man > perlfaq2(1)

PERLFAQ2(1)                       Perl Programmers Reference Guide                       PERLFAQ2(1)

NAME
       perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl

VERSION
       version 5.20210520

DESCRIPTION
       This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find source and documentation for
       Perl, support, and related matters.

   What machines support Perl? Where do I get it?
       The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the Perl development team) is distributed
       only in source code form. You can find the latest releases at <http://www.cpan.org/src/>.

       Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually all known and current
       Unix derivatives are supported (perl's native platform), 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 found <http://www.cpan.org/ports/>
       directory. Because these are not part of the standard distribution, they may and in fact do
       differ from the base perl port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check their respective
       release notes to see just what the differences are. These differences can be either positive
       (e.g. extensions for the features of the particular platform that are not supported in the
       source release of perl) or negative (e.g. might be based upon a less current source release
       of perl).

   How can I get a binary version of Perl?
       See CPAN Ports <http://www.cpan.org/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 <http://strawberryperl.com/> and
       ActivePerl <http://www.activestate.com/activeperl> come with a bundled C compiler.

       Otherwise if you really do want to build Perl, you need to get a binary version of "gcc" for
       your system first. Use a search engine 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 will eventually live on, and then type "make
       install". Most other approaches are doomed to failure.

       One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out the 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 you may need to move
       the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts
       appropriately. @INC is also printed as part of the output of

           % perl -V

       You might also want to check out "How 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 the "Configure" script can't work around for any given
       system or architecture.

   What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN?
       CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a multi-gigabyte archive replicated on
       hundreds of machines all over the world. CPAN contains tens of thousands of modules and
       extensions, source code and documentation, designed for everything from commercial database
       interfaces to keyboard/screen control and running large web sites.

       You can search CPAN on <http://metacpan.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 answers to the most
       frequently asked questions about CPAN.

       The Task::Kensho module has a list of recommended modules which you should review as a good
       starting point.

   Where can I get information on Perl?
       •   <http://www.perl.org/>

       •   <http://perldoc.perl.org/>

       •   <http://learn.perl.org/>

       The  complete  Perl  documentation is available with the Perl distribution.  If you have Perl
       installed locally, you probably have the documentation installed as well: type "perldoc perl"
       in a terminal or view online <http://perldoc.perl.org/perl.html>.

       (Some operating system distributions may ship the documentation in a different  package;  for
       instance, on Debian, you need to install the "perl-doc" package.)

       Many  good  books  have  been  written about Perl--see the section later in perlfaq2 for more
       details.

   What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?
       Perl.com <http://www.perl.com/> used to be part of the  O'Reilly  Network,  a  subsidiary  of
       O'Reilly  Media.  Although it retains most of the original content from its O'Reilly Network,
       it is now hosted by The Perl Foundation <http://www.perlfoundation.org/>.

       The Perl Foundation is an advocacy organization for the Perl language which maintains the web
       site <http://www.perl.org/> as a general advocacy site for the Perl  language.  It  uses  the
       domain  to  provide  general support services to the Perl community, including the hosting of
       mailing lists, web sites, and other services. There  are  also  many  other  sub-domains  for
       special topics like learning Perl and jobs in Perl, such as:

       •   <http://www.perl.org/>

       •   <http://learn.perl.org/>

       •   <http://jobs.perl.org/>

       •   <http://lists.perl.org/>

       Perl  Mongers  <http://www.pm.org/> uses the pm.org domain for services related to local Perl
       user groups, including the hosting of mailing lists and web sites. See the Perl  Mongers  web
       site  <http://www.pm.org/>  for  more  information  about  joining,  starting,  or requesting
       services for a Perl 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  various  topics, specifically the beginners list
       <http://lists.perl.org/list/beginners.html> may be of use.

       Other places to ask questions  are  on  the  PerlMonks  site  <http://www.perlmonks.org/>  or
       stackoverflow <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/perl>.

   Perl Books
       There are many good books on Perl <http://www.perl.org/books/library.html>.

   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 another German-speaking magazine for  Perl
       beginners (see <http://perl-zeitung.at.tf> ).

       Several Unix/Linux related magazines frequently include articles on Perl.

   Which Perl blogs should I read?
       Perl  News  <http://perlnews.org/>  covers  some  of the major events in the Perl world, Perl
       Weekly <http://perlweekly.com/> is a  weekly  e-mail  (and  RSS  feed)  of  hand-picked  Perl
       articles.

       <http://blogs.perl.org/>  hosts  many  Perl  blogs,  there are also several blog aggregators:
       Perlsphere <http://perlsphere.net/> and IronMan <http://ironman.enlightenedperl.org/> are two
       of them.

   What mailing lists are there for Perl?
       A comprehensive list of Perl-related mailing lists can be found at <http://lists.perl.org/>

   Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl?
       Perl already is commercial software: it has a license that you can grab and carefully read to
       your manager. It is distributed in releases and comes in well-defined packages.  There  is  a
       very large and supportive user community and an extensive literature.

       If  you  still  need  commercial  support ActiveState <http://www.activestate.com/activeperl>
       offers this.

   Where do I send bug reports?
       (contributed by brian d foy)

       First, ensure that you've found an actual bug. Second, ensure you've found an actual bug.

       If you've found a bug with the perl interpreter or one of the modules in the standard library
       (those that come with Perl), you can submit a bug report  to  the  GitHub  issue  tracker  at
       <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>.

       To  determine  if  a  module  came  with  your  version  of Perl, you can install and use the
       Module::CoreList module. It has the information  about  the  modules  (with  their  versions)
       included with each release of 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 by email.  To  email  a  bug  report,  send  it  to
       bug-<distribution-name>@rt.cpan.org  .  For  example,  if  you  wanted  to  report  a  bug in
       Business::ISBN, you could send a message to bug-Business-ISBN AT rt.org .

       Some modules might have special reporting requirements, such  as  a  GitHub  or  Google  Code
       tracking system, so you should check the module documentation too.

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (c) 1997-2010 Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, and other authors as noted. All
       rights reserved.

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

       Irrespective  of  its  distribution, all code examples here are in the public domain. You are
       permitted and encouraged to use this code and any derivatives thereof in  your  own  programs
       for  fun  or for profit as you see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ
       would be courteous but is not required.

perl v5.38.2                                 2026-08-18                                  PERLFAQ2(1)