The normal way to run a Perl program is by making it
directly executable, or else by passing the name of the
source file as an argument on the command line. (An
interactive Perl environment is also possible--see the
perldebug manpage for details on how to do that.) Upon
startup, Perl looks for your program in one of the following
places:
1. Specified line by line via -e switches on the command
line.
2. Contained in the file specified by the first filename on
the command line. (Note that systems supporting the #!
notation invoke interpreters this way. See the Location
of Perl entry elsewhere in this document.)
3. Passed in implicitly via standard input. This works
only if there are no filename arguments--to pass
arguments to a STDIN-read program you must explicitly
specify a "-" for the program name.
With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file
from the beginning, unless you've specified a -x switch, in
which case it scans for the first line starting with #! and
containing the word "perl", and starts there instead. This
is useful for running a program embedded in a larger
message. (In this case you would indicate the end of the
program using the `__END__' token.)
The #! line is always examined for switches as the line is
being parsed. Thus, if you're on a machine that allows only
one argument with the #! line, or worse, doesn't even
recognize the #! line, you still can get consistent switch
behavior regardless of how Perl was invoked, even if -x was
used to find the beginning of the program.
Because historically some operating systems silently chopped
off kernel interpretation of the #! line after 32
characters, some switches may be passed in on the command
line, and some may not; you could even get a "-" without its
letter, if you're not careful. You probably want to make
sure that all your switches fall either before or after that
32-character boundary. Most switches don't actually care if
they're processed redundantly, but getting a "-" instead of
a complete switch could cause Perl to try to execute
standard input instead of your program. And a partial -I
switch could also cause odd results.
Some switches do care if they are processed twice, for
instance combinations of -l and -0. Either put all the
switches after the 32-character boundary (if applicable), or
replace the use of -0digits by `BEGIN{ $/ = "\0digits"; }'.
Parsing of the #! switches starts wherever "perl" is
mentioned in the line. The sequences "-*" and "- " are
specifically ignored so that you could, if you were so
inclined, say
#!/bin/sh -- # -*- perl -*- -p
eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
if $running_under_some_shell;
to let Perl see the -p switch.
A similar trick involves the env program, if you have it.
#!/usr/bin/env perl
The examples above use a relative path to the perl
interpreter, getting whatever version is first in the user's
path. If you want a specific version of Perl, say,
perl5.005_57, you should place that directly in the #!
line's path.
If the #! line does not contain the word "perl", the program
named after the #! is executed instead of the Perl
interpreter. This is slightly bizarre, but it helps people
on machines that don't do #!, because they can tell a
program that their SHELL is /usr/bin/perl, and Perl will
then dispatch the program to the correct interpreter for
them.
After locating your program, Perl compiles the entire
program to an internal form. If there are any compilation
errors, execution of the program is not attempted. (This is
unlike the typical shell script, which might run part-way
through before finding a syntax error.)
If the program is syntactically correct, it is executed. If
the program runs off the end without hitting an exit() or
die() operator, an implicit `exit(0)' is provided to
indicate successful completion.
#!andquotingonnon-Unixsystems
Unix's #! technique can be simulated on other systems:
OS/2
Put
extproc perl -S -your_switches
as the first line in `*.cmd' file (-S due to a bug in
cmd.exe's `extproc' handling).
MS-DOS
Create a batch file to run your program, and codify it
in `ALTERNATIVE_SHEBANG' (see the dosish.h file in the
source distribution for more information).
Win95/NT
The Win95/NT installation, when using the ActiveState
installer for Perl, will modify the Registry to
associate the .pl extension with the perl interpreter.
If you install Perl by other means (including building
from the sources), you may have to modify the Registry
yourself. Note that this means you can no longer tell
the difference between an executable Perl program and a
Perl library file.
Macintosh
A Macintosh perl program will have the appropriate
Creator and Type, so that double-clicking them will
invoke the perl application.
VMS Put
$ perl -mysw 'f$env("procedure")' 'p1' 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 'p5' 'p6' 'p7' 'p8' !
$ exit++ + ++$status != 0 and $exit = $status = undef;
at the top of your program, where -mysw are any command
line switches you want to pass to Perl. You can now
invoke the program directly, by saying `perl program',
or as a DCL procedure, by saying `@program' (or
implicitly via DCL$PATH by just using the name of the
program).
This incantation is a bit much to remember, but Perl
will display it for you if you say `perl
"-V:startperl"'.
Command-interpreters on non-Unix systems have rather
different ideas on quoting than Unix shells. You'll need to
learn the special characters in your command-interpreter
(`*', `\' and `"' are common) and how to protect whitespace
and these characters to run one-liners (see -e below).
On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to
double ones, which you must not do on Unix or Plan9 systems.
You might also have to change a single % to a %%.
For example:
# Unix
perl -e 'print "Hello world\n"'
# MS-DOS, etc.
perl -e "print \"Hello world\n\""
# Macintosh
print "Hello world\n"
(then Run "Myscript" or Shift-Command-R)
# VMS
perl -e "print ""Hello world\n"""
The problem is that none of this is reliable: it depends on
the command and it is entirely possible neither works. If
4DOS were the command shell, this would probably work
better:
perl -e "print <Ctrl-x>"Hello world\n<Ctrl-x>""
CMD.EXE in Windows NT slipped a lot of standard Unix
functionality in when nobody was looking, but just try to
find documentation for its quoting rules.
Under the Macintosh, it depends which environment you are
using. The MacPerl shell, or MPW, is much like Unix shells
in its support for several quoting variants, except that it
makes free use of the Macintosh's non-ASCII characters as
control characters.
There is no general solution to all of this. It's just a
mess.
LocationofPerl
It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when
users can easily find it. When possible, it's good for both
/usr/bin/perl and /usr/local/bin/perl to be symlinks to the
actual binary. If that can't be done, system administrators
are strongly encouraged to put (symlinks to) perl and its
accompanying utilities into a directory typically found
along a user's PATH, or in some other obvious and convenient
place.
In this documentation, `#!/usr/bin/perl' on the first line
of the program will stand in for whatever method works on
your system. You are advised to use a specific path if you
care about a specific version.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00554
or if you just want to be running at least version, place a
statement like this at the top of your program:
use 5.005_54;
CommandSwitches
As with all standard commands, a single-character switch may
be clustered with the following switch, if any.
#!/usr/bin/perl -spi.orig # same as -s -p -i.orig
Switches include:
-0[digits]
specifies the input record separator (`$/') as an octal
number. If there are no digits, the null character is
the separator. Other switches may precede or follow
the digits. For example, if you have a version of find
which can print filenames terminated by the null
character, you can say this:
find . -name '*.orig' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink
The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in
paragraph mode. The value 0777 will cause Perl to
slurp files whole because there is no legal character
with that value.
-a turns on autosplit mode when used with a -n or -p. An
implicit split command to the @F array is done as the
first thing inside the implicit while loop produced by
the -n or -p.
perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";'
is equivalent to
while (<>) {
@F = split(' ');
print pop(@F), "\n";
}
An alternate delimiter may be specified using -F.
-C enables Perl to use the native wide character APIs on
the target system. The magic variable
`${^WIDE_SYSTEM_CALLS}' reflects the state of this
switch. See the section on "${^WIDE_SYSTEM_CALLS}" in
the perlvar manpage.
This feature is currently only implemented on the Win32
platform.
-c causes Perl to check the syntax of the program and then
exit without executing it. Actually, it will execute
`BEGIN', `CHECK', and `use' blocks, because these are
considered as occurring outside the execution of your
program. `INIT' and `END' blocks, however, will be
skipped.
-d runs the program under the Perl debugger. See the
perldebug manpage.
-d:foo
runs the program under the control of a debugging,
profiling, or tracing module installed as Devel::foo.
E.g., -d:DProf executes the program using the
Devel::DProf profiler. See the perldebug manpage.
-Dletters
-Dnumber
sets debugging flags. To watch how it executes your
program, use -Dtls. (This works only if debugging is
compiled into your Perl.) Another nice value is -Dx,
which lists your compiled syntax tree. And -Dr
displays compiled regular expressions. As an
alternative, specify a number instead of list of
letters (e.g., -D14 is equivalent to -Dtls):
1 p Tokenizing and parsing
2 s Stack snapshots
4 l Context (loop) stack processing
8 t Trace execution
16 o Method and overloading resolution
32 c String/numeric conversions
64 P Print preprocessor command for -P
128 m Memory allocation
256 f Format processing
512 r Regular expression parsing and execution
1024 x Syntax tree dump
2048 u Tainting checks
4096 L Memory leaks (needs -DLEAKTEST when compiling Perl)
8192 H Hash dump -- usurps values()
16384 X Scratchpad allocation
32768 D Cleaning up
65536 S Thread synchronization
All these flags require -DDEBUGGING when you compile
the Perl executable. See the INSTALL file in the Perl
source distribution for how to do this. This flag is
automatically set if you include -g option when
`Configure' asks you about optimizer/debugger flags.
If you're just trying to get a print out of each line
of Perl code as it executes, the way that `sh -x'
provides for shell scripts, you can't use Perl's -D
switch. Instead do this
# Bourne shell syntax
$ PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program
# csh syntax
% (setenv PERLDB_OPTS "NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2"; perl -dS program)
See the perldebug manpage for details and variations.
-ecommandline
may be used to enter one line of program. If -e is
given, Perl will not look for a filename in the
argument list. Multiple -e commands may be given to
build up a multi-line script. Make sure to use
semicolons where you would in a normal program.
-Fpattern
specifies the pattern to split on if -a is also in
effect. The pattern may be surrounded by `//', `""',
or `''', otherwise it will be put in single quotes.
-h prints a summary of the options.
-i[extension]
specifies that files processed by the `<>' construct
are to be edited in-place. It does this by renaming
the input file, opening the output file by the original
name, and selecting that output file as the default for
print() statements. The extension, if supplied, is
used to modify the name of the old file to make a
backup copy, following these rules:
If no extension is supplied, no backup is made and the
current file is overwritten.
If the extension doesn't contain a `*', then it is
appended to the end of the current filename as a
suffix. If the extension does contain one or more `*'
characters, then each `*' is replaced with the current
filename. In Perl terms, you could think of this as:
($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$file_name/g;
This allows you to add a prefix to the backup file,
instead of (or in addition to) a suffix:
$ perl -pi 'orig_*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'orig_fileA'
Or even to place backup copies of the original files
into another directory (provided the directory already
exists):
$ perl -pi 'old/*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'old/fileA.orig'
These sets of one-liners are equivalent:
$ perl -pi -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
$ perl -pi '*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
$ perl -pi '.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
$ perl -pi '*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
From the shell, saying
$ perl -p -i.orig -e "s/foo/bar/; ... "
is the same as using the program:
#!/usr/bin/perl -pi.orig
s/foo/bar/;
which is equivalent to
#!/usr/bin/perl
$extension = '.orig';
LINE: while (<>) {
if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) {
if ($extension !~ /\*/) {
$backup = $ARGV . $extension;
}
else {
($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$ARGV/g;
}
rename($ARGV, $backup);
open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV");
select(ARGVOUT);
$oldargv = $ARGV;
}
s/foo/bar/;
}
continue {
print; # this prints to original filename
}
select(STDOUT);
except that the -i form doesn't need to compare $ARGV
to $oldargv to know when the filename has changed. It
does, however, use ARGVOUT for the selected filehandle.
Note that STDOUT is restored as the default output
filehandle after the loop.
As shown above, Perl creates the backup file whether or
not any output is actually changed. So this is just a
fancy way to copy files:
$ perl -p -i '/some/file/path/*' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
or
$ perl -p -i '.orig' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
You can use `eof' without parentheses to locate the end
of each input file, in case you want to append to each
file, or reset line numbering (see example in the eof
entry in the perlfunc manpage).
If, for a given file, Perl is unable to create the
backup file as specified in the extension then it will
skip that file and continue on with the next one (if it
exists).
For a discussion of issues surrounding file permissions
and -i, see the Why does Perl let me delete read-only
files? Why does -i clobber protected files? Isn't this
a bug in Perl? entry in the perlfaq5 manpage.
You cannot use -i to create directories or to strip
extensions from files.
Perl does not expand `~' in filenames, which is good,
since some folks use it for their backup files:
$ perl -pi~ -e 's/foo/bar/' file1 file2 file3...
Finally, the -i switch does not impede execution when
no files are given on the command line. In this case,
no backup is made (the original file cannot, of course,
be determined) and processing proceeds from STDIN to
STDOUT as might be expected.
-Idirectory
Directories specified by -I are prepended to the search
path for modules (`@INC'), and also tells the C
preprocessor where to search for include files. The C
preprocessor is invoked with -P; by default it searches
/usr/include and /usr/lib/perl.
-l[octnum]
enables automatic line-ending processing. It has two
separate effects. First, it automatically chomps `$/'
(the input record separator) when used with -n or -p.
Second, it assigns `$\' (the output record separator)
to have the value of octnum so that any print
statements will have that separator added back on. If
octnum is omitted, sets `$\' to the current value of
`$/'. For instance, to trim lines to 80 columns:
perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""'
Note that the assignment `$\ = $/' is done when the
switch is processed, so the input record separator can
be different than the output record separator if the -l
switch is followed by a -0 switch:
gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p'
This sets `$\' to newline and then sets `$/' to the
null character.
-m[-]module
-M[-]module
-M[-]'module ...'
-[mM][-]module=arg[,arg]...
-mmodule executes `use' module `();' before executing
your program.
-Mmodule executes `use' module `;' before executing
your program. You can use quotes to add extra code
after the module name, e.g., `'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)''.
If the first character after the -M or -m is a dash
(`-') then the 'use' is replaced with 'no'.
A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say
-mmodule=foo,bar or -Mmodule=foo,bar as a shortcut for
`'-Mmodule qw(foo bar)''. This avoids the need to use
quotes when importing symbols. The actual code
generated by -Mmodule=foo,bar is `use module
split(/,/,q{foo,bar})'. Note that the `=' form removes
the distinction between -m and -M.
-n causes Perl to assume the following loop around your
program, which makes it iterate over filename arguments
somewhat like sed-n or awk:
LINE:
while (<>) {
... # your program goes here
}
Note that the lines are not printed by default. See -p
to have lines printed. If a file named by an argument
cannot be opened for some reason, Perl warns you about
it and moves on to the next file.
Here is an efficient way to delete all files older than
a week:
find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle unlink
This is faster than using the -exec switch of find
because you don't have to start a process on every
filename found. It does suffer from the bug of
mishandling newlines in pathnames, which you can fix if
you
`BEGIN' and `END' blocks may be used to capture control
before or after the implicit program loop, just as in
awk.
-p causes Perl to assume the following loop around your
program, which makes it iterate over filename arguments
somewhat like sed:
LINE:
while (<>) {
... # your program goes here
} continue {
print or die "-p destination: $!\n";
}
If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for
some reason, Perl warns you about it, and moves on to
the next file. Note that the lines are printed
automatically. An error occurring during printing is
treated as fatal. To suppress printing use the -n
switch. A -p overrides a -n switch.
`BEGIN' and `END' blocks may be used to capture control
before or after the implicit loop, just as in awk.
-P causes your program to be run through the C
preprocessor before compilation by Perl. (Because both
comments and cpp directives begin with the # character,
you should avoid starting comments with any words
recognized by the C preprocessor such as "if", "else",
or "define".)
