Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language

Language Manual for version 5

• perl Perl overview
• perldata Perl data structures
• perlsyn Perl syntax
• perlop Perl operators and precedence
• perlre Perl regular expressions
• perlrun Perl execution and options
• perlfunc Perl builtin functions
• perlvar Perl predefined variables
• perlsub Perl subroutines
• perlmod Perl modules
• perlref Perl references and nested data structures
• perlobj Perl objects
• perlbot Perl OO tricks and examples
• perldebug Perl debugging
• perldiag Perl diagnostic messages
• perlform Perl formats
• perlipc Perl interprocess communication
• perlsec Perl security
• perltrap Perl traps for the unwary
• perlstyle Perl style guide
• perlapi Perl application programming interface
• 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.)

Modules Manual

Perl5 comes with a standard library of extensions, known as modules. This is the documentation provided for each one:

• AnyDBM_File.pm AnyDBM_File - provide framework for multiple DBMs
• AutoLoader.pm AutoLoader - load functions only on demand
• AutoSplit.pm AutoSplit - split a package for autoloading
• Benchmark.pm Benchmark - benchmark running times of code
• Carp.pm carp - warn of errors (from perspective of caller)
• Cwd.pm getcwd - get pathname of current working directory
• DynaLoader.pm DynaLoader - Dynamically load C libraries into Perl code
• English.pm English - use nice English (or awk) names for ugly punctuation variables
• Env.pm Env - Perl module that imports environment variables
• Exporter.pm Exporter - control the namespace of modules
• Fcntl.pm Fcntl - load the C Fcntl.h defines
• FileHandle.pm FileHandle - supply object methods for filehandles
• POSIX.pm POSIX - Perl interface to IEEE 1003.1 namespace
• Socket.pm Socket - load the C socket.h defines
• integer.pm integer - Perl pragma to compute arithmetic in integer instead of double
• less.pm less - Perl pragma to request less of something from the compiler
• lib.pm lib - manipulate @INC at compile time
• sigtrap.pm sigtrap - Perl pragma to enable stack backtrace on unexpected signals
• strict.pm strict - Perl pragma to restrict unsafe constructs
• subs.pm subs - Perl pragma to predeclare sub names
• File_Basename.pm Basename - parse file specifications
• File_CheckTree.pm validate - run many filetest checks on a tree
• File_Find.pm find - traverse a file tree
• File_Path.pm File_Path - create or remove a series of directories
• Getopt_Long.pm GetOptions - extended getopt processing
• Getopt_Std.pm getopt - Process single-character switches with switch clustering
• I18N_Collate.pm Collate - compare 8-bit scalar data according to the current locale
• IPC_Open2.pm IPC_Open2, open2 - open a process for both reading and writing
• IPC_Open3.pm IPC_Open3, open3 - open a process for reading, writing, and error handling
• Net_Ping.pm Net_Ping, pingecho - check a host for upness
• Text_Abbrev.pm abbrev - create an abbreviation table from a list
• ExtUtils_MakeMaker.pm ExtUtils_MakeMaker - create an extension Makefile
• ExtUtils_Manifest.pm ExtUtils_Manifest - utilities to write and check a MANIFEST file
• ExtUtils_Mkbootstrap.pm Make a bootstrap file for use by this system's DynaLoader.
• irix-ELF_Config.pm Config - access Perl configuration option

The following modules have no documentation aside from their source code in the directory /usr/freeware/lib/perl5:

• NDBM_File.pm NDBM_File -- access to NDBM functions
• ODBM_File.pm ODBM_File - access to the original DBM functions
• SDBM_File.pm SDBM_File - access to the SDBM functions
• Shell.pm (no docs at all!)
• SubstrHash.pm SubstrHash - looks like access to hash array via substrings of keys
• TieHash.pm TieHash - generaic access to databases via builtin hash (associative) array syntax
• Math_BigFloat.pm Arbitrary length float math package
• Math_BigInt.pm arbitrary size integer math package
• Math_Complex.pm Perl5 Package for complex numbers
• Search_Dict.pm Sets file position in FILEHANDLE to be first line >= (stringwise) to $key
• Sys_Hostname.pm Try every conceivable way to get hostname
• Sys_Syslog.pm Sys_Syslog - call syslog() with a string priority and a list of printf() args like syslog(3)
• Term_Cap.pm Term_Cap - Termcap interface routines
• Term_Complete.pm Term_Complete - This routine provides word completion
• Test_Harness.pm Test_Harness - some sort of testing script...
• Text_ParseWords.pm Text_ParseWords - basically a context-sensitive split
• Text_Soundex.pm Text_Soundex - Implementation of soundex algorithm as described by Knuth
• Text_Tabs.pm Text_Tabs - expand and unexpand tabs
• Time_Local.pm Time_Local - inverses of localtime() and gmtime()
• ExtUtils_Liblist.pm ExtUtils_Liblist - (Broken out of MakeMaker)
• ExtUtils_Miniperl.pm ExtUtils_Miniperl - This File keeps the contents of miniperlmain.c

INSTALLATION

Perl5 can be installed from the Silicon Graphics Freeware 1.0 release included on the v6.0 DT, where it lives in the fw_LWperl5 directory.

You want to select fw_LWperl5 for installation (currently, it's the same image in both distributions).

The three principle virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why.

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION

• The Perl Meta-FAQ (Note: new URL)
• Perl FAQ Index
• Tom Christiansens' Mox.Perl.COM,
  and root of the CPAN: (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)
• Perl5 Info, Announce, Discussion
• Unix Review Perl Columns

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