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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.13 $, $Date: 2002/04/26 16:56:35 $) | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
6 | ||
7 | This section of the FAQ answers questions about where to find | |
8 | source and documentation for Perl, support, and | |
9 | related matters. | |
10 | ||
11 | =head2 What machines support Perl? Where do I get it? | |
12 | ||
13 | The standard release of Perl (the one maintained by the perl | |
14 | development team) is distributed only in source code form. You | |
15 | can find this at http://www.cpan.org/src/latest.tar.gz , which | |
16 | is in a standard Internet format (a gzipped archive in POSIX tar format). | |
17 | ||
18 | Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually | |
19 | all known and current Unix derivatives are supported (Perl's native | |
20 | platform), as are other systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows, | |
21 | QNX, BeOS, OS X, MPE/iX and the Amiga. | |
22 | ||
23 | Binary distributions for some proprietary platforms, including | |
24 | Apple systems, can be found http://www.cpan.org/ports/ directory. | |
25 | Because these are not part of the standard distribution, they may | |
26 | and in fact do differ from the base Perl port in a variety of ways. | |
27 | You'll have to check their respective release notes to see just | |
28 | what the differences are. These differences can be either positive | |
29 | (e.g. extensions for the features of the particular platform that | |
30 | are not supported in the source release of perl) or negative (e.g. | |
31 | might be based upon a less current source release of perl). | |
32 | ||
33 | =head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl? | |
34 | ||
35 | If you don't have a C compiler because your vendor for whatever | |
36 | reasons did not include one with your system, the best thing to do is | |
37 | grab a binary version of gcc from the net and use that to compile perl | |
38 | with. CPAN only has binaries for systems that are terribly hard to | |
39 | get free compilers for, not for Unix systems. | |
40 | ||
41 | Some URLs that might help you are: | |
42 | ||
43 | http://www.cpan.org/ports/ | |
44 | http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html | |
45 | ||
46 | Someone looking for a Perl for Win16 might look to Laszlo Molnar's djgpp | |
47 | port in http://www.cpan.org/ports/#msdos , which comes with clear | |
48 | installation instructions. A simple installation guide for MS-DOS using | |
49 | Ilya Zakharevich's OS/2 port is available at | |
50 | http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perl5dos.html | |
51 | and similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perlwin3.html . | |
52 | ||
53 | =head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl? | |
54 | ||
55 | Since you don't have a C compiler, you're doomed and your vendor | |
56 | should be sacrificed to the Sun gods. But that doesn't help you. | |
57 | ||
58 | What you need to do is get a binary version of gcc for your system | |
59 | first. Consult the Usenet FAQs for your operating system for | |
60 | information on where to get such a binary version. | |
61 | ||
62 | =head2 I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work. | |
63 | ||
64 | That's probably because you forgot libraries, or library paths differ. | |
65 | You really should build the whole distribution on the machine it will | |
66 | eventually live on, and then type C<make install>. Most other | |
67 | approaches are doomed to failure. | |
68 | ||
69 | One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out | |
70 | the hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries: | |
71 | ||
72 | % perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)' | |
73 | ||
74 | If this command lists any paths that don't exist on your system, then you | |
75 | may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create | |
76 | symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed as | |
77 | part of the output of | |
78 | ||
79 | % perl -V | |
80 | ||
81 | You might also want to check out | |
82 | L<perlfaq8/"How do I keep my own module/library directory?">. | |
83 | ||
84 | =head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work? | |
85 | ||
86 | Read the F<INSTALL> file, which is part of the source distribution. | |
87 | It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that the | |
88 | Configure script can't work around for any given system or | |
89 | architecture. | |
90 | ||
91 | =head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean? | |
92 | ||
93 | CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a ~700mb archive | |
94 | replicated on nearly 200 machines all over the world. CPAN contains | |
95 | source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and many | |
96 | third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from | |
97 | commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web | |
98 | walking and CGI scripts. The master web site for CPAN is | |
99 | http://www.cpan.org/ and there is the CPAN Multiplexer at | |
100 | http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you | |
101 | via DNS. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the | |
102 | end) for how this process works. Also, http://mirror.cpan.org/ | |
103 | has a nice interface to the http://www.cpan.org/MIRRORED.BY | |
104 | mirror directory. | |
105 | ||
106 | See the CPAN FAQ at http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html for | |
107 | answers to the most frequently asked questions about CPAN | |
108 | including how to become a mirror. | |
109 | ||
110 | CPAN/path/... is a naming convention for files available on CPAN | |
111 | sites. CPAN indicates the base directory of a CPAN mirror, and the | |
112 | rest of the path is the path from that directory to the file. For | |
113 | instance, if you're using ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN | |
114 | as your CPAN site, the file CPAN/misc/japh is downloadable as | |
115 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/misc/japh . | |
116 | ||
117 | Considering that there are close to two thousand existing modules in | |
118 | the archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of. | |
119 | Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include Perl core | |
120 | modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking, | |
121 | devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database | |
122 | interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames, | |
123 | file systems, and file locking; internationalization and locale; world | |
124 | wide web support; server and daemon utilities; archiving and | |
125 | compression; image manipulation; mail and news; control flow | |
126 | utilities; filehandle and I/O; Microsoft Windows modules; and | |
127 | miscellaneous modules. | |
128 | ||
129 | See http://www.cpan.org/modules/00modlist.long.html or | |
130 | http://search.cpan.org/ for a more complete list of modules by category. | |
131 | ||
132 | CPAN is not affiliated with O'Reilly and Associates. | |
133 | ||
134 | =head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl? | |
135 | ||
136 | Certainly not. Larry expects that he'll be certified before Perl is. | |
137 | ||
138 | =head2 Where can I get information on Perl? | |
139 | ||
140 | The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution. | |
141 | If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation | |
142 | installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a system resembling Unix. | |
143 | This will lead you to other important man pages, including how to set your | |
144 | $MANPATH. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation | |
145 | will be different; for example, documentation might only be in HTML format. All | |
146 | proper Perl installations have fully-accessible documentation. | |
147 | ||
148 | You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't | |
149 | have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't | |
150 | work, try looking in /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod for documentation. | |
151 | ||
152 | If all else fails, consult http://perldoc.cpan.org/ or | |
153 | http://www.perldoc.com/ both offer the complete documentation | |
154 | in html format. | |
155 | ||
156 | Many good books have been written about Perl--see the section below | |
157 | for more details. | |
158 | ||
159 | Tutorial documents are included in current or upcoming Perl releases | |
160 | include L<perltoot> for objects or L<perlboot> for a beginner's | |
161 | approach to objects, L<perlopentut> for file opening semantics, | |
162 | L<perlreftut> for managing references, L<perlretut> for regular | |
163 | expressions, L<perlthrtut> for threads, L<perldebtut> for debugging, | |
164 | and L<perlxstut> for linking C and Perl together. There may be more | |
165 | by the time you read this. The following URLs might also be of | |
166 | assistance: | |
167 | ||
168 | http://perldoc.cpan.org/ | |
169 | http://www.perldoc.com/ | |
170 | http://reference.perl.com/query.cgi?tutorials | |
171 | http://bookmarks.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Training%2FTutorials | |
172 | ||
173 | =head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions? | |
174 | ||
175 | The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the | |
176 | following groups: | |
177 | ||
178 | comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group | |
179 | comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general | |
180 | comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group | |
181 | comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules | |
182 | comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl | |
183 | ||
184 | comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web. | |
185 | ||
186 | There is also a Usenet gateway to Perl mailing lists sponsored by perl.org at | |
187 | nntp://nntp.perl.org , a web interface to the same lists at | |
188 | http://nntp.perl.org/group/ and these lists are also available under the | |
189 | C<perl.*> hierarchy at http://groups.google.com . Other groups are listed at | |
190 | http://lists.perl.org/ ( also known as http://lists.cpan.org/ ). | |
191 | ||
192 | A nice place to ask questions is the PerlMonks site, http://www.perlmonks.org/ | |
193 | ||
194 | Note that none of the above are supposed to write your code for you: | |
195 | asking questions about particular problems or general advice is fine, | |
196 | but asking someone to write your code for free is not very cool. | |
197 | ||
198 | =head2 Where should I post source code? | |
199 | ||
200 | You should post source code to whichever group is most appropriate, but | |
201 | feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to cross-post | |
202 | to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting standards, | |
203 | including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT include alt.sources; | |
