=head1 SYNOPSIS
+B<perl> S<[ B<-sTuU> ]>
+ S<[ B<-hv> ] [ B<-V>[:I<configvar>] ]>
+ S<[ B<-cw> ] [ B<-d>[:I<debugger>] ] [ B<-D>[I<number/list>] ]>
+ S<[ B<-pna> ] [ B<-F>I<pattern> ] [ B<-l>[I<octal>] ] [ B<-0>[I<octal>] ]>
+ S<[ B<-I>I<dir> ] [ B<-m>[B<->]I<module> ] [ B<-M>[B<->]I<'module...'> ]>
+ S<[ B<-P> ]>
+ S<[ B<-S> ]>
+ S<[ B<-x>[I<dir>] ]>
+ S<[ B<-i>[I<extension>] ]>
+ S<[ B<-e> I<'command'> ] [ B<--> ] [ I<programfile> ] [ I<argument> ]...>
+
For ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into a number
of sections:
perl Perl overview (this section)
+ perltoc Perl documentation table of contents
perldata Perl data structures
perlsyn Perl syntax
perlop Perl operators and precedence
perlvar Perl predefined variables
perlsub Perl subroutines
perlmod Perl modules
- perlref Perl references and nested data structures
+ perlref Perl references
+ perldsc Perl data structures intro
+ perllol Perl data structures: lists of lists
perlobj Perl objects
+ perltie Perl objects hidden behind simple variables
perlbot Perl OO tricks and examples
perldebug Perl debugging
perldiag Perl diagnostic messages
perlsec Perl security
perltrap Perl traps for the unwary
perlstyle Perl style guide
- perlapi Perl application programming interface
+ perlxs Perl XS application programming interface
+ perlxstut Perl XS tutorial
perlguts Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
perlcall Perl calling conventions from C
- perlovl Perl overloading semantics
+ perlembed Perl how to embed perl in your C or C++ app
+ perlpod Perl plain old documentation
perlbook Perl book information
(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:
+
+ perl -le 'use Config; print "@Config{man1dir,man3dir}"'
+
+If the directories were F</usr/local/man/man1> and F</usr/local/man/man3>,
+you would only need to add F</usr/local/man> to your MANPATH. If
+they are different, 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
+also look into getting a replacement man program.
+
If something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're not
sure where you should look for help, try the B<-w> switch first. It
will often point out exactly where the trouble is.
reports based on that information. It's also a good language for many
system management tasks. The language is intended to be practical
(easy to use, efficient, complete) rather than beautiful (tiny,
-elegant, minimal). It combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some
+elegant, minimal).
+
+Perl combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some
of the best features of C, B<sed>, B<awk>, and B<sh>, so people
familiar with those languages should have little difficulty with it.
(Language historians will also note some vestiges of B<csh>, Pascal,
sophisticated pattern matching techniques to scan large amounts of data
very quickly. Although optimized for scanning text, Perl can also
deal with binary data, and can make dbm files look like associative
-arrays (where dbm is available). Setuid Perl scripts are safer than
+arrays. Setuid Perl scripts are safer than
C programs through a dataflow tracing mechanism which prevents many
stupid security holes. If you have a problem that would ordinarily use
B<sed> or B<awk> or B<sh>, but it exceeds their capabilities or must
virtual methods are supported in a straightforward manner and with very
little new syntax. Filehandles may now be treated as objects.
-=item * Embeddible and Extensible
+=item * Embeddable and Extensible
Perl may now be embedded easily in your C or C++ application, and can
either call or be called by your routines through a documented
A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
files before looking in the standard library and the current
-directory. If PERL5LIB is not defined, PERLLIB is used.
+directory. If PERL5LIB is not defined, PERLLIB is used. When running
+taint checks (because the script was running setuid or setgid, or the
+B<-T> switch was used), neither variable is used. The script should
+instead say
+
+ use lib "/my/directory";
=item PERL5DB
files before looking in the standard library and the current
directory. If PERL5LIB is defined, PERLLIB is not used.
-
=back
Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables, except
=head1 AUTHOR
-Larry Wall <F<lwall@netlabs.com.>, with the help of oodles of other folks.
+Larry Wall E<lt>F<lwall@sems.com>E<gt>, with the help of oodles of other folks.
=head1 FILES
=head1 SEE ALSO
a2p awk to perl translator
+
s2p sed to perl translator
=head1 DIAGNOSTICS
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().
+operations such as type casting, atof() and sprintf(). The latter
+can even trigger a coredump when passed ludicrous input values.
-If your stdio requires an seek or eof between reads and writes on a
+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()
and syswrite().)
While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits
(apart from memory size), there are still a few arbitrary limits: a
-given identifier may not be longer than 255 characters, and no
+given variable name may not be longer than 255 characters, and no
component of your PATH may be longer than 255 if you use B<-S>. A regular
expression may not compile to more than 32767 bytes internally.
+See the perl bugs database at F< http://perl.com/perl/bugs/ >. You may
+mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration information
+as output by the myconfig program in the perl source tree) to
+F<perlbug@perl.com>.
+If you've succeeded in compiling perl, the perlbug script in the utils/
+subdirectory can be used to help mail in a bug report.
+
Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but
don't tell anyone I said that.
The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." Divining
how many more is left as an exercise to the reader.
-The three principle virtues of a programmer are Laziness,
+The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness,
Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.
+
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff