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| 33 | .ds C+ C\v'-.1v'\h'-1p'\s-2+\h'-1p'+\s0\v'.1v'\h'-1p' |
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| 95 | . ds ' \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu*8/10-\*(#H)'\'\h"|\\n:u" |
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| 97 | . ds ^ \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu*10/11-\*(#H)'^\h'|\\n:u' |
| 98 | . ds , \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu*8/10)',\h'|\\n:u' |
| 99 | . ds ~ \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu-\*(#H-.1m)'~\h'|\\n:u' |
| 100 | . ds / \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu*8/10-\*(#H)'\z\(sl\h'|\\n:u' |
| 101 | .\} |
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| 103 | .ds : \\k:\h'-(\\n(.wu*8/10-\*(#H+.1m+\*(#F)'\v'-\*(#V'\z.\h'.2m+\*(#F'.\h'|\\n:u'\v'\*(#V' |
| 104 | .ds 8 \h'\*(#H'\(*b\h'-\*(#H' |
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| 124 | . ds Th \o'LP' |
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| 126 | . ds Ae AE |
| 127 | .\} |
| 128 | .rm #[ #] #H #V #F C |
| 129 | .\" ======================================================================== |
| 130 | .\" |
| 131 | .IX Title "PERLFAQ 1" |
| 132 | .TH PERLFAQ 1 "2002-06-08" "perl v5.8.0" "Perl Programmers Reference Guide" |
| 133 | .SH "NAME" |
| 134 | perlfaq \- frequently asked questions about Perl ($Date: 2002/03/11 21:32:23 $) |
| 135 | .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| 136 | .IX Header "DESCRIPTION" |
| 137 | The perlfaq is structured into the following documents: |
| 138 | .Sh "perlfaq: Structural overview of the \s-1FAQ\s0." |
| 139 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq: Structural overview of the FAQ." |
| 140 | This document. |
| 141 | .Sh "perlfaq1: General Questions About Perl" |
| 142 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq1: General Questions About Perl" |
| 143 | Very general, high-level questions about Perl. |
| 144 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 145 | What is Perl? |
| 146 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 147 | Who supports Perl? Who develops it? Why is it free? |
| 148 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 149 | Which version of Perl should I use? |
| 150 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 151 | What are perl4 and perl5? |
| 152 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 153 | What is perl6? |
| 154 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 155 | How stable is Perl? |
| 156 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 157 | Is Perl difficult to learn? |
| 158 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 159 | How does Perl compare with other languages like Java, Python, \s-1REXX\s0, Scheme, or Tcl? |
| 160 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 161 | Can I do [task] in Perl? |
| 162 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 163 | When shouldn't I program in Perl? |
| 164 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 165 | What's the difference between \*(L"perl\*(R" and \*(L"Perl\*(R"? |
| 166 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 167 | Is it a Perl program or a Perl script? |
| 168 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 169 | What is a \s-1JAPH\s0? |
| 170 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 171 | Where can I get a list of Larry Wall witticisms? |
| 172 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 173 | How can I convince my sysadmin/supervisor/employees to use version 5/5.6.1/Perl instead of some other language? |
| 174 | .Sh "perlfaq2: Obtaining and Learning about Perl" |
| 175 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq2: Obtaining and Learning about Perl" |
| 176 | Where to find source and documentation for Perl, support, |
| 177 | and related matters. |
| 178 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 179 | What machines support Perl? Where do I get it? |
| 180 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 181 | How can I get a binary version of Perl? |
| 182 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 183 | I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl? |
| 184 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 185 | I copied the Perl binary from one machine to another, but scripts don't work. |
| 186 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 187 | I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work? |
| 188 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 189 | What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is \s-1CPAN\s0? What does CPAN/src/... mean? |
| 190 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 191 | Is there an \s-1ISO\s0 or \s-1ANSI\s0 certified version of Perl? |
| 192 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 193 | Where can I get information on Perl? |
| 194 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 195 | What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions? |
| 196 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 197 | Where should I post source code? |
| 198 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 199 | Perl Books |
| 200 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 201 | Perl in Magazines |
| 202 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 203 | Perl on the Net: \s-1FTP\s0 and \s-1WWW\s0 Access |
| 204 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 205 | What mailing lists are there for Perl? |
| 206 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 207 | Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc |
| 208 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 209 | Where can I buy a commercial version of Perl? |
| 210 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 211 | Where do I send bug reports? |
| 212 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 213 | What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org? |
| 214 | .Sh "perlfaq3: Programming Tools" |
| 215 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq3: Programming Tools" |
| 216 | Programmer tools and programming support. |
| 217 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 218 | How do I do (anything)? |
| 219 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 220 | How can I use Perl interactively? |
| 221 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 222 | Is there a Perl shell? |
| 223 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 224 | How do I debug my Perl programs? |
| 225 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 226 | How do I profile my Perl programs? |
| 227 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 228 | How do I cross-reference my Perl programs? |
| 229 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 230 | Is there a pretty-printer (formatter) for Perl? |
| 231 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 232 | Is there a ctags for Perl? |
| 233 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 234 | Is there an \s-1IDE\s0 or Windows Perl Editor? |
| 235 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 236 | Where can I get Perl macros for vi? |
| 237 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 238 | Where can I get perl-mode for emacs? |
| 239 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 240 | How can I use curses with Perl? |
| 241 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 242 | How can I use X or Tk with Perl? |
| 243 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 244 | How can I generate simple menus without using \s-1CGI\s0 or Tk? |
| 245 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 246 | How can I make my Perl program run faster? |
| 247 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 248 | How can I make my Perl program take less memory? |
| 249 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 250 | Is it unsafe to return a pointer to local data? |
| 251 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 252 | How can I free an array or hash so my program shrinks? |
| 253 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 254 | How can I make my \s-1CGI\s0 script more efficient? |
| 255 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 256 | How can I hide the source for my Perl program? |
| 257 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 258 | How can I compile my Perl program into byte code or C? |
| 259 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 260 | How can I compile Perl into Java? |
| 261 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 262 | How can I get \f(CW\*(C`#!perl\*(C'\fR to work on [\s-1MS\-DOS\s0,NT,...]? |
| 263 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 264 | Can I write useful Perl programs on the command line? |
| 265 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 266 | Why don't Perl one-liners work on my DOS/Mac/VMS system? |
| 267 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 268 | Where can I learn about \s-1CGI\s0 or Web programming in Perl? |
| 269 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 270 | Where can I learn about object-oriented Perl programming? |
| 271 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 272 | Where can I learn about linking C with Perl? [h2xs, xsubpp] |
| 273 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 274 | I've read perlembed, perlguts, etc., but I can't embed perl in |
| 275 | my C program; what am I doing wrong? |
| 276 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 277 | When I tried to run my script, I got this message. What does it mean? |
| 278 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 279 | What's MakeMaker? |
| 280 | .Sh "perlfaq4: Data Manipulation" |
| 281 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq4: Data Manipulation" |
| 282 | Manipulating numbers, dates, strings, arrays, hashes, and |
| 283 | miscellaneous data issues. |
| 284 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 285 | Why am I getting long decimals (eg, 19.9499999999999) instead of the numbers I should be getting (eg, 19.95)? |
| 286 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 287 | Why isn't my octal data interpreted correctly? |
| 288 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 289 | Does Perl have a \fIround()\fR function? What about \fIceil()\fR and \fIfloor()\fR? Trig functions? |
| 290 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 291 | How do I convert between numeric representations? |
| 292 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 293 | Why doesn't & work the way I want it to? |
| 294 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 295 | How do I multiply matrices? |
| 296 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 297 | How do I perform an operation on a series of integers? |
| 298 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 299 | How can I output Roman numerals? |
| 300 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 301 | Why aren't my random numbers random? |
| 302 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 303 | How do I get a random number between X and Y? |
| 304 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 305 | How do I find the week\-of\-the\-year/day\-of\-the\-year? |
| 306 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 307 | How do I find the current century or millennium? |
| 308 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 309 | How can I compare two dates and find the difference? |
| 310 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 311 | How can I take a string and turn it into epoch seconds? |
| 312 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 313 | How can I find the Julian Day? |
| 314 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 315 | How do I find yesterday's date? |
| 316 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 317 | Does Perl have a Year 2000 problem? Is Perl Y2K compliant? |
| 318 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 319 | How do I validate input? |
| 320 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 321 | How do I unescape a string? |
| 322 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 323 | How do I remove consecutive pairs of characters? |
| 324 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 325 | How do I expand function calls in a string? |
| 326 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 327 | How do I find matching/nesting anything? |
| 328 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 329 | How do I reverse a string? |
| 330 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 331 | How do I expand tabs in a string? |
| 332 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 333 | How do I reformat a paragraph? |
| 334 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 335 | How can I access/change the first N letters of a string? |
| 336 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 337 | How do I change the Nth occurrence of something? |
| 338 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 339 | How can I count the number of occurrences of a substring within a string? |
| 340 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 341 | How do I capitalize all the words on one line? |
| 342 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 343 | How can I split a [character] delimited string except when inside |
| 344 | [character]? (Comma\-separated files) |
| 345 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 346 | How do I strip blank space from the beginning/end of a string? |
| 347 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 348 | How do I pad a string with blanks or pad a number with zeroes? |
| 349 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 350 | How do I extract selected columns from a string? |
| 351 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 352 | How do I find the soundex value of a string? |
| 353 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 354 | How can I expand variables in text strings? |
| 355 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 356 | What's wrong with always quoting \*(L"$vars\*(R"? |
| 357 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 358 | Why don't my <<\s-1HERE\s0 documents work? |
| 359 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 360 | What is the difference between a list and an array? |
| 361 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 362 | What is the difference between \f(CW$array\fR[1] and \f(CW@array\fR[1]? |
| 363 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 364 | How can I remove duplicate elements from a list or array? |
| 365 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 366 | How can I tell whether a certain element is contained in a list or array? |
| 367 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 368 | How do I compute the difference of two arrays? How do I compute the intersection of two arrays? |
| 369 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 370 | How do I test whether two arrays or hashes are equal? |
| 371 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 372 | How do I find the first array element for which a condition is true? |
| 373 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 374 | How do I handle linked lists? |
| 375 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 376 | How do I handle circular lists? |
| 377 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 378 | How do I shuffle an array randomly? |
| 379 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 380 | How do I process/modify each element of an array? |
| 381 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 382 | How do I select a random element from an array? |
| 383 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 384 | How do I permute N elements of a list? |
| 385 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 386 | How do I sort an array by (anything)? |
| 387 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 388 | How do I manipulate arrays of bits? |
| 389 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 390 | Why does \fIdefined()\fR return true on empty arrays and hashes? |
| 391 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 392 | How do I process an entire hash? |
| 393 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 394 | What happens if I add or remove keys from a hash while iterating over it? |
| 395 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 396 | How do I look up a hash element by value? |
| 397 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 398 | How can I know how many entries are in a hash? |
| 399 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 400 | How do I sort a hash (optionally by value instead of key)? |
| 401 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 402 | How can I always keep my hash sorted? |
| 403 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 404 | What's the difference between \*(L"delete\*(R" and \*(L"undef\*(R" with hashes? |
| 405 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 406 | Why don't my tied hashes make the defined/exists distinction? |
| 407 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 408 | How do I reset an \fIeach()\fR operation part-way through? |
| 409 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 410 | How can I get the unique keys from two hashes? |
| 411 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 412 | How can I store a multidimensional array in a \s-1DBM\s0 file? |
| 413 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 414 | How can I make my hash remember the order I put elements into it? |
| 415 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 416 | Why does passing a subroutine an undefined element in a hash create it? |
| 417 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 418 | How can I make the Perl equivalent of a C structure/\*(C+ class/hash or array of hashes or arrays? |
| 419 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 420 | How can I use a reference as a hash key? |
| 421 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 422 | How do I handle binary data correctly? |
| 423 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 424 | How do I determine whether a scalar is a number/whole/integer/float? |
| 425 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 426 | How do I keep persistent data across program calls? |
| 427 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 428 | How do I print out or copy a recursive data structure? |
| 429 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 430 | How do I define methods for every class/object? |
| 431 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 432 | How do I verify a credit card checksum? |
| 433 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 434 | How do I pack arrays of doubles or floats for \s-1XS\s0 code? |
| 435 | .Sh "perlfaq5: Files and Formats" |
| 436 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq5: Files and Formats" |
| 437 | I/O and the \*(L"f\*(R" issues: filehandles, flushing, formats, and footers. |
| 438 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 439 | How do I flush/unbuffer an output filehandle? Why must I do this? |
| 440 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 441 | How do I change one line in a file/delete a line in a file/insert a line in the middle of a file/append to the beginning of a file? |
| 442 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 443 | How do I count the number of lines in a file? |
| 444 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 445 | How do I make a temporary file name? |
| 446 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 447 | How can I manipulate fixed-record-length files? |
| 448 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 449 | How can I make a filehandle local to a subroutine? How do I pass filehandles between subroutines? How do I make an array of filehandles? |
| 450 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 451 | How can I use a filehandle indirectly? |
| 452 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 453 | How can I set up a footer format to be used with \fIwrite()\fR? |
| 454 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 455 | How can I \fIwrite()\fR into a string? |
| 456 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 457 | How can I output my numbers with commas added? |
| 458 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 459 | How can I translate tildes (~) in a filename? |
| 460 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 461 | How come when I open a file read-write it wipes it out? |
| 462 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 463 | Why do I sometimes get an \*(L"Argument list too long\*(R" when I use <*>? |
| 464 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 465 | Is there a leak/bug in \fIglob()\fR? |
| 466 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 467 | How can I open a file with a leading \*(L">\*(R" or trailing blanks? |
| 468 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 469 | How can I reliably rename a file? |
| 470 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 471 | How can I lock a file? |
| 472 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 473 | Why can't I just open(\s-1FH\s0, \*(L">file.lock\*(R")? |
| 474 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 475 | I still don't get locking. I just want to increment the number in the file. How can I do this? |
| 476 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 477 | All I want to do is append a small amount of text to the end of a file. Do I still have to use locking? |
| 478 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 479 | How do I randomly update a binary file? |
| 480 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 481 | How do I get a file's timestamp in perl? |
| 482 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 483 | How do I set a file's timestamp in perl? |
| 484 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 485 | How do I print to more than one file at once? |
| 486 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 487 | How can I read in an entire file all at once? |
| 488 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 489 | How can I read in a file by paragraphs? |
| 490 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 491 | How can I read a single character from a file? From the keyboard? |
| 492 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 493 | How can I tell whether there's a character waiting on a filehandle? |
| 494 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 495 | How do I do a \f(CW\*(C`tail \-f\*(C'\fR in perl? |
| 496 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 497 | How do I \fIdup()\fR a filehandle in Perl? |
| 498 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 499 | How do I close a file descriptor by number? |
| 500 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 501 | Why can't I use \*(L"C:\etemp\efoo\*(R" in \s-1DOS\s0 paths? What doesn't `C:\etemp\efoo.exe` work? |
| 502 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 503 | Why doesn't glob(\*(L"*.*\*(R") get all the files? |
| 504 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 505 | Why does Perl let me delete read-only files? Why does \f(CW\*(C`\-i\*(C'\fR clobber protected files? Isn't this a bug in Perl? |
| 506 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 507 | How do I select a random line from a file? |
| 508 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 509 | Why do I get weird spaces when I print an array of lines? |
| 510 | .Sh "perlfaq6: Regular Expressions" |
| 511 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq6: Regular Expressions" |
| 512 | Pattern matching and regular expressions. |
| 513 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 514 | How can I hope to use regular expressions without creating illegible and unmaintainable code? |
| 515 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 516 | I'm having trouble matching over more than one line. What's wrong? |
| 517 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 518 | How can I pull out lines between two patterns that are themselves on different lines? |
| 519 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 520 | I put a regular expression into $/ but it didn't work. What's wrong? |
| 521 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 522 | How do I substitute case insensitively on the \s-1LHS\s0 while preserving case on the \s-1RHS\s0? |
| 523 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 524 | How can I make \f(CW\*(C`\ew\*(C'\fR match national character sets? |
| 525 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 526 | How can I match a locale-smart version of \f(CW\*(C`/[a\-zA\-Z]/\*(C'\fR? |
| 527 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 528 | How can I quote a variable to use in a regex? |
| 529 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 530 | What is \f(CW\*(C`/o\*(C'\fR really for? |
| 531 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 532 | How do I use a regular expression to strip C style comments from a file? |
| 533 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 534 | Can I use Perl regular expressions to match balanced text? |
| 535 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 536 | What does it mean that regexes are greedy? How can I get around it? |
| 537 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 538 | How do I process each word on each line? |
| 539 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 540 | How can I print out a word-frequency or line-frequency summary? |
| 541 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 542 | How can I do approximate matching? |
| 543 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 544 | How do I efficiently match many regular expressions at once? |
| 545 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 546 | Why don't word-boundary searches with \f(CW\*(C`\eb\*(C'\fR work for me? |
| 547 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 548 | Why does using $&, $`, or $' slow my program down? |
| 549 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 550 | What good is \f(CW\*(C`\eG\*(C'\fR in a regular expression? |
| 551 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 552 | Are Perl regexes DFAs or NFAs? Are they \s-1POSIX\s0 compliant? |
| 553 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 554 | What's wrong with using grep or map in a void context? |
| 555 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 556 | How can I match strings with multibyte characters? |
| 557 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 558 | How do I match a pattern that is supplied by the user? |
| 559 | .Sh "perlfaq7: General Perl Language Issues" |
| 560 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq7: General Perl Language Issues" |
| 561 | General Perl language issues that don't clearly fit into any of the |
| 562 | other sections. |
| 563 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 564 | Can I get a BNF/yacc/RE for the Perl language? |
| 565 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 566 | What are all these $@%&* punctuation signs, and how do I know when to use them? |
| 567 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 568 | Do I always/never have to quote my strings or use semicolons and commas? |
| 569 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 570 | How do I skip some return values? |
| 571 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 572 | How do I temporarily block warnings? |
| 573 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 574 | What's an extension? |
| 575 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 576 | Why do Perl operators have different precedence than C operators? |
| 577 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 578 | How do I declare/create a structure? |
| 579 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 580 | How do I create a module? |
| 581 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 582 | How do I create a class? |
| 583 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 584 | How can I tell if a variable is tainted? |
| 585 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 586 | What's a closure? |
| 587 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 588 | What is variable suicide and how can I prevent it? |
| 589 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 590 | How can I pass/return a {Function, FileHandle, Array, Hash, Method, Regex}? |
| 591 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 592 | How do I create a static variable? |
| 593 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 594 | What's the difference between dynamic and lexical (static) scoping? Between \fIlocal()\fR and \fImy()\fR? |
| 595 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 596 | How can I access a dynamic variable while a similarly named lexical is in scope? |
| 597 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 598 | What's the difference between deep and shallow binding? |
| 599 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 600 | Why doesn't \*(L"my($foo) = <\s-1FILE\s0>;\*(R" work right? |
| 601 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 602 | How do I redefine a builtin function, operator, or method? |
| 603 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 604 | What's the difference between calling a function as &foo and \fIfoo()\fR? |
| 605 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 606 | How do I create a switch or case statement? |
| 607 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 608 | How can I catch accesses to undefined variables/functions/methods? |
| 609 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 610 | Why can't a method included in this same file be found? |
| 611 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 612 | How can I find out my current package? |
| 613 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 614 | How can I comment out a large block of perl code? |
| 615 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 616 | How do I clear a package? |
| 617 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 618 | How can I use a variable as a variable name? |
| 619 | .Sh "perlfaq8: System Interaction" |
| 620 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq8: System Interaction" |
| 621 | Interprocess communication (\s-1IPC\s0), control over the user-interface |
| 622 | (keyboard, screen and pointing devices). |
| 623 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 624 | How do I find out which operating system I'm running under? |
| 625 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 626 | How come \fIexec()\fR doesn't return? |
| 627 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 628 | How do I do fancy stuff with the keyboard/screen/mouse? |
| 629 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 630 | How do I print something out in color? |
| 631 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 632 | How do I read just one key without waiting for a return key? |
| 633 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 634 | How do I check whether input is ready on the keyboard? |
| 635 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 636 | How do I clear the screen? |
| 637 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 638 | How do I get the screen size? |
| 639 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 640 | How do I ask the user for a password? |
| 641 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 642 | How do I read and write the serial port? |
| 643 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 644 | How do I decode encrypted password files? |
| 645 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 646 | How do I start a process in the background? |
| 647 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 648 | How do I trap control characters/signals? |
| 649 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 650 | How do I modify the shadow password file on a Unix system? |
| 651 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 652 | How do I set the time and date? |
| 653 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 654 | How can I \fIsleep()\fR or \fIalarm()\fR for under a second? |
| 655 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 656 | How can I measure time under a second? |
| 657 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 658 | How can I do an \fIatexit()\fR or \fIsetjmp()\fR/\fIlongjmp()\fR? (Exception handling) |
| 659 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 660 | Why doesn't my sockets program work under System V (Solaris)? What does the error message \*(L"Protocol not supported\*(R" mean? |
| 661 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 662 | How can I call my system's unique C functions from Perl? |
| 663 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 664 | Where do I get the include files to do \fIioctl()\fR or \fIsyscall()\fR? |
| 665 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 666 | Why do setuid perl scripts complain about kernel problems? |
| 667 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 668 | How can I open a pipe both to and from a command? |
| 669 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 670 | Why can't I get the output of a command with \fIsystem()\fR? |
| 671 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 672 | How can I capture \s-1STDERR\s0 from an external command? |
| 673 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 674 | Why doesn't \fIopen()\fR return an error when a pipe open fails? |
| 675 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 676 | What's wrong with using backticks in a void context? |
| 677 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 678 | How can I call backticks without shell processing? |
| 679 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 680 | Why can't my script read from \s-1STDIN\s0 after I gave it \s-1EOF\s0 (^D on Unix, ^Z on \s-1MS\-DOS\s0)? |
| 681 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 682 | How can I convert my shell script to perl? |
| 683 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 684 | Can I use perl to run a telnet or ftp session? |
