PERL(inc) - phpMan

PERL(1)                Perl Programmers Reference Guide                PERL(1)

NAME
       perl - The Perl 5 language interpreter
SYNOPSIS
       perl [ -sTtuUWX ]      [ -hv ] [ -V[:configvar] ]
            [ -cw ] [ -d[t][:debugger] ] [ -D[number/list] ]
            [ -pna ] [ -Fpattern ] [ -l[octal] ] [ -0[octal/hexadecimal] ]
            [ -Idir ] [ -m[-]module ] [ -M[-]'module...' ] [ -f ]
            [ -C [number/list] ]      [ -S ]      [ -x[dir] ]
            [ -i[extension] ]
            [ [-e|-E] 'command' ] [ -- ] [ programfile ] [ argument ]...
GETTING HELP
       The perldoc program gives you access to all the documentation that
       comes with Perl.  You can get more documentation, tutorials and
       community support online at <http://www.perl.org/>;.
       If you're new to Perl, you should start by running "perldoc perlintro",
       which is a general intro for beginners and provides some background to
       help you navigate the rest of Perl's extensive documentation.  Run
       "perldoc perldoc" to learn more things you can do with perldoc.
       For ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into several
       sections.
   Overview
           perl                Perl overview (this section)
           perlintro           Perl introduction for beginners
           perltoc             Perl documentation table of contents
   Tutorials
           perlreftut          Perl references short introduction
           perldsc             Perl data structures intro
           perllol             Perl data structures: arrays of arrays
           perlrequick         Perl regular expressions quick start
           perlretut           Perl regular expressions tutorial
           perlootut           Perl OO tutorial for beginners
           perlperf            Perl Performance and Optimization Techniques
           perlstyle           Perl style guide
           perlcheat           Perl cheat sheet
           perltrap            Perl traps for the unwary
           perldebtut          Perl debugging tutorial
           perlfaq             Perl frequently asked questions
             perlfaq1          General Questions About Perl
             perlfaq2          Obtaining and Learning about Perl
             perlfaq3          Programming Tools
             perlfaq4          Data Manipulation
             perlfaq5          Files and Formats
             perlfaq6          Regexes
             perlfaq7          Perl Language Issues
             perlfaq8          System Interaction
             perlfaq9          Networking
   Reference Manual
           perlsyn             Perl syntax
           perldata            Perl data structures
           perlop              Perl operators and precedence
           perlsub             Perl subroutines
           perlfunc            Perl built-in functions
             perlopentut       Perl open() tutorial
             perlpacktut       Perl pack() and unpack() tutorial
           perlpod             Perl plain old documentation
           perlpodspec         Perl plain old documentation format specification
           perlpodstyle        Perl POD style guide
           perlrun             Perl execution and options
           perldiag            Perl diagnostic messages
           perllexwarn         Perl warnings and their control
           perldebug           Perl debugging
           perlvar             Perl predefined variables
           perlre              Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
           perlrebackslash     Perl regular expression backslash sequences
           perlrecharclass     Perl regular expression character classes
           perlreref           Perl regular expressions quick reference
           perlref             Perl references, the rest of the story
           perlform            Perl formats
           perlobj             Perl objects
           perltie             Perl objects hidden behind simple variables
             perldbmfilter     Perl DBM filters
           perlipc             Perl interprocess communication
           perlfork            Perl fork() information
           perlnumber          Perl number semantics
           perlthrtut          Perl threads tutorial
           perlport            Perl portability guide
           perllocale          Perl locale support
           perluniintro        Perl Unicode introduction
           perlunicode         Perl Unicode support
           perlunifaq          Perl Unicode FAQ
           perluniprops        Index of Unicode Version 6.0.0 properties in Perl
           perlunitut          Perl Unicode tutorial
           perlebcdic          Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
           perlsec             Perl security
           perlmod             Perl modules: how they work
           perlmodlib          Perl modules: how to write and use
           perlmodstyle        Perl modules: how to write modules with style
           perlmodinstall      Perl modules: how to install from CPAN
           perlnewmod          Perl modules: preparing a new module for distribution
           perlpragma          Perl modules: writing a user pragma
           perlutil            utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
           perlfilter          Perl source filters
           perldtrace          Perl's support for DTrace
           perlglossary        Perl Glossary
   Internals and C Language Interface
           perlembed           Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
           perldebguts         Perl debugging guts and tips
           perlxstut           Perl XS tutorial
           perlxs              Perl XS application programming interface
           perlxstypemap       Perl XS C/Perl type conversion tools
           perlclib            Internal replacements for standard C library functions
           perlguts            Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
           perlcall            Perl calling conventions from C
           perlmroapi          Perl method resolution plugin interface
           perlreapi           Perl regular expression plugin interface
           perlreguts          Perl regular expression engine internals
           perlapi             Perl API listing (autogenerated)
           perlintern          Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
           perliol             C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layers
           perlapio            Perl internal IO abstraction interface
           perlhack            Perl hackers guide
           perlsource          Guide to the Perl source tree
           perlinterp          Overview of the Perl interpreter source and how it works
           perlhacktut         Walk through the creation of a simple C code patch
           perlhacktips        Tips for Perl core C code hacking
           perlpolicy          Perl development policies
           perlgit             Using git with the Perl repository
   Miscellaneous
           perlbook            Perl book information
           perlcommunity       Perl community information
           perldoc             Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
           perlhist            Perl history records
           perldelta           Perl changes since previous version
           perl5162delta       Perl changes in version 5.16.2
           perl5161delta       Perl changes in version 5.16.1
           perl5160delta       Perl changes in version 5.16.0
           perl5160delta       Perl changes in version 5.16.0
           perl5143delta       Perl changes in version 5.14.3
           perl5142delta       Perl changes in version 5.14.2
           perl5141delta       Perl changes in version 5.14.1
           perl5140delta       Perl changes in version 5.14.0
           perl5124delta       Perl changes in version 5.12.4
           perl5123delta       Perl changes in version 5.12.3
           perl5122delta       Perl changes in version 5.12.2
           perl5121delta       Perl changes in version 5.12.1
           perl5120delta       Perl changes in version 5.12.0
           perl5101delta       Perl changes in version 5.10.1
           perl5100delta       Perl changes in version 5.10.0
           perl589delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.9
           perl588delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.8
           perl587delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.7
           perl586delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.6
           perl585delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.5
           perl584delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.4
           perl583delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.3
           perl582delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.2
           perl581delta        Perl changes in version 5.8.1
           perl58delta         Perl changes in version 5.8.0
           perl561delta        Perl changes in version 5.6.1
           perl56delta         Perl changes in version 5.6
           perl5005delta       Perl changes in version 5.005
           perl5004delta       Perl changes in version 5.004
           perlexperiment      A listing of experimental features in Perl
           perlartistic        Perl Artistic License
           perlgpl             GNU General Public License
   Language-Specific
           perlcn              Perl for Simplified Chinese (in EUC-CN)
           perljp              Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)
           perlko              Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)
           perltw              Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)
   Platform-Specific
           perlaix             Perl notes for AIX
           perlamiga           Perl notes for AmigaOS
           perlbeos            Perl notes for BeOS
           perlbs2000          Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000
           perlce              Perl notes for WinCE
           perlcygwin          Perl notes for Cygwin
           perldgux            Perl notes for DG/UX
           perldos             Perl notes for DOS
           perlepoc            Perl notes for EPOC
           perlfreebsd         Perl notes for FreeBSD
           perlhaiku           Perl notes for Haiku
           perlhpux            Perl notes for HP-UX
           perlhurd            Perl notes for Hurd
           perlirix            Perl notes for Irix
           perllinux           Perl notes for Linux
           perlmacos           Perl notes for Mac OS (Classic)
           perlmacosx          Perl notes for Mac OS X
           perlmpeix           Perl notes for MPE/iX
           perlnetware         Perl notes for NetWare
           perlopenbsd         Perl notes for OpenBSD
           perlos2             Perl notes for OS/2
           perlos390           Perl notes for OS/390
           perlos400           Perl notes for OS/400
           perlplan9           Perl notes for Plan 9
           perlqnx             Perl notes for QNX
           perlriscos          Perl notes for RISC OS
           perlsolaris         Perl notes for Solaris
           perlsymbian         Perl notes for Symbian
           perltru64           Perl notes for Tru64
           perluts             Perl notes for UTS
           perlvmesa           Perl notes for VM/ESA
           perlvms             Perl notes for VMS
           perlvos             Perl notes for Stratus VOS
           perlwin32           Perl notes for Windows
   Stubs for Deleted Documents
           perlboot
           perlbot
           perltodo
           perltooc
           perltoot
       On a Unix-like system, these documentation files will usually also be
       available as manpages for use with the man program.