-s enables rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the
command line after the program name but before any
filename arguments (or before a --). Any switch found
there is removed from @ARGV and sets the corresponding
variable in the Perl program. The following program
prints "1" if the program is invoked with a -xyz
switch, and "abc" if it is invoked with -xyz=abc.
#!/usr/bin/perl -s
if ($xyz) { print "$xyz\n" }
-S makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search
for the program (unless the name of the program
contains directory separators).
On some platforms, this also makes Perl append suffixes
to the filename while searching for it. For example,
on Win32 platforms, the ".bat" and ".cmd" suffixes are
appended if a lookup for the original name fails, and
if the name does not already end in one of those
suffixes. If your Perl was compiled with DEBUGGING
turned on, using the -Dp switch to Perl shows how the
search progresses.
Typically this is used to emulate #! startup on
platforms that don't support #!. This example works on
many platforms that have a shell compatible with Bourne
shell:
#!/usr/bin/perl
eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
if $running_under_some_shell;
The system ignores the first line and feeds the program
to /bin/sh, which proceeds to try to execute the Perl
program as a shell script. The shell executes the
second line as a normal shell command, and thus starts
up the Perl interpreter. On some systems $0 doesn't
always contain the full pathname, so the -S tells Perl
to search for the program if necessary. After Perl
locates the program, it parses the lines and ignores
them because the variable $running_under_some_shell is
never true. If the program will be interpreted by csh,
you will need to replace `${1+"$@"}' with `$*', even
though that doesn't understand embedded spaces (and
such) in the argument list. To start up sh rather than
csh, some systems may have to replace the #! line with
a line containing just a colon, which will be politely
ignored by Perl. Other systems can't control that, and
need a totally devious construct that will work under
any of csh, sh, or Perl, such as the following:
eval '(exit $?0)' && eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
& eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 $argv:q'
if $running_under_some_shell;
If the filename supplied contains directory separators
(i.e., is an absolute or relative pathname), and if
that file is not found, platforms that append file
extensions will do so and try to look for the file with
those extensions added, one by one.
On DOS-like platforms, if the program does not contain
directory separators, it will first be searched for in
the current directory before being searched for on the
PATH. On Unix platforms, the program will be searched
for strictly on the PATH.
-T forces "taint" checks to be turned on so you can test
them. Ordinarily these checks are done only when
running setuid or setgid. It's a good idea to turn
them on explicitly for programs that run on behalf of
someone else whom you might not necessarily trust, such
as CGI programs or any internet servers you might write
in Perl. See the perlsec manpage for details. For
security reasons, this option must be seen by Perl
quite early; usually this means it must appear early on
the command line or in the #! line for systems which
support that construct.
-u This obsolete switch causes Perl to dump core after
compiling your program. You can then in theory take
this core dump and turn it into an executable file by
using the undump program (not supplied). This speeds
startup at the expense of some disk space (which you
can minimize by stripping the executable). (Still, a
"hello world" executable comes out to about 200K on my
machine.) If you want to execute a portion of your
program before dumping, use the dump() operator
instead. Note: availability of undump is platform
specific and may not be available for a specific port
of Perl.
This switch has been superseded in favor of the new
Perl code generator backends to the compiler. See the
B manpage and the B::Bytecode manpage for details.
-U allows Perl to do unsafe operations. Currently the
only "unsafe" operations are the unlinking of
directories while running as superuser, and running
setuid programs with fatal taint checks turned into
warnings. Note that the -w switch (or the `$^W'
variable) must be used along with this option to
actually generate the taint-check warnings.
-v prints the version and patchlevel of your perl
executable.
-V prints summary of the major perl configuration values
and the current values of @INC.
-V:name
Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration
variable. For example,
$ perl -V:man.dir
will provide strong clues about what your MANPATH
variable should be set to in order to access the Perl
documentation.