| 685 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 686 | How can I write expect in Perl? |
| 687 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 688 | Is there a way to hide perl's command line from programs such as \*(L"ps\*(R"? |
| 689 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 690 | I {changed directory, modified my environment} in a perl script. How come the change disappeared when I exited the script? How do I get my changes to be visible? |
| 691 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 692 | How do I close a process's filehandle without waiting for it to complete? |
| 693 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 694 | How do I fork a daemon process? |
| 695 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 696 | How do I find out if I'm running interactively or not? |
| 697 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 698 | How do I timeout a slow event? |
| 699 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 700 | How do I set \s-1CPU\s0 limits? |
| 701 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 702 | How do I avoid zombies on a Unix system? |
| 703 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 704 | How do I use an \s-1SQL\s0 database? |
| 705 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 706 | How do I make a \fIsystem()\fR exit on control\-C? |
| 707 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 708 | How do I open a file without blocking? |
| 709 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 710 | How do I install a module from \s-1CPAN\s0? |
| 711 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 712 | What's the difference between require and use? |
| 713 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 714 | How do I keep my own module/library directory? |
| 715 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 716 | How do I add the directory my program lives in to the module/library search path? |
| 717 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 718 | How do I add a directory to my include path at runtime? |
| 719 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 720 | What is socket.ph and where do I get it? |
| 721 | .Sh "perlfaq9: Networking" |
| 722 | .IX Subsection "perlfaq9: Networking" |
| 723 | Networking, the internet, and a few on the web. |
| 724 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 725 | What is the correct form of response from a \s-1CGI\s0 script? |
| 726 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 727 | My \s-1CGI\s0 script runs from the command line but not the browser. (500 Server Error) |
| 728 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 729 | How can I get better error messages from a \s-1CGI\s0 program? |
| 730 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 731 | How do I remove \s-1HTML\s0 from a string? |
| 732 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 733 | How do I extract URLs? |
| 734 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 735 | How do I download a file from the user's machine? How do I open a file on another machine? |
| 736 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 737 | How do I make a pop-up menu in \s-1HTML\s0? |
| 738 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 739 | How do I fetch an \s-1HTML\s0 file? |
| 740 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 741 | How do I automate an \s-1HTML\s0 form submission? |
| 742 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 743 | How do I decode or create those %\-encodings on the web? |
| 744 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 745 | How do I redirect to another page? |
| 746 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 747 | How do I put a password on my web pages? |
| 748 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 749 | How do I edit my .htpasswd and .htgroup files with Perl? |
| 750 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 751 | How do I make sure users can't enter values into a form that cause my \s-1CGI\s0 script to do bad things? |
| 752 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 753 | How do I parse a mail header? |
| 754 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 755 | How do I decode a \s-1CGI\s0 form? |
| 756 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 757 | How do I check a valid mail address? |
| 758 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 759 | How do I decode a \s-1MIME/BASE64\s0 string? |
| 760 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 761 | How do I return the user's mail address? |
| 762 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 763 | How do I send mail? |
| 764 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 765 | How do I use \s-1MIME\s0 to make an attachment to a mail message? |
| 766 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 767 | How do I read mail? |
| 768 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 769 | How do I find out my hostname/domainname/IP address? |
| 770 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 771 | How do I fetch a news article or the active newsgroups? |
| 772 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 773 | How do I fetch/put an \s-1FTP\s0 file? |
| 774 | .IP "\(bu" 4 |
| 775 | How can I do \s-1RPC\s0 in Perl? |
| 776 | .SH "About the perlfaq documents" |
| 777 | .IX Header "About the perlfaq documents" |
| 778 | .Sh "Where to get the perlfaq" |
| 779 | .IX Subsection "Where to get the perlfaq" |
| 780 | This document is posted regularly to comp.lang.perl.announce and |
| 781 | several other related newsgroups. It is available on many |
| 782 | web sites: http://www.perldoc.com/ and http://perlfaq.cpan.org/ . |
| 783 | .Sh "How to contribute to the perlfaq" |
| 784 | .IX Subsection "How to contribute to the perlfaq" |
| 785 | You may mail corrections, additions, and suggestions to |
| 786 | perlfaq\-workers@perl.org . This alias should not be |
| 787 | used to \fIask\fR FAQs. It's for fixing the current \s-1FAQ\s0. |
| 788 | Send questions to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup. |
| 789 | .Sh "What will happen if you mail your Perl programming problems to the authors" |
| 790 | .IX Subsection "What will happen if you mail your Perl programming problems to the authors" |
| 791 | Your questions will probably go unread, unless they're suggestions of |
| 792 | new questions to add to the \s-1FAQ\s0, in which case they should have gone |
| 793 | to the perlfaq\-workers@perl.org instead. |
| 794 | .PP |
| 795 | You should have read section 2 of this faq. There you would have |
| 796 | learned that comp.lang.perl.misc is the appropriate place to go for |
| 797 | free advice. If your question is really important and you require a |
| 798 | prompt and correct answer, you should hire a consultant. |
| 799 | .SH "Credits" |
| 800 | .IX Header "Credits" |
| 801 | When I first began the Perl \s-1FAQ\s0 in the late 80s, I never realized it |
| 802 | would have grown to over a hundred pages, nor that Perl would ever become |
| 803 | so popular and widespread. This document could not have been written |
| 804 | without the tremendous help provided by Larry Wall and the rest of the |
| 805 | Perl Porters. |
| 806 | .SH "Author and Copyright Information" |
| 807 | .IX Header "Author and Copyright Information" |
| 808 | Copyright (c) 1997\-2002 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington. |
| 809 | All rights reserved. |
| 810 | .Sh "Bundled Distributions" |
| 811 | .IX Subsection "Bundled Distributions" |
| 812 | This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it |
| 813 | under the same terms as Perl itself. |
| 814 | .PP |
| 815 | Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples in these files |
| 816 | are hereby placed into the public domain. You are permitted and |
| 817 | encouraged to use this code in your own programs for fun |
| 818 | or for profit as you see fit. A simple comment in the code giving |
| 819 | credit would be courteous but is not required. |
| 820 | .Sh "Disclaimer" |
| 821 | .IX Subsection "Disclaimer" |
| 822 | This information is offered in good faith and in the hope that it may |
| 823 | be of use, but is not guaranteed to be correct, up to date, or suitable |
| 824 | for any particular purpose whatsoever. The authors accept no liability |
| 825 | in respect of this information or its use. |
| 826 | .SH "Changes" |
| 827 | .IX Header "Changes" |
| 828 | .IP "1/November/2000" 4 |
| 829 | .IX Item "1/November/2000" |
| 830 | A few grammatical fixes and updates implemented by John Borwick. |
| 831 | .IP "23/May/99" 4 |
| 832 | .IX Item "23/May/99" |
| 833 | Extensive updates from the net in preparation for 5.6 release. |
| 834 | .IP "13/April/99" 4 |
| 835 | .IX Item "13/April/99" |
| 836 | More minor touch\-ups. Added new question at the end |
| 837 | of perlfaq7 on variable names within variables. |
| 838 | .IP "7/January/99" 4 |
| 839 | .IX Item "7/January/99" |
| 840 | Small touch ups here and there. Added all questions in this |
| 841 | document as a sort of table of contents. |
| 842 | .IP "22/June/98" 4 |
| 843 | .IX Item "22/June/98" |
| 844 | Significant changes throughout in preparation for the 5.005 |
| 845 | release. |
| 846 | .IP "24/April/97" 4 |
| 847 | .IX Item "24/April/97" |
| 848 | Style and whitespace changes from Chip, new question on reading one |
| 849 | character at a time from a terminal using \s-1POSIX\s0 from Tom. |
| 850 | .IP "23/April/97" 4 |
| 851 | .IX Item "23/April/97" |
| 852 | Added http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/ to perlfaq2. Style fix to |
| 853 | perlfaq3. Added floating point precision, fixed complex number |
| 854 | arithmetic, cross\-references, caveat for Text::Wrap, alternative |
| 855 | answer for initial capitalizing, fixed incorrect regexp, added example |
| 856 | of Tie::IxHash to perlfaq4. Added example of passing and storing |
| 857 | filehandles, added commify to perlfaq5. Restored variable suicide, |
| 858 | and added mass commenting to perlfaq7. Added Net::Telnet, fixed |
| 859 | backticks, added reader/writer pair to telnet question, added FindBin, |
| 860 | grouped module questions together in perlfaq8. Expanded caveats |
| 861 | for the simple \s-1URL\s0 extractor, gave \s-1LWP\s0 example, added \s-1CGI\s0 security |
| 862 | question, expanded on the mail address answer in perlfaq9. |
| 863 | .IP "25/March/97" 4 |
| 864 | .IX Item "25/March/97" |
| 865 | Added more info to the binary distribution section of perlfaq2. |
| 866 | Added Net::Telnet to perlfaq6. Fixed typos in perlfaq8. Added |
| 867 | mail sending example to perlfaq9. Added Merlyn's columns to |
| 868 | perlfaq2. |
| 869 | .IP "18/March/97" 4 |
| 870 | .IX Item "18/March/97" |
| 871 | Added the \s-1DATE\s0 to the \s-1NAME\s0 section, indicating which sections have |
| 872 | changed. |
| 873 | .Sp |
| 874 | Mentioned \s-1SIGPIPE\s0 and perlipc in the forking open answer in |
| 875 | perlfaq8. |
| 876 | .Sp |
| 877 | Fixed description of a regular expression in perlfaq4. |
| 878 | .IP "17/March/97 Version" 4 |
| 879 | .IX Item "17/March/97 Version" |
| 880 | Various typos fixed throughout. |
| 881 | .Sp |
| 882 | Added new question on Perl \s-1BNF\s0 on perlfaq7. |
| 883 | .IP "Initial Release: 11/March/97" 4 |
| 884 | .IX Item "Initial Release: 11/March/97" |
| 885 | This is the initial release of version 3 of the \s-1FAQ\s0; consequently there |
| 886 | have been no changes since its initial release. |