FAQsObtaining and Learning about PerlDaftar Isi NAMEperlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl DESCRIPTIONThis section of the FAQ answers questions about where to findsource and documentation for Perl, support, andrelated matters. What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the Perldevelopment team) is distributed only in source code form. Youcan find the latest releases at http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtuallyall known and current Unix derivatives are supported (perl's nativeplatform), as are other systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows,QNX, BeOS, OS X, MPE/iX and the Amiga. Binary distributions for some proprietary platforms can be foundhttp://www.cpan.org/ports/ directory. Because these are not part ofthe standard distribution, they may and in fact do differ from thebase perl port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check theirrespective release notes to see just what the differences are. Thesedifferences can be either positive (e.g. extensions for the featuresof the particular platform that are not supported in the sourcerelease of perl) or negative (e.g. might be based upon a less currentsource release of perl). How can I get a binary version of Perl?See CPAN Ports I don't have a C compiler. How can I build my own Perl interpreter?For Windows, use a binary version of Perl,Strawberry Perl andActivePerl come with abundled C compiler. Otherwise if you really do want to build Perl, you need to get abinary version of gcc for your system first. Use a searchengine to find out how to do this for your operating system. I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work.That's probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ.You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it willeventually live on, and then type make install. Most otherapproaches are doomed to failure. One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print outthe hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries: - % perl -le 'print for @INC'
If this command lists any paths that don't exist on your system, then youmay need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or createsymbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed aspart of the output of - % perl -V
You might also want to check outHow do I keep my own module/library directory? in perlfaq8. I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?Read the INSTALL file, which is part of the source distribution.It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that theConfigure script can't work around for any given system orarchitecture. What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN?CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a multi-gigabytearchive replicated on hundreds of machines all over the world. CPANcontains tens of thousands of modules and extensions, source codeand documentation, designed for everything from commercialdatabase interfaces to keyboard/screen control and running large web sites. You can search CPAN on http://metacpan.org orhttp://search.cpan.org/. The master web site for CPAN is http://www.cpan.org/,http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html lists all mirrors. See the CPAN FAQ at http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html for answersto the most frequently asked questions about CPAN. The Task::Kensho module has a list of recommended modules whichyou should review as a good starting point. Where can I get information on Perl?The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution.If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentationinstalled as well: type perldoc perl in a terminal orview online. (Some operating system distributions may ship the documentation in a differentpackage; for instance, on Debian, you need to install the perl-doc package.) Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section later inperlfaq2 for more details. What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?Perl.com used to be part of the O'ReillyNetwork, a subsidiary of O'Reilly Media. Although it retains most ofthe original content from its O'Reilly Network, it is now hosted byThe Perl Foundation. The Perl Foundation is an advocacy organization for the Perl languagewhich maintains the web site http://www.perl.org/ as a generaladvocacy site for the Perl language. It uses the domain to providegeneral support services to the Perl community, including the hostingof mailing lists, web sites, and other services. There are also manyother sub-domains for special topics like learning Perl and jobs in Perl,such as: Perl Mongers uses the pm.org domain for servicesrelated to local Perl user groups, including the hosting of mailing listsand web sites. See the Perl Mongers web site for moreinformation about joining, starting, or requesting services for aPerl user group. CPAN, or the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network http://www.cpan.org/,is a replicated, worldwide repository of Perl software.See What is CPAN?. Where can I post questions?There are many Perl mailing lists for varioustopics, specifically the beginners listmay be of use. Other places to ask questions are on thePerlMonks site orstackoverflow. Perl BooksThere are many good books on Perl. Which magazines have Perl content?There's also $foo Magazin, a German magazine dedicated to Perl, at( http://www.foo-magazin.de ). The Perl-Zeitung is anotherGerman-speaking magazine for Perl beginners (seehttp://perl-zeitung.at.tf ). Several unix/linux releated magazines frequently includes articles on Perl. Which Perl blogs should I read?Perl News covers some of the major events in the Perlworld, Perl Weekly is a weekly e-mail(and RSS feed) of hand-picked Perl articles. http://blogs.perl.org/ hosts many Perl blogs, there are alsoseveral blog aggregators: Perlsphere andIronMan are two of them. What mailing lists are there for Perl?A comprehensive list of Perl-related mailing lists can be found athttp://lists.perl.org/ Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?Perl already is commercial software: it has a licensethat you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is distributedin releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a very largeand supportive user community and an extensive literature. If you still need commercial supportActiveState offersthis. Where do I send bug reports?(contributed by brian d foy) First, ensure that you've found an actual bug. Second, ensure you'vefound an actual bug. If you've found a bug with the perl interpreter or one of the modulesin the standard library (those that come with Perl), you can use theperlbug utility that comes with Perl (>= 5.004). It collectsinformation about your installation to include with your message, thensends the message to the right place. To determine if a module came with your version of Perl, you caninstall and use the Module::CoreList module. It has the informationabout the modules (with their versions) included with each releaseof Perl. Every CPAN module has a bug tracker set up in RT, http://rt.cpan.org.You can submit bugs to RT either through its web interface or byemail. To email a bug report, send it tobug-<distribution-name>@rt.cpan.org . For example, if youwanted to report a bug in Business::ISBN, you could send a message [email protected] . Some modules might have special reporting requirements, such as aGithub or Google Code tracking system, so you should check themodule documentation too. AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHTCopyright (c) 1997-2010 Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, andother authors as noted. All rights reserved. This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify itunder the same terms as Perl itself. Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the publicdomain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and anyderivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as yousee fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ wouldbe courteous but is not required. | 