-w prints warnings about dubious constructs, such as
variable names that are mentioned only once and scalar
variables that are used before being set, redefined
subroutines, references to undefined filehandles or
filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting to
write on, values used as a number that doesn't look
like numbers, using an array as though it were a
scalar, if your subroutines recurse more than 100 deep,
and innumerable other things.
This switch really just enables the internal `^$W'
variable. You can disable or promote into fatal errors
specific warnings using `__WARN__' hooks, as described
in the perlvar manpage and the warn entry in the
perlfunc manpage. See also the perldiag manpage and
the perltrap manpage. A new, fine-grained warning
facility is also available if you want to manipulate
entire classes of warnings; see the warnings manpage or
the perllexwarn manpage.
-W Enables all warnings regardless of `no warnings' or
`$^W'. See the perllexwarn manpage.
-X Disables all warnings regardless of `use warnings' or
`$^W'. See the perllexwarn manpage.
-xdirectory
tells Perl that the program is embedded in a larger
chunk of unrelated ASCII text, such as in a mail
message. Leading garbage will be discarded until the
first line that starts with #! and contains the string
"perl". Any meaningful switches on that line will be
applied. If a directory name is specified, Perl will
switch to that directory before running the program.
The -x switch controls only the disposal of leading
garbage. The program must be terminated with `__END__'
if there is trailing garbage to be ignored (the program
can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the
DATA filehandle if desired).
ENVIRONMENT
HOME Used if chdir has no argument.
LOGDIR Used if chdir has no argument and HOME is not
set.
PATH Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding
the program if -S is used.
PERL5LIB A colon-separated list of directories in which
to look for Perl library files before looking in
the standard library and the current directory.
Any architecture-specific directories under the
specified locations are automatically included
if they exist. If PERL5LIB is not defined,
PERLLIB is used.
When running taint checks (either because the
program was running setuid or setgid, or the -T
switch was used), neither variable is used. The
program should instead say:
use lib "/my/directory";
PERL5OPT Command-line options (switches). Switches in
this variable are taken as if they were on every
Perl command line. Only the -[DIMUdmw] switches
are allowed. When running taint checks (because
the program was running setuid or setgid, or the
-T switch was used), this variable is ignored.
If PERL5OPT begins with -T, tainting will be
enabled, and any subsequent options ignored.
PERLLIB 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 defined, PERLLIB is not used.
PERL5DB The command used to load the debugger code. The
default is:
BEGIN { require 'perl5db.pl' }
PERL5SHELL (specific to the Win32 port)
May be set to an alternative shell that perl
must use internally for executing "backtick"
commands or system(). Default is `cmd.exe /x/c'
on WindowsNT and `command.com /c' on Windows95.
The value is considered to be space-separated.
Precede any character that needs to be protected
(like a space or backslash) with a backslash.
Note that Perl doesn't use COMSPEC for this
purpose because COMSPEC has a high degree of
variability among users, leading to portability
concerns. Besides, perl can use a shell that
may not be fit for interactive use, and setting
COMSPEC to such a shell may interfere with the
proper functioning of other programs (which
usually look in COMSPEC to find a shell fit for
interactive use).
PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS
Relevant only if perl is compiled with the
malloc included with the perl distribution (that
is, if `perl -V:d_mymalloc' is 'define'). If
set, this causes memory statistics to be dumped
after execution. If set to an integer greater
than one, also causes memory statistics to be
dumped after compilation.
PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
Relevant only if your perl executable was built
with -DDEBUGGING, this controls the behavior of
global destruction of objects and other
references.
Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl
handles data specific to particular natural languages. See
the perllocale manpage.
Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables,
except to make them available to the program being executed,
and to child processes. However, programs running setuid
would do well to execute the following lines before doing
anything else, just to keep people honest:
$ENV{PATH} = '/bin:/usr/bin'; # or whatever you need
$ENV{SHELL} = '/bin/sh' if exists $ENV{SHELL};
delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};