old/fileA.orig'
439 These sets of one-liners are equivalent:
441 $ perl -pi -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
442 $ perl -pi '*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
444 $ perl -pi '.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
445 $ perl -pi '*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
447 From the shell, saying
449 $ perl -p -i.orig -e "s/foo/bar/; ... "
451 is the same as using the program:
453 #!/usr/bin/perl -pi.orig
456 which is equivalent to
459 $extension = '.orig';
461 if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) {
462 if ($extension !~ /\*/) {
463 $backup = $ARGV . $extension;
466 ($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$ARGV/g;
468 rename($ARGV, $backup);
469 open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV");
476 print; # this prints to original filename
480 except that the B<-i> form doesn't need to compare $ARGV to $oldargv to
481 know when the filename has changed. It does, however, use ARGVOUT for
482 the selected filehandle. Note that STDOUT is restored as the default
483 output filehandle after the loop.
485 As shown above, Perl creates the backup file whether or not any output
486 is actually changed. So this is just a fancy way to copy files:
488 $ perl -p -i'/some/file/path/*' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
490 $ perl -p -i'.orig' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
492 You can use C<eof> without parentheses to locate the end of each input
493 file, in case you want to append to each file, or reset line numbering
494 (see example in L<perlfunc/eof>).
496 If, for a given file, Perl is unable to create the backup file as
497 specified in the extension then it will skip that file and continue on
498 with the next one (if it exists).
500 For a discussion of issues surrounding file permissions and B<-i>,
501 see L<perlfaq5/Why does Perl let me delete read-only files? Why does -i clobber protected files? Isn't this a bug in Perl?>.
503 You cannot use B<-i> to create directories or to strip extensions from
506 Perl does not expand C<~> in filenames, which is good, since some
507 folks use it for their backup files:
509 $ perl -pi~ -e 's/foo/bar/' file1 file2 file3...
511 Finally, the B<-i> switch does not impede execution when no
512 files are given on the command line. In this case, no backup is made
513 (the original file cannot, of course, be determined) and processing
514 proceeds from STDIN to STDOUT as might be expected.
516 =item B<-I>I<directory>
518 Directories specified by B<-I> are prepended to the search path for
519 modules (C<@INC>), and also tells the C preprocessor where to search for
520 include files. The C preprocessor is invoked with B<-P>; by default it
521 searches /usr/include and /usr/lib/perl.
523 =item B<-l>[I<octnum>]
525 enables automatic line-ending processing. It has two separate
526 effects. First, it automatically chomps C<$/> (the input record
527 separator) when used with B<-n> or B<-p>. Second, it assigns C<$\>
528 (the output record separator) to have the value of I<octnum> so
529 that any print statements will have that separator added back on.
530 If I<octnum> is omitted, sets C<$\> to the current value of
531 C<$/>. For instance, to trim lines to 80 columns:
533 perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""'
535 Note that the assignment C<$\ = $/> is done when the switch is processed,
536 so the input record separator can be different than the output record
537 separator if the B<-l> switch is followed by a B<-0> switch:
539 gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p'
541 This sets C<$\> to newline and then sets C<$/> to the null character.
543 =item B<-m>[B<->]I<module>
545 =item B<-M>[B<->]I<module>
547 =item B<-M>[B<->]I<'module ...'>
549 =item B<-[mM]>[B<->]I<module=arg[,arg]...>
551 B<-m>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<();> before executing your
554 B<-M>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<;> before executing your
555 program. You can use quotes to add extra code after the module name,
556 e.g., C<'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)'>.
558 If the first character after the B<-M> or B<-m> is a dash (C<->)
559 then the 'use' is replaced with 'no'.
561 A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say
562 B<-mmodule=foo,bar> or B<-Mmodule=foo,bar> as a shortcut for
563 C<'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)'>. This avoids the need to use quotes when
564 importing symbols. The actual code generated by B<-Mmodule=foo,bar> is
565 C<use module split(/,/,q{foo,bar})>. Note that the C<=> form
566 removes the distinction between B<-m> and B<-M>.
570 causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which
571 makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed -n> or
576 ... # your program goes here
579 Note that the lines are not printed by default. See B<-p> to have
580 lines printed. If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for
581 some reason, Perl warns you about it and moves on to the next file.
583 Here is an efficient way to delete all files older than a week:
585 find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle unlink
587 This is faster than using the B<-exec> switch of B<find> because you don't
588 have to start a process on every filename found. It does suffer from
589 the bug of mishandling newlines in pathnames, which you can fix if
590 you follow the example under B<-0>.
592 C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
593 the implicit program loop, just as in B<awk>.
597 causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which
598 makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed>:
603 ... # your program goes here
605 print or die "-p destination: $!\n";
608 If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for some reason, Perl
609 warns you about it, and moves on to the next file. Note that the
610 lines are printed automatically. An error occurring during printing is
611 treated as fatal. To suppress printing use the B<-n> switch. A B<-p>
612 overrides a B<-n> switch.
614 C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
615 the implicit loop, just as in B<awk>.
619 B<NOTE: Use of -P is strongly discouraged because of its inherent
620 problems, including poor portability.>
622 This option causes your program to be run through the C preprocessor before
623 compilation by Perl. Because both comments and B<cpp> directives begin
624 with the # character, you should avoid starting comments with any words
625 recognized by the C preprocessor such as C<"if">, C<"else">, or C<"define">.
627 If you're considering using C<-P>, you might also want to look at the
628 Filter::cpp module from CPAN.
630 The problems of -P include, but are not limited to:
636 The C<#!> line is stripped, so any switches there don't apply.
640 A C<-P> on a C<#!> line doesn't work.
644 B<All> lines that begin with (whitespace and) a C<#> but
645 do not look like cpp commands, are stripped, including anything
646 inside Perl strings, regular expressions, and here-docs .
650 In some platforms the C preprocessor knows too much: it knows about
651 the C++ -style until-end-of-line comments starting with C<"//">.
652 This will cause problems with common Perl constructs like
656 because after -P this will became illegal code
660 The workaround is to use some other quoting separator than C<"/">,
661 like for example C<"!">:
669 It requires not only a working C preprocessor but also a working
670 F<sed>. If not on UNIX, you are probably out of luck on this.
674 Script line numbers are not preserved.
678 The C<-x> does not work with C<-P>.
684 enables rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the command
685 line after the program name but before any filename arguments (or before
686 an argument of B<-->). This means you can have switches with two leading
687 dashes (B<--help>). Any switch found there is removed from @ARGV and sets the
688 corresponding variable in the Perl program. The following program
689 prints "1" if the program is invoked with a B<-xyz> switch, and "abc"
690 if it is invoked with B<-xyz=abc>.
693 if ($xyz) { print "$xyz\n" }
695 Do note that B<--help> creates the variable ${-help}, which is not compliant
700 makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search for the
701 program (unless the name of the program contains directory separators).
703 On some platforms, this also makes Perl append suffixes to the
704 filename while searching for it. For example, on Win32 platforms,
705 the ".bat" and ".cmd" suffixes are appended if a lookup for the
706 original name fails, and if the name does not already end in one
707 of those suffixes. If your Perl was compiled with DEBUGGING turned
708 on, using the -Dp switch to Perl shows how the search progresses.
710 Typically this is used to emulate #! startup on platforms that
711 don't support #!. This example works on many platforms that
712 have a shell compatible with Bourne shell:
715 eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
716 if $running_under_some_shell;
718 The system ignores the first line and feeds the program to F</bin/sh>,
719 which proceeds to try to execute the Perl program as a shell script.
720 The shell executes the second line as a normal shell command, and thus
721 starts up the Perl interpreter. On some systems $0 doesn't always
722 contain the full pathname, so the B<-S> tells Perl to search for the
723 program if necessary. After Perl locates the program, it parses the
724 lines and ignores them because the variable $running_under_some_shell
725 is never true. If the program will be interpreted by csh, you will need
726 to replace C<${1+"$@"}> with C<$*>, even though that doesn't understand
727 embedded spaces (and such) in the argument list. To start up sh rather
728 than csh, some systems may have to replace the #! line with a line
729 containing just a colon, which will be politely ignored by Perl. Other
730 systems can't control that, and need a totally devious construct that
731 will work under any of B<csh>, B<sh>, or Perl, such as the following:
733 eval '(exit $?0)' && eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
734 & eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 $argv:q'
735 if $running_under_some_shell;
737 If the filename supplied contains directory separators (i.e., is an
738 absolute or relative pathname), and if that file is not found,
739 platforms that append file extensions will do so and try to look
740 for the file with those extensions added, one by one.
742 On DOS-like platforms, if the program does not contain directory
743 separators, it will first be searched for in the current directory
744 before being searched for on the PATH. On Unix platforms, the
745 program will be searched for strictly on the PATH.
749 Like B<-T>, but taint checks will issue warnings rather than fatal
750 errors. These warnings can be controlled normally with C<no warnings
753 B<NOTE: this is not a substitute for -T.> This is meant only to be
754 used as a temporary development aid while securing legacy code:
755 for real production code and for new secure code written from scratch
756 always use the real B<-T>.
760 forces "taint" checks to be turned on so you can test them. Ordinarily
761 these checks are done only when running setuid or setgid. It's a
762 good idea to turn them on explicitly for programs that run on behalf
763 of someone else whom you might not necessarily trust, such as CGI
764 programs or any internet servers you might write in Perl. See
765 L<perlsec> for details. For security reasons, this option must be
766 seen by Perl quite early; usually this means it must appear early
767 on the command line or in the #! line for systems which support
772 This obsolete switch causes Perl to dump core after compiling your
773 program. You can then in theory take this core dump and turn it
774 into an executable file by using the B<undump> program (not supplied).
775 This speeds startup at the expense of some disk space (which you
776 can minimize by stripping the executable). (Still, a "hello world"
777 executable comes out to about 200K on my machine.) If you want to
778 execute a portion of your program before dumping, use the dump()
779 operator instead. Note: availability of B<undump> is platform
780 specific and may not be available for a specific port of Perl.
782 This switch has been superseded in favor of the new Perl code
783 generator backends to the compiler. See L<B> and L<B::Bytecode>
788 allows Perl to do unsafe operations. Currently the only "unsafe"
789 operations are the unlinking of directories while running as superuser,
790 and running setuid programs with fatal taint checks turned into
791 warnings. Note that the B<-w> switch (or the C<$^W> variable) must
792 be used along with this option to actually I<generate> the
793 taint-check warnings.
797 prints the version and patchlevel of your perl executable.
801 prints summary of the major perl configuration values and the current
806 Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration variable.
811 will provide strong clues about what your MANPATH variable should
812 be set to in order to access the Perl documentation.
816 prints warnings about dubious constructs, such as variable names
817 that are mentioned only once and scalar variables that are used
818 before being set, redefined subroutines, references to undefined
819 filehandles or filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting
820 to write on, values used as a number that doesn't look like numbers,
821 using an array as though it were a scalar, if your subroutines
822 recurse more than 100 deep, and innumerable other things.
824 This switch really just enables the internal C<$^W> variable. You
825 can disable or promote into fatal errors specific warnings using
826 C<__WARN__> hooks, as described in L<perlvar> and L<perlfunc/warn>.
827 See also L<perldiag> and L<perltrap>. A new, fine-grained warning
828 facility is also available if you want to manipulate entire classes
829 of warnings; see L<warnings> or L<perllexwarn>.
833 Enables all warnings regardless of C<no warnings> or C<$^W>.
838 Disables all warnings regardless of C<use warnings> or C<$^W>.
841 =item B<-x> I<directory>
843 tells Perl that the program is embedded in a larger chunk of unrelated
844 ASCII text, such as in a mail message. Leading garbage will be
845 discarded until the first line that starts with #! and contains the
846 string "perl". Any meaningful switches on that line will be applied.
847 If a directory name is specified, Perl will switch to that directory
848 before running the program. The B<-x> switch controls only the
849 disposal of leading garbage. The program must be terminated with
850 C<__END__> if there is trailing garbage to be ignored (the program
851 can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the DATA filehandle
862 Used if chdir has no argument.
866 Used if chdir has no argument and HOME is not set.
870 Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding the program if B<-S> is
875 A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
876 files before looking in the standard library and the current
877 directory. Any architecture-specific directories under the specified
878 locations are automatically included if they exist. If PERL5LIB is not
879 defined, PERLLIB is used.