204 | see their FAQ ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/ ) for details. | |
205 | ||
206 | If you're just looking for software, first use Google | |
207 | ( http://www.google.com ), Google's usenet search interface | |
208 | ( http://groups.google.com ), and CPAN Search ( http://search.cpan.org ). | |
209 | This is faster and more productive than just posting a request. | |
210 | ||
211 | =head2 Perl Books | |
212 | ||
213 | A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of | |
214 | these are good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. Tom | |
215 | Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive | |
216 | reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html . | |
217 | ||
218 | The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by | |
219 | the creator of Perl, is now (July 2000) in its third edition: | |
220 | ||
221 | Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"): | |
222 | by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant | |
223 | 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000] | |
224 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/ | |
225 | (English, translations to several languages are also available) | |
226 | ||
227 | The companion volume to the Camel containing thousands | |
228 | of real-world examples, mini-tutorials, and complete programs is: | |
229 | ||
230 | The Perl Cookbook (the "Ram Book"): | |
231 | by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington, | |
232 | with Foreword by Larry Wall | |
233 | ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st Edition August 1998] | |
234 | http://perl.oreilly.com/cookbook/ | |
235 | ||
236 | If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might | |
237 | suffice for you to learn Perl from. If you're not, check out the | |
238 | Llama book: | |
239 | ||
240 | Learning Perl (the "Llama Book") | |
241 | by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix | |
242 | ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001] | |
243 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/ | |
244 | ||
245 | If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and | |
246 | possibly even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much | |
247 | hand-holding as we try to provide in the Llama, please check out the | |
248 | delightful book | |
249 | ||
250 | Perl: The Programmer's Companion | |
251 | by Nigel Chapman | |
252 | ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998] | |
253 | http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm | |
254 | http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc) | |
255 | ||
256 | If you are more at home in Windows the following is available | |
257 | (though unfortunately rather dated). | |
258 | ||
259 | Learning Perl on Win32 Systems (the "Gecko Book") | |
260 | by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen, | |
261 | with foreword by Larry Wall | |
262 | ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997] | |
263 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/ | |
264 | ||
265 | Addison-Wesley ( http://www.awlonline.com/ ) and Manning | |
266 | ( http://www.manning.com/ ) are also publishers of some fine Perl books | |
267 | such as I<Object Oriented Programming with Perl> by Damian Conway and | |
268 | I<Network Programming with Perl> by Lincoln Stein. | |
269 | ||
270 | An excellent technical book discounter is Bookpool at | |
271 | http://www.bookpool.com/ where a 30% discount or more is not unusual. | |
272 | ||
273 | What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally | |
274 | useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary. | |
275 | ||
276 | Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow. | |
277 | ||
278 | =over 4 | |
279 | ||
280 | =item References | |
281 | ||
282 | Programming Perl | |
283 | by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant | |
284 | ISBN 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000] | |
285 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/ | |
286 | ||
287 | Perl 5 Pocket Reference | |
288 | by Johan Vromans | |
289 | ISBN 0-596-00032-4 [3rd edition May 2000] | |
290 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/ | |
291 | ||
292 | Perl in a Nutshell | |
293 | by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan | |
294 | ISBN 1-56592-286-7 [1st edition December 1998] | |
295 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/ | |
296 | ||
297 | =item Tutorials | |
298 | ||
299 | Elements of Programming with Perl | |
300 | by Andrew L. Johnson | |
301 | ISBN 1-884777-80-5 [1st edition October 1999] | |
302 | http://www.manning.com/Johnson/ | |
303 | ||
304 | Learning Perl | |
305 | by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix | |
306 | ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001] | |
307 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/ | |
308 | ||
309 | Learning Perl on Win32 Systems | |
310 | by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen, | |
311 | with foreword by Larry Wall | |
312 | ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997] | |
313 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/ | |
314 | ||
315 | Perl: The Programmer's Companion | |
316 | by Nigel Chapman | |
317 | ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998] | |
318 | http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm | |
319 | http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc) | |
320 | ||
321 | Cross-Platform Perl | |
322 | by Eric Foster-Johnson | |
323 | ISBN 1-55851-483-X [2nd edition September 2000] | |
324 | http://www.pconline.com/~erc/perlbook.htm | |
325 | ||
326 | MacPerl: Power and Ease | |
327 | by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor, | |
328 | with foreword by Matthias Neeracher | |
329 | ISBN 1-881957-32-2 [1st edition May 1998] | |
330 | http://www.macperl.com/ptf_book/ | |
331 | ||
332 | =item Task-Oriented | |
333 | ||
334 | The Perl Cookbook | |
335 | by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington | |
336 | with foreword by Larry Wall | |
337 | ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st edition August 1998] | |
338 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cookbook/ | |
339 | ||
340 | Effective Perl Programming | |
341 | by Joseph Hall | |
342 | ISBN 0-201-41975-0 [1st edition 1998] | |
343 | http://www.awl.com/ | |
344 | ||
345 | ||
346 | =item Special Topics | |
347 | ||
348 | Mastering Regular Expressions | |
349 | by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl | |
350 | ISBN 1-56592-257-3 [1st edition January 1997] | |
351 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/ | |
352 | ||
353 | Network Programming with Perl | |
354 | by Lincoln Stein | |
355 | ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001] | |
356 | http://www.awlonline.com/ | |
357 | ||
358 | Object Oriented Perl | |
359 | Damian Conway | |
360 | with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz | |
361 | ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999] | |
362 | http://www.manning.com/Conway/ | |
363 | ||
364 | Data Munging with Perl | |
365 | Dave Cross | |
366 | ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001] | |
367 | http://www.manning.com/cross | |
368 | ||
369 | Mastering Perl/Tk | |
370 | by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh | |
371 | ISBN 1-56592-716-8 [1st edition January 2002] | |
372 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mastperltk/ | |
373 | ||
374 | =back | |
375 | ||
376 | =head2 Perl in Magazines | |
377 | ||
378 | The first (and for a long time, only) periodical devoted to All Things Perl, | |
379 | I<The Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies, | |
380 | announcements, contests, and much more. I<TPJ> has columns on web | |
381 | development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming, regular | |
382 | expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl Contest | |
383 | and the Perl Poetry Contests. As of mid-2001, the dead tree version | |
384 | of TPJ will be published as a quarterly supplement of SysAdmin | |
385 | magazine ( http://www.sysadminmag.com/ ) For more details on TPJ, | |
386 | see http://www.tpj.com/ | |
387 | ||
388 | Beyond this, magazines that frequently carry quality articles on | |
389 | Perl are I<The Perl Review> ( http://www.theperlreview.com ), | |
390 | I<Unix Review> ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ), | |
391 | I<Linux Magazine> ( http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ), | |
392 | and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to its members, I<login:> | |
393 | ( http://www.usenix.org/ ) | |
394 | ||
395 | The Perl columns of Randal L. Schwartz are available on the web at | |
396 | http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ , | |
397 | http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/ , and | |
398 | http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/ . | |
399 | ||
400 | =head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access | |
401 | ||
402 | To get the best performance, pick a site from | |
403 | the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites | |
404 | which is at /CPAN/MIRRORED.BY or at http://mirror.cpan.org/ . | |
405 | From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the | |
406 | following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors | |
407 | (the complete list contains 165 sites as of January 2001): | |
408 | ||
409 | http://www.cpan.org/ | |
410 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ | |
411 | http://download.sourceforge.net/mirrors/CPAN/ | |
412 | ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/plan/perl/CPAN/ | |
413 | ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/ | |
414 | ftp://ftp.uvsq.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/ | |
415 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/ | |
416 | ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/lang/CPAN/ | |
417 | ftp://cpan.if.usp.br/pub/mirror/CPAN/ | |
418 | ||
419 | One may also use xx.cpan.org where "xx" is the 2-letter country code | |
420 | for your domain; e.g. Australia would use au.cpan.org. | |
421 | [Note: This only applies to countries that host at least one mirror.] | |
422 | ||
423 | =head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl? | |
424 | ||
425 | Most of the major modules (Tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own | |
426 | mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for | |
427 | subscription information. | |
428 | ||
429 | A comprehensive list of Perl related mailing lists can be found at: | |
430 | ||
431 | http://lists.cpan.org/ | |
432 | ||
433 | ( also visible as http://lists.perl.org/ ) | |
434 | ||
435 | =head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc | |
436 | ||
437 | The Google search engine now carries archived and searchable newsgroup | |
438 | content. | |
439 | ||
440 | http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc | |
441 | ||
442 | If you have a question, you can be sure someone has already asked the | |
443 | same question at some point on c.l.p.m. It requires some time and patience | |
444 | to sift through all the content but often you will find the answer you | |
445 | seek. | |
446 | ||
447 | =head2 Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl? | |
448 | ||
449 | In a real sense, Perl already I<is> commercial software: it has a license | |
450 | that you can grab and carefully read to your manager. It is distributed | |
451 | in releases and comes in well-defined packages. There is a very large | |
452 | user community and an extensive literature. The comp.lang.perl.* | |
453 | newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide free answers to your | |
454 | questions in near real-time. Perl has traditionally been supported by | |
455 | Larry, scores of software designers and developers, and myriad | |
456 | programmers, all working for free to create a useful thing to make life | |
457 | better for everyone. | |
458 | ||
459 | However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a | |
460 | purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go awry. | |
461 | Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual obligations. | |
462 | Shrink-wrapped CDs with Perl on them are available from several sources if | |
463 | that will help. For example, many Perl books include a distribution of Perl, | |
464 | as do the O'Reilly Perl Resource Kits (in both the Unix flavor | |
465 | and in the proprietary Microsoft flavor); the free Unix distributions | |
466 | also all come with Perl. | |
467 | ||
468 | Alternatively, you can purchase commercial incidence based support | |
469 | through the Perl Clinic. The following is a commercial from them: | |
470 | ||
471 | "The Perl Clinic is a commercial Perl support service operated by | |
472 | ActiveState Tool Corp. and The Ingram Group. The operators have many | |
473 | years of in-depth experience with Perl applications and Perl internals | |
474 | on a wide range of platforms. | |
475 | ||
476 | "Through our group of highly experienced and well-trained support engineers, | |
477 | we will put our best effort into understanding your problem, providing an | |
478 | explanation of the situation, and a recommendation on how to proceed." | |
479 | ||
480 | Contact The Perl Clinic at | |
481 | ||
482 | www.PerlClinic.com | |
483 | ||
484 | North America Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8) | |
485 | Tel: 1 604 606-4611 hours 8am-6pm | |
486 | Fax: 1 604 606-4640 | |
487 | ||
488 | Europe (GMT) | |
489 | Tel: 00 44 1483 862814 | |
490 | Fax: 00 44 1483 862801 | |
491 | ||
492 | See also www.perl.com for updates on tutorials, training, and support. | |
493 | ||
494 | =head2 Where do I send bug reports? | |
495 | ||
496 | If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules | |
497 | shipped with Perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the Perl distribution or | |
498 | mail your report to perlbug@perl.org . | |
499 | ||
500 | If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to | |
501 | "What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a | |
502 | non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the | |
503 | documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post | |
504 | bugs. | |
505 | ||
506 | Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information. | |
507 | ||
508 | =head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org? | |
509 | ||
510 | The Perl Home Page at http://www.perl.com/ is currently hosted by | |
511 | The O'Reilly Network, a subsidiary of O'Reilly and Associates. | |
512 | ||
513 | Perl Mongers is an advocacy organization for the Perl language which | |
514 | maintains the web site http://www.perl.org/ as a general advocacy | |
515 | site for the Perl language. | |
516 | ||
517 | Perl Mongers uses the pm.org domain for services related to Perl user | |
518 | groups, including the hosting of mailing lists and web sites. See the | |
519 | Perl user group web site at http://www.pm.org/ for more information about | |
520 | joining, starting, or requesting services for a Perl user group. | |
521 | ||
522 | Perl Mongers also maintain the perl.org domain to provide general | |
523 | support services to the Perl community, including the hosting of mailing | |
524 | lists, web sites, and other services. The web site | |
525 | http://www.perl.org/ is a general advocacy site for the Perl language, | |
526 | and there are many other sub-domains for special topics, such as | |
527 | ||
528 | http://bugs.perl.org/ | |
529 | http://history.perl.org/ | |
530 | http://lists.perl.org/ | |
531 | http://use.perl.org/ | |
532 | ||
533 | http://www.cpan.org/ is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, | |
534 | a replicated worlwide repository of Perl software, see | |
535 | the I<What is CPAN?> question earlier in this document. | |
536 | ||
537 | =head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT | |
538 | ||
539 | Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington. | |
540 | All rights reserved. | |
541 | ||
542 | This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it | |
543 | under the same terms as Perl itself. | |
544 | ||
545 | Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the public | |
546 | domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any | |
547 | derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you | |
548 | see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would | |
549 | be courteous but is not required. |