perlfunc Perl builtin functions
perlvar Perl predefined variables
perlsub Perl subroutines
- perlmod Perl modules
+ perlmod Perl modules: how they work
+ perlmodlib Perl modules: how to write and use
perlform Perl formats
perllocale Perl locale support
- perlref Perl references
+ perlref Perl references
perldsc Perl data structures intro
perllol Perl data structures: lists of lists
perltoot Perl OO tutorial
perlpod Perl plain old documentation
perlbook Perl book information
- perlembed Perl how to embed perl in your C or C++ app
+ perlembed Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
perlapio Perl internal IO abstraction interface
perlxs Perl XS application programming interface
perlxstut Perl XS tutorial
- perlguts Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
+ perlguts Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
perlcall Perl calling conventions from C
(If you're intending to read these straight through for the first time,
the suggested order will tend to reduce the number of forward references.)
-Additional documentation for Perl modules is available in the
-F</usr/local/man/> directory. Some of this is distributed standard with
-Perl, but you'll also find third-party modules there. You should be able
-to view this with your man(1) program by including the proper directories
-in the appropriate start-up files. To find out where these are, type:
+By default, all of the above manpages are installed in the
+F</usr/local/man/> directory.
+
+Extensive additional documentation for Perl modules is available. The
+default configuration for perl will place this additional documentation
+in the F</usr/local/lib/perl5/man> directory (or else in the F<man>
+subdirectory of the Perl library directory). Some of this additional
+documentation is distributed standard with Perl, but you'll also find
+documentation for third-party modules there.
+
+You should be able to view Perl's documentation with your man(1)
+program by including the proper directories in the appropriate start-up
+files, or in the MANPATH environment variable. To find out where the
+configuration has installed the manpages, type:
perl -V:man.dir
-If the directories were F</usr/local/man/man1> and F</usr/local/man/man3>,
-you would need to add only F</usr/local/man> to your MANPATH. If
-they are different, you'll have to add both stems.
+If the directories have a common stem, such as F</usr/local/man/man1>
+and F</usr/local/man/man3>, you need only to add that stem
+(F</usr/local/man>) to your man(1) configuration files or your MANPATH
+environment variable. If they do not share a stem, you'll have to add
+both stems.
If that doesn't work for some reason, you can still use the
supplied F<perldoc> script to view module information. You might
Perl variables may now be declared within a lexical scope, like "auto"
variables in C. Not only is this more efficient, but it contributes
-to better privacy for "programming in the large". Anonymous
+to better privacy for "programming in the large". Anonymous
subroutines exhibit deep binding of lexical variables (closures).
=item * Arbitrarily nested data structures
=item * Regular expression enhancements
-You can now specify non-greedy quantifiers. You can now do grouping
+You can now specify nongreedy quantifiers. You can now do grouping
without creating a backreference. You can now write regular expressions
with embedded whitespace and comments for readability. A consistent
extensibility mechanism has been added that is upwardly compatible with
=item * Innumerable Unbundled Modules
-The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network described in L<perlmod>
-contains hundreds of plug-and-play modules full of reusable
-code. See F<http://www.perl.com/CPAN> for a site near you.
+The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network described in L<perlmodlib>
+contains hundreds of plug-and-play modules full of reusable code.
+See F<http://www.perl.com/CPAN> for a site near you.
=item * Compilability
While not yet in full production mode, a working perl-to-C compiler
-does exist. It can generate portable bytecode, simple C, or
+does exist. It can generate portable byte code, simple C, or
optimized C code.
=back
The B<-w> switch is not mandatory.
Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various
-operations such as type casting, atof(), and sprintf(). The latter
-can even trigger a core dump when passed ludicrous input values.
+operations such as type casting, atof(), and floating-point
+output with sprintf().
If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a
particular stream, so does Perl. (This doesn't apply to sysread()
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff