Provided by: eperl_2.2.14-23build2_amd64 bug

NAME

       ePerl - Embedded Perl 5 Language

VERSION

       @V@

SYNOPSIS

       eperl [-d name=value] [-D name=value] [-B begin_delimiter] [-E end_delimiter] [-i] [-m
       mode] [-o outputfile] [-k] [-I directory] [-P] [-C] [-L] [-x] [-T] [-w] [-c] [inputfile]

       eperl [-r] [-l] [-v] [-V]

DESCRIPTION

   Abstract
       ePerl interprets an ASCII file bristled with Perl 5 program statements by evaluating the
       Perl 5 code while passing through the plain ASCII data. It can operate in various ways: As
       a stand-alone Unix filter or integrated Perl 5 module for general file generation tasks
       and as a powerful Webserver scripting language for dynamic HTML page programming.

   Introduction
       The eperl program is the Embedded Perl 5 Language interpreter. This really is a full-
       featured Perl 5 interpreter, but with a different calling environment and source file
       layout than the default Perl interpreter (usually the executable perl or perl5 on most
       systems).  It is designed for general ASCII file generation with the philosophy of
       embedding the Perl 5 program code into the ASCII data instead of the usual way where you
       embed the ASCII data into a Perl 5 program (usually by quoting the data and using them via
       "print" statements).  So, instead of writing a plain Perl script like

         #!/path/to/perl
         print "foo bar\n";
         print "baz quux\n";
         for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) { print "foo #${i}\n"; }
         print "foo bar\n";
         print "baz quux\n";

       you can write it now as an ePerl script:

         #!/path/to/eperl
         foo bar
         baz quux
         <: for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) { print "foo #${i}\n"; } :>
         foo bar
         baz quux

       Although the ePerl variant has a different source file layout, the semantic is the same,
       i.e. both scripts create exactly the same resulting data on "STDOUT".

   Intention
       ePerl is simply a glue code which combines the programming power of the Perl 5 interpreter
       library with a tricky embedding technique.  The embedding trick is this: it converts the
       source file into a valid Perl script which then gets entirely evaluated by only one
       internal instance of the Perl 5 interpreter.  To achieve this, ePerl translates all plain
       code into (escaped) Perl 5 strings placed into print constructs while passing through all
       embedded native Perl 5 code. As you can see, ePerl itself does exactly the same
       internally, a silly programmer had to do when writing a plain Perl generation script.

       Due to the nature of such bristled code, ePerl is really the better attempt when the
       generated ASCII data contains really more static as dynamic data. Or in other words: Use
       ePerl if you want to keep the most of the generated ASCII data in plain format while just
       programming some bristled stuff. Do not use it when generating pure dynamic data. There it
       brings no advantage to the ordinary program code of a plain Perl script. So, the static
       part should be at least 60% or the advantage becomes a disadvantage.

       ePerl in its origin was actually designed for an extreme situation: as a webserver
       scripting-language for on-the-fly HTML page generation. Here you have the typical case
       that usually 90% of the data consists of pure static HTML tags and plain ASCII while just
       the remaining 10% are programming constructs which dynamically generate more markup code.
       This is the reason why ePerl beside its standard Unix filtering runtime-mode also supports
       the CGI/1.1 and NPH-CGI/1.1 interfaces.

   Embedded Perl Syntax
       Practically you can put any valid Perl constructs inside the ePerl blocks the used Perl 5
       interpreter library can evaluate. But there are some important points you should always
       remember and never forget when using ePerl:

       1. Delimiters are always discarded.
           Trivially to say, but should be mentioned at least once. The ePerl block delimiters
           are always discarded and are only necessary for ePerl to recognize the embedded Perl
           constructs. They are never passed to the final output.

       2. Generated content has to go to "STDOUT".
           Although you can define subroutines, calculate some data, etc.  inside ePerl blocks
           only data which is explicitly written to the "STDOUT" filehandle is expanded. In other
           words: When an ePerl block does not generate content on "STDOUT", it is entirely
           replaced by an empty string in the final output.  But when content is generated it is
           put at the point of the ePerl block in the final output. Usually contents is generated
           via pure "print" constructs which implicitly use "STDOUT" when no filehandle is given.

       3. Generated content on "STDERR" always leads to an error.
           Whenever content is generated on the "STDERR" filehandle, ePerl displays an error
           (including the STDERR content). Use this to exit on errors while passing errors from
           ePerl blocks to the calling environment.

       4. Last semicolon.
           Because of the following point 6 (see below) and the fact that most of the users don't
           have the internal ePerl block translations in mind, ePerl is smart about the last
           semicolon. Usually every ePerl block has to end with the semicolon of the last
           command.

              <: cmd; ...; cmd; :>

           But when the last semicolon is missing it is automatically added by ePerl, i.e.

              <: cmd; ...; cmd :>

           is also correct syntax.  But sometimes it is necessary to force ePerl not to add the
           semicolon. Then you can add a ``"_"'' (underscore) as the last non-whitespace
           character in the block to force ePerl to leave the final semicolon. Use this for
           constructs like the following

              <: if (...) { _:>
              foo
              <: } else { _:>
              bar
              <: } :>

           where you want to spread a Perl directive over more ePerl blocks.

       5. Shorthand for "print"-only blocks.
           Because most of the time ePerl is used just to interpolate variables, e.g.

              <: print $VARIABLE; :>

           it is useful to provide a shortcut for this kind of constructs.  So ePerl provides a
           shortcut via the character '='. When it immediately (no whitespaces allowed here)
           follows the begin delimiter of an ePerl block a "print" statement is implicitly
           generated, i.e. the above block is equivalent to

              <:=$VARIABLE:>

           Notice that the semicolon was also removed here, because it gets automatically added
           (see above).

       6. Special EndOfLine discard command for ePerl blocks.
           ePerl provides a special discard command named ``"//"'' which discards all data up-to
           and including the following newline character when directly followed an end block
           delimiter. Usually when you write

             foo
             <: $x = 1; :>
             quux

           the result is

             foo

             quux

           because ePerl always preserves code around ePerl blocks, even just newlines. But when
           you write

             foo
             <: $x = 1; :>//
             quux

           the result is

             foo
             quux

           because the ``"//"'' deleted all stuff to the end of the line, including the newline.

       7. Restrictions in parsing.
           Every program has its restrictions, ePerl too. Its handicap is that Perl is not only a
           rich language, it is a horrible one according to parsing its constructs. Perhaps you
           know the phrase ,,Only perl can parse Perl''.  Think about it. The implication of this
           is that ePerl never tries to parse the ePerl blocks itself. It entirely relies on the
           Perl interpreter library, because it is the only instance which can do this without
           errors.  But the problem is that ePerl at least has to recognize the begin and end
           positions of those ePerl blocks.

           There are two ways: It can either look for the end delimiter while parsing but at
           least recognize quoted strings (where the end delimiter gets treated as pure data). Or
           it can just move forward to the next end delimiter and say that it have not occur
           inside Perl constructs. In ePerl 2.0 the second one was used, while in ePerl 2.1 the
           first one was taken because a lot of users wanted it this way while using bad end
           delimiters like ``">"''. But actually the author has again revised its opinion and
           decided to finally use the second approach which is used since ePerl 2.2 now. Because
           while the first one allows more trivial delimiters (which itself is not a really good
           idea), it fails when constructs like ``"m|"[^"]+"|"'' etc.  are used inside ePerl
           blocks. And it is easier to escape end delimiters inside Perl constructs (for instance
           via backslashes in quoted strings) than rewrite complex Perl constructs to use even
           number of quotes.

           So, whenever your end delimiter also occurs inside Perl constructs you have to escape
           it in any way.

       8. HTML entity conversion.
           Because one of ePerl's usage is as a server-side scripting-language for HTML pages,
           there is a common problem in conjunction with HTML editors.  They cannot know ePerl
           blocks, so when you enter those blocks inside the editors they usually encode some
           characters with the corresponding HTML entities. The problem is that this encoding
           leads to invalid Perl code. ePerl provides the option -C for decoding these entities
           which is automatically turned on in CGI modes. See description below under option -C
           for more details.

   Runtime Modes
       ePerl can operate in three different runtime modes:

       Stand-alone Unix filter mode
           This is the default operation mode when used as a generation tool from the Unix shell
           or as a batch-processing tool from within other programs or scripts:

             $ eperl [options] - < inputfile > outputfile
             $ eperl [options] inputfile > outputfile
             $ eperl [options] -o outputfile - < inputfile
             $ eperl [options] -o outputfile inputfile

           As you can see, ePerl can be used in any combination of STDIO and external files.
           Additionally there are two interesting variants of using this mode.  First you can use
           ePerl in conjunction with the Unix Shebang magic technique to implicitly select it as
           the interpreter for your script similar to the way you are used to with the plain Perl
           interpreter:

             #!/path/to/eperl [options]
             foo
             <: print "bar"; :>
             quux

           Second, you can use ePerl in conjunction with the Bourne-Shell Here Document technique
           from within you shell scripts:

             #!/bin/sh
             ...
             eperl [options] - <<EOS
             foo
             <: print "quux"; :>
             quux
             EOS
             ...

           If you need to generate shell or other scripts with ePerl, i.e. you need a shebang
           line in the output of eperl, you have to add a shebang line containing e.g.
           "#!/usr/bin/eperl" first, because eperl will strip the first line from the input if it
           is a shebang line. Example:

             #!/usr/bin/eperl
             #!/bin/sh
             echo <: print "quux"; :>

           will result in the following output:

             #!/bin/sh
             echo quux

           Alternatively you can add a preprocessor comment in the first line, e.g. like this:

             #c This is a comment to preserve the shebang line in the following line
             #!/bin/sh
             echo <: print "quux"; :>

           And finally you can use ePerl directly from within Perl programs by the use of the
           Parse::ePerl(3) package (assuming that you have installed this also; see file INSTALL
           inside the ePerl distribution for more details):

             #!/path/to/perl
             ...
             use Parse::ePerl;
             ...
             $script = <<EOT;
             foo
             <: print "quux"; :>
             quux
             EOT
             ...
             $result = Parse::ePerl::Expand({
                 Script => $script,
                 Result => \$result,
             });
             ...
             print $result;
             ...

           See Parse::ePerl(3) for more details.

       CGI/1.1 compliant interface mode
           This is the runtime mode where ePerl uses the CGI/1.1 interface of a webserver when
           used as a Server-Side Scripting Language on the Web. ePerl enters this mode
           automatically when the CGI/1.1 environment variable "PATH_TRANSLATED" is set and its
           or the scripts filename does not begin with the NPH prefix ``nph-''.  In this runtime
           mode it prefixes the resulting data with HTTP/1.0 (default) or HTTP/1.1 (if identified
           by the webserver) compliant response header lines.

           ePerl also recognizes HTTP header lines at the beginning of the scripts generated
           data, i.e. for instance you can generate your own HTTP headers like

              <? $url = "..";
                 print "Location: $url\n";
                 print "URI: $url\n\n"; !>
              <html>
              ...

           But notice that while you can output arbitrary headers, most webservers restrict the
           headers which are accepted via the CGI/1.1 interface. Usually you can provide only a
           few specific HTTP headers like "Location" or "Status".  If you need more control you
           have to use the NPH-CGI/1.1 interface mode.

           Additionally ePerl provides a useful feature in this mode: It can switch its UID/GID
           to the owner of the script if it runs as a Unix SetUID program (see below under
           Security and the option ``u+s'' of chmod(1)).

           There are two commonly known ways of using this CGI/1.1 interface mode on the Web.
           First, you can use it to explicitly transform plain HTML files into CGI/1.1 scripts
           via the Shebang technique (see above). For an Apache webserver just put the following
           line as the first line of the file:

             #!/path/to/eperl -mc

           Then rename the script from file.html to file.cgi and set its execution bit via

             $ mv file.html file.cgi
             $ chmod a+rx file.cgi

           Now make sure that Apache accepts file.cgi as a CGI program by enabling CGI support
           for the directory where file.cgi resides. For this add the line

             Options +ExecCGI

           to the .htaccess file in this directory. Finally make sure that Apache really
           recognizes the extension .cgi. Perhaps you additionally have to add the following line
           to your httpd.conf file:

             AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

           Now you can use file.cgi instead of file.html and make advantage of the achieved
           programming capability by bristling file.cgi with your Perl blocks (or the
           transformation into a CGI script would be useless).

           Alternatively (or even additionally) a webmaster can enable ePerl support in a more
           seamless way by configuring ePerl as a real implicit server-side scripting language.
           This is done by assigning a MIME-type to the various valid ePerl file extensions and
           forcing all files with this MIME-type to be internally processed via the ePerl
           interpreter. You can accomplish this for Apache by adding the following to your
           httpd.conf file

             AddType      application/x-httpd-eperl  .phtml .eperl .epl
             Action       application/x-httpd-eperl  /internal/cgi/eperl
             ScriptAlias  /internal/cgi              /path/to/apache/cgi-bin

           and creating a copy of the eperl program in your CGI-directory:

             $ cp -p /path/to/eperl /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/eperl

           Now all files with the extensions .phtml, .eperl and .epl are automatically processed
           by the ePerl interpreter. There is no need for a Shebang line or any locally enabled
           CGI mode.

           One final hint: When you want to test your scripts offline, just run them with forced
           CGI/1.1 mode from your shell. But make sure you prepare all environment variables your
           script depends on, e.g. "QUERY_STRING" or "PATH_INFO".

             $ export QUERY_STRING="key1=value1&key2=value2"
             $ eperl -mc file.phtml

       NPH-CGI/1.1 compliant interface mode
           This runtime mode is a special variant of the CGI/1.1 interface mode, because most
           webservers (e.g. Apache) provide it for special purposes.   It is known as Non-Parsed-
           Header (NPH) CGI/1.1 mode and is usually used by the webserver when the filename of
           the CGI program is prefixed with ``"nph-"''.  In this mode the webserver does no
           processing on the HTTP response headers and no buffering of the resulting data, i.e.
           the CGI program actually has to provide a complete HTTP response itself. The advantage
           is that the program can generate arbitrary HTTP headers or MIME-encoded multi-block
           messages.

           So, above we have renamed the file to file.cgi which restricted us a little bit. When
           we alternatively rename file.html to nph-file.cgi and force the NPH-CGI/1.1 interface
           mode via option -mn then this file becomes a NPH-CGI/1.1 compliant program under
           Apache and other webservers. Now our script can provide its own HTTP response (it need
           not, because when absent ePerl provides a default one for it).

             #!/path/to/bin/eperl -mn
             <? print "HTTP/1.0 200 Ok\n";
                print "X-MyHeader: Foo Bar Quux\n";
                print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
             <html>
             ...

           As you expect this can be also used with the implicit Server-Side Scripting Language
           technique. Put

             AddType      application/x-httpd-eperl  .phtml .eperl .epl
             Action       application/x-httpd-eperl  /internal/cgi/nph-eperl
             ScriptAlias  /internal/cgi              /path/to/apache/cgi-bin

           into your httpd.conf and run the command

             $ cp -p /path/to/eperl /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/nph-eperl

           from your shell. This is the preferred way of using ePerl as a Server-Side Scripting
           Language, because it provides most flexibility.

   Security
       When you are installing ePerl as a CGI/1.1 or NPH-CGI/1.1 compliant program (see above for
       detailed description of these modes) via

         $ cp -p /path/to/eperl /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/eperl
         $ chown root /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/eperl
         $ chmod u+s  /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/eperl

       or

         $ cp -p /path/to/eperl /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/nph-eperl
         $ chown root /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/nph-eperl
         $ chmod u+s  /path/to/apache/cgi-bin/nph-eperl

       i.e. with SetUID bit enabled for the root user, ePerl can switch to the UID/GID of the
       scripts owner. Although this is a very useful feature for script programmers (because one
       no longer need to make auxiliary files world-readable and temporary files world-
       writable!), it can be to risky for you when you are paranoid about security of SetUID
       programs. If so just don't install ePerl with enabled SetUID bit! This is the reason why
       ePerl is per default only installed as a Stand-Alone Unix filter which never needs this
       feature.

