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Config::Perl::V(3perl) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Config::Perl::V(3perl)

📛 NAME

Config::Perl::V - Structured data retrieval of perl -V output

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Get local Perl configuration as a structured hash	Config::Perl::V::myconfig()	Returns a hash reference with build, environment, config, and inc information.
Parse a perl -V text block into a hash	Config::Perl::V::plv2hash($text)	Converts textual perl -V output into the myconfig hash structure.
Get a summary of configuration	Config::Perl::V::summary($conf)	Returns an arbitrary selection of key configuration details.
Get a unique signature (MD5) of the configuration	Config::Perl::V::signature($conf)	Returns MD5 of the summary output, excluding config_args.

📖 SYNOPSIS

use Config::Perl::V;

my $local_config = Config::Perl::V::myconfig ();
print $local_config->{config}{osname};

📝 DESCRIPTION

🔧 myconfig()

This function will collect the data described in The hash structure below, and return that as a hash reference. It optionally accepts an option to include more entries from %ENV. See environment below.

Note that this will not work on uninstalled perls when called with -I/path/to/uninstalled/perl/lib, but it works when that path is in $PERL5LIB or in $PERL5OPT, as paths passed using -I are not known when the -V information is collected.

🔧 plv2hash($text [, ...])

Convert a sole 'perl -V' text block, or list of lines, to a complete myconfig hash. All unknown entries are defaulted.

🔧 summary([$conf])

Return an arbitrary selection of the information. If no $conf is given, myconfig() is used instead.

🔧 signature([$conf])

Return the MD5 of the info returned by summary() without the config_args entry.

If Digest::MD5 is not available, it returns a string with only 0's.

🏗️ The hash structure

The returned hash consists of 4 parts:

🏗️ build

This information is extracted from the second block that is emitted by perl -V, and usually looks something like

Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
  Compile-time options: DEBUGGING USE_64_BIT_INT USE_LARGE_FILES
  Locally applied patches:
        defined-or
        MAINT24637
  Built under linux
  Compiled at Jun 13 2005 10:44:20
  @INC:
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.7/i686-linux-64int
    /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.7
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/i686-linux-64int
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
    .

or

Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
  Compile-time options: DEBUGGING MULTIPLICITY
                        PERL_DONT_CREATE_GVSV PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT
                        PERL_MALLOC_WRAP PERL_TRACK_MEMPOOL
                        PERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV USE_ITHREADS
                        USE_LARGE_FILES USE_PERLIO
                        USE_REENTRANT_API
  Built under linux
  Compiled at Jan 28 2009 15:26:59

This information is not available anywhere else, including %Config, but it is the information that is only known to the perl binary.

The extracted information is stored in 5 entries in the build hash:

• osname — Most likely the same as $Config{osname}, known when perl was built. Might differ if cross-compiled. Default: copies $Config{osname}. Casing may differ (e.g., OpenBSD vs openbsd).
• stamp — The time string for which the perl binary was compiled. Default: 0.
• options — A hash with all known defines as keys. Value 0 = unknown/unset, 1 = defined.
• derived — Entries that might have been guessed by the printed output, separated to keep config close to reality.
• patches — A list of optionally locally applied patches. Default: empty list.

🌍 environment

By default this hash is only filled with environment variables from %ENV that start with "PERL", but you can pass the env option to myconfig to get more:

my $conf = Config::Perl::V::myconfig ({ env => qr/^ORACLE/ });
my $conf = Config::Perl::V::myconfig ([ env => qr/^ORACLE/ ]);

⚙️ config

This hash is filled with the variables that perl -V fills its report with, and it has the same variables that Config::myconfig returns from %Config.

📁 inc

This is the list of default @INC.

🤔 REASONING

This module was written to be able to return the configuration for the currently used perl as deeply as needed for the CPANTESTERS framework. Up until now they used the output of myconfig as a single text blob, and so it was missing the vital binary characteristics of the running perl and the optional applied patches.

🐛 BUGS

Please feedback what is wrong

📋 TODO

• Implement retrieval functions/methods
• Documentation
• Error checking
• Tests

👤 AUTHOR

H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand AT xs4all.nl>

📄 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2009-2020 H.Merijn Brand

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.34.0 2026-06-23 Config::Perl::V(3perl)

📛 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📖 SYNOPSIS 📝 DESCRIPTION 🤔 REASONING 🐛 BUGS 📋 TODO 👤 AUTHOR 📄 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE