You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl 5.39.4. This is a development version of Perl.

CONTENTS

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 ]...

For more information on these options, you can run perldoc perlrun.

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 https://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
perlrun             Perl execution and options
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: declarations, statements, comments
perldata            Perl data structures
perlop              Perl expressions: operators, precedence, string literals
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
perldocstyle        Perl style guide for core docs
perlpodstyle        Perl POD style guide
perldiag            Perl diagnostic messages
perldeprecation     Perl deprecations
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
perlclass           Perl class syntax

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
perlunicook         Perl Unicode cookbook
perlunifaq          Perl Unicode FAQ
perluniprops        Index of Unicode properties in Perl
perlunitut          Perl Unicode tutorial
perlebcdic          Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms

perlsec             Perl security
perlsecpolicy       Perl security report handling policy

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
perlclassguts       Internals of class syntax

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