       In general, if something strange has gone wrong with your program and
       you're not sure where you should look for help, try the -w switch
       first.  It will often point out exactly where the trouble is.
DESCRIPTION
       Perl officially stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language,
       except when it doesn't.
       Perl was originally a language optimized for scanning arbitrary text
       files, extracting information from those text files, and printing
       reports based on that information.  It quickly became a good language
       for many system management tasks. Over the years, Perl has grown into a
       general-purpose programming language. It's widely used for everything
       from quick "one-liners" to full-scale application development.
       The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient,
       complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal).
       Perl combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some of the best
       features of C, sed, awk, and sh, so people familiar with those
       languages should have little difficulty with it.  (Language historians
       will also note some vestiges of csh, Pascal, and even BASIC-PLUS.)
       Expression syntax corresponds closely to C expression syntax.  Unlike
       most Unix utilities, Perl does not arbitrarily limit the size of your
       data--if you've got the memory, Perl can slurp in your whole file as a
       single string.  Recursion is of unlimited depth.  And the tables used
       by hashes (sometimes called "associative arrays") grow as necessary to
       prevent degraded performance.  Perl can use sophisticated pattern
       matching techniques to scan large amounts of data quickly.  Although
       optimized for scanning text, Perl also has many excellent tools for
       slicing and dicing binary data.
       But wait, there's more...
       Begun in 1993 (see perlhist), Perl version 5 is nearly a complete
       rewrite that provides the following additional benefits:
       o   modularity and reusability using innumerable modules
           Described in perlmod, perlmodlib, and perlmodinstall.
       o   embeddable and extensible
           Described in perlembed, perlxstut, perlxs, perlxstypemap, perlcall,
           perlguts, and xsubpp.
       o   roll-your-own magic variables (including multiple simultaneous DBM
           implementations)
           Described in perltie and AnyDBM_File.
       o   subroutines can now be overridden, autoloaded, and prototyped
           Described in perlsub.
       o   arbitrarily nested data structures and anonymous functions
           Described in perlreftut, perlref, perldsc, and perllol.
       o   object-oriented programming
           Described in perlobj and perlootut.
       o   support for light-weight processes (threads)
           Described in perlthrtut and threads.
       o   support for Unicode, internationalization, and localization
           Described in perluniintro, perllocale and Locale::Maketext.
       o   lexical scoping
           Described in perlsub.
       o   regular expression enhancements
           Described in perlre, with additional examples in perlop.
       o   enhanced debugger and interactive Perl environment, with integrated
           editor support
           Described in perldebtut, perldebug and perldebguts.
       o   POSIX 1003.1 compliant library
           Described in POSIX.
       Okay, that's definitely enough hype.
AVAILABILITY
       Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually all
       Unix-like platforms.  See "Supported Platforms" in perlport for a
       listing.
ENVIRONMENT
       See perlrun.
AUTHOR
       Larry Wall <larry AT wall.org>, with the help of oodles of other folks.
       If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others
       who wish to advocate the use of Perl in their applications, or if you
       wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and the Perl developers,
       please write to perl-thanks AT perl.org .
FILES
        "@INC"                 locations of perl libraries
SEE ALSO
        http://www.perl.org/       the Perl homepage
        http://www.perl.com/       Perl articles (O'Reilly)
        http://www.cpan.org/       the Comprehensive Perl Archive
        http://www.pm.org/         the Perl Mongers
DIAGNOSTICS
       The "use warnings" pragma (and the -w switch) produces some lovely
       diagnostics.
       See perldiag for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics.  The "use
       diagnostics" pragma automatically turns Perl's normally terse warnings
       and errors into these longer forms.
       Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an
       indication of the next token or token type that was to be examined.
       (In a script passed to Perl via -e switches, each -e is counted as one
       line.)
       Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error
       messages such as "Insecure dependency".  See perlsec.
       Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the -w switch?
BUGS
       The -w switch is not mandatory.
       Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various
       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() 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 variable name may not be longer than 251 characters.  Line
       numbers displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short
       integers, so they are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers
       usually being affected by wraparound).
       You may mail your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration
       information as output by the myconfig program in the perl source tree,
       or by "perl -V") to perlbug AT perl.org .  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.
NOTES
       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 principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience,
       and Hubris.  See the Camel Book for why.

perl v5.16.3                      2013-03-04                           PERL(1)