881 When running taint checks (either because the program was running setuid
882 or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), neither variable is used.
883 The program should instead say:
885 use lib "/my/directory";
889 Command-line options (switches). Switches in this variable are taken
890 as if they were on every Perl command line. Only the B<-[DIMUdmtw]>
891 switches are allowed. When running taint checks (because the program
892 was running setuid or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), this
893 variable is ignored. If PERL5OPT begins with B<-T>, tainting will be
894 enabled, and any subsequent options ignored.
898 A space (or colon) separated list of PerlIO layers. If perl is built
899 to use PerlIO system for IO (the default) these layers effect perl's IO.
901 It is conventional to start layer names with a colon e.g. C<:perlio> to
902 emphasise their similarity to variable "attributes". But the code that parses
903 layer specification strings (which is also used to decode the PERLIO
904 environment variable) treats the colon as a separator.
906 The list becomes the default for I<all> perl's IO. Consequently only built-in
907 layers can appear in this list, as external layers (such as :encoding()) need
908 IO in order to load them!. See L<"open pragma"|open> for how to add external
909 encodings as defaults.
911 The layers that it makes sense to include in the PERLIO environment
912 variable are summarised below. For more details see L<PerlIO>.
918 Turns I<off> the C<:utf8> flag for the layer below.
919 Unlikely to be useful in global PERLIO environment variable.
923 A layer that implements DOS/Windows like CRLF line endings.
924 On read converts pairs of CR,LF to a single "\n" newline character.
925 On write converts each "\n" to a CR,LF pair.
926 Based on the C<:perlio> layer.
930 A layer which implements "reading" of files by using C<mmap()> to
931 make (whole) file appear in the process's address space, and then
932 using that as PerlIO's "buffer". This I<may> be faster in certain
933 circumstances for large files, and may result in less physical memory
934 use when multiple processes are reading the same file.
936 Files which are not C<mmap()>-able revert to behaving like the C<:perlio>
937 layer. Writes also behave like C<:perlio> layer as C<mmap()> for write
938 needs extra house-keeping (to extend the file) which negates any advantage.
940 The C<:mmap> layer will not exist if platform does not support C<mmap()>.
944 A from scratch implementation of buffering for PerlIO. Provides fast
945 access to the buffer for C<sv_gets> which implements perl's readline/E<lt>E<gt>
946 and in general attempts to minimize data copying.
948 C<:perlio> will insert a C<:unix> layer below itself to do low level IO.
952 Applying the <:raw> layer is equivalent to calling C<binmode($fh)>.
953 It makes the stream pass each byte as-is without any translation.
954 In particular CRLF translation, and/or :utf8 inuited from locale
957 Arranges for all accesses go straight to the lowest buffered layer provided
958 by the configration. That is it strips off any layers above that layer.
960 In Perl 5.6 and some books the C<:raw> layer (previously sometimes also
961 referred to as a "discipline") is documented as the inverse of the
962 C<:crlf> layer. That is no longer the case - other layers which would
963 alter binary nature of the stream are also disabled. If you want UNIX
964 line endings on a platform that normally does CRLF translation, but still
965 want UTF-8 or encoding defaults the appropriate thing to do is to add
966 C<:perlio> to PERLIO environment variable.
970 This layer provides PerlIO interface by wrapping system's ANSI C "stdio"
971 library calls. The layer provides both buffering and IO.
972 Note that C<:stdio> layer does I<not> do CRLF translation even if that
973 is platforms normal behaviour. You will need a C<:crlf> layer above it
978 Lowest level layer which provides basic PerlIO operations in terms of
979 UNIX/POSIX numeric file descriptor calls
980 C<open(), read(), write(), lseek(), close()>
984 Turns on a flag on the layer below to tell perl that data sent to the
985 stream should be converted to perl internal "utf8" form and that data from the
986 stream should be considered as so encoded. On ASCII based platforms the
987 encoding is UTF-8 and on EBCDIC platforms UTF-EBCDIC.
988 May be useful in PERLIO environment variable to make UTF-8 the
989 default. (To turn off that behaviour use C<:bytes> layer.)
993 On Win32 platforms this I<experimental> layer uses native "handle" IO
994 rather than unix-like numeric file descriptor layer. Known to be
995 buggy in this release.
999 On all platforms the default set of layers should give acceptable results.
1001 For UNIX platforms that will equivalent of "unix perlio" or "stdio".
1002 Configure is setup to prefer "stdio" implementation if system's library
1003 provides for fast access to the buffer, otherwise it uses the "unix perlio"
1006 On Win32 the default in this release is "unix crlf". Win32's "stdio"
1007 has a number of bugs/mis-features for perl IO which are somewhat
1008 C compiler vendor/version dependent. Using our own C<crlf> layer as
1009 the buffer avoids those issues and makes things more uniform.
1010 The C<crlf> layer provides CRLF to/from "\n" conversion as well as
1013 This release uses C<unix> as the bottom layer on Win32 and so still uses C
1014 compiler's numeric file descriptor routines. There is an experimental native
1015 C<win32> layer which is expected to be enhanced and should eventually replace
1020 If set to the name of a file or device then certain operations of PerlIO
1021 sub-system will be logged to that file (opened as append). Typical uses
1024 PERLIO_DEBUG=/dev/tty perl script ...
1026 and Win32 approximate equivalent:
1028 set PERLIO_DEBUG=CON
1034 A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
1035 files before looking in the standard library and the current directory.
1036 If PERL5LIB is defined, PERLLIB is not used.
1040 The command used to load the debugger code. The default is:
1042 BEGIN { require 'perl5db.pl' }
1044 =item PERL5SHELL (specific to the Win32 port)
1046 May be set to an alternative shell that perl must use internally for
1047 executing "backtick" commands or system(). Default is C<cmd.exe /x/c>
1048 on WindowsNT and C<command.com /c> on Windows95. The value is considered
1049 to be space-separated. Precede any character that needs to be protected
1050 (like a space or backslash) with a backslash.
1052 Note that Perl doesn't use COMSPEC for this purpose because
1053 COMSPEC has a high degree of variability among users, leading to
1054 portability concerns. Besides, perl can use a shell that may not be
1055 fit for interactive use, and setting COMSPEC to such a shell may
1056 interfere with the proper functioning of other programs (which usually
1057 look in COMSPEC to find a shell fit for interactive use).
1059 =item PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS
1061 Relevant only if perl is compiled with the malloc included with the perl
1062 distribution (that is, if C<perl -V:d_mymalloc> is 'define').
1063 If set, this causes memory statistics to be dumped after execution. If set
1064 to an integer greater than one, also causes memory statistics to be dumped
1067 =item PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
1069 Relevant only if your perl executable was built with B<-DDEBUGGING>,
1070 this controls the behavior of global destruction of objects and other
1071 references. See L<perlhack/PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL> for more information.
1075 If using the C<encoding> pragma without an explicit encoding name, the
1076 PERL_ENCODING environment variable is consulted for an encoding name.
1078 =item PERL_ROOT (specific to the VMS port)
1080 A translation concealed rooted logical name that contains perl and the
1081 logical device for the @INC path on VMS only. Other logical names that
1082 affect perl on VMS include PERLSHR, PERL_ENV_TABLES, and
1083 SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL but are optional and discussed further in
1084 L<perlvms> and in F<README.vms> in the Perl source distribution.
1088 Equivalent to the B<-C> command-line switch.
1090 =item SYS$LOGIN (specific to the VMS port)
1092 Used if chdir has no argument and HOME and LOGDIR are not set.
1096 Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl handles data
1097 specific to particular natural languages. See L<perllocale>.
1099 Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables, except
1100 to make them available to the program being executed, and to child
1101 processes. However, programs running setuid would do well to execute
1102 the following lines before doing anything else, just to keep people
1105 $ENV{PATH} = '/bin:/usr/bin'; # or whatever you need
1106 $ENV{SHELL} = '/bin/sh' if exists $ENV{SHELL};
1107 delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};