       For those of us who decided that this feature is essential for them ePerl tries really
       hard to make it secure. The following steps have to be successfully passed before ePerl
       actually switches its UID/GID (in this order):

         1. The script has to match the following extensions:
            .html, .phtml, .ephtml, .epl, .pl, .cgi
         2. The UID of the calling process has to be a valid UID,
            i.e. it has to be found in the systems password file
         3. The UID of the calling process has to match the
            following users: root, nobody
         4. The UID of the script owner has to be a valid UID,
            i.e. it has to be found in the systems password file
         5. The GID of the script group has to be a valid GID,
            i.e. it has to be found in the systems group file
         6. The script has to stay below or in the owners homedir

       IF ONLY ONE OF THOSE STEPS FAIL, NO UID/GID SWITCHING TAKES PLACE!.  Additionally (if
       "DO_ON_FAILED_STEP" was defined as "STOP_AND_ERROR" in eperl_security.h - not per default
       defined this way!) ePerl can totally stop processing and display its error page.  This is
       for the really paranoid webmasters. Per default when any step failed the UID/GID switching
       is just disabled, but ePerl goes on with processing. Alternatively you can disable some
       steps at compile time. See eperl_security.h.

       Also remember that ePerl always eliminates the effective UID/GID, independent of the
       runtime mode and independent if ePerl has switched to the UID/GID of the owner. For
       security reasons, the effective UID/GID is always destroyed before the script is executed.

   ePerl Preprocessor
       ePerl provides an own preprocessor similar to CPP in style which is either enabled
       manually via option -P or automatically when ePerl runs in (NPH-)CGI mode.  The following
       directives are supported:

       "#include path"
           This directive is an include directive which can be used to include really any stuff,
           but was actually designed to be used to include other ePerl source files. The path can
           be either a relative or absolute path for the local filesystem or a fully qualified
           HTTP URL.

           In case of the absolute path the file is directly accessed on the filesystem, while
           the relative path is first searched in the current working directory and then in all
           directories specified via option -I. In the third case (HTTP URL) the file is
           retrieves via a HTTP/1.0 request on the network.  Here HTTP redirects (response codes
           301 and 302) are supported, too.

           Notice: While ePerl strictly preserves the line numbers when translating the bristled
           ePerl format to plain Perl format, the ePerl preprocessor can't do this (because its a
           preprocessor which expands) for this directive.  So, whenever you use "#include",
           remember that line numbers in error messages are wrong.

           Also notice one important security aspect: Because you can include any stuff as it is
           provided with this directive, use it only for stuff which is under your direct
           control. Don't use this directive to include foreign data, at least not from external
           webservers. For instance say you have a ePerl page with "#include
           http://www.foreigner.com/nice-page.html" and at the next request of this page your
           filesystem is lost! Why? Because the foreigner recognizes that you include his page
           and are using ePerl and just put a simple ``"<?  system("rm -rf /"); !>"'' in his
           page. Think about it.  NEVER USE #INCLUDE FOR ANY DATA WHICH IS NOT UNDER YOUR OWN
           CONTROL.  Instead always use "#sinclude" for such situations.

       "#sinclude path"
           This is the secure variant of "#include" where after reading the data from path all
           ePerl begin and end delimiters are removed. So risky ePerl blocks lost their meaning
           and are converted to plain text. Always use this directive when you want to include
           data which is not under your own control.

       "#if expr", "#elsif expr", "#else", "#endif"
           These implement a CPP-style "#if-[#else-]#endif" construct, but with a Perl semantic.
           While the other directives are real preprocessor commands which are evaluated at the
           preprocessing step, this construct is actually just transformed into a low-level ePerl
           construct, so it is not actually evaluated at the preprocessing step. It is just a
           handy shortcut for the following (where BD is the currently used begin delimiter and
           ED the end delimiter):

             ``#if expr''    ->  ``BD if (expr) { _ ED//''
             ``#elsif expr'' ->  ``BD } elsif (expr) { _ ED//''
             ``#else''       ->  ``BD } else { _ ED//''
             ``#endif''      ->  ``BD } _ ED//''

           The advantage of this unusual aproach is that the if-condition really can be any valid
           Perl expression which provides maximum flexibility. The disadvantage is that you
           cannot use the if-construct to make real preprocessing decisions.  As you can see, the
           design goal was just to provide a shorthand for the more complicated Perl constructs.

       "#c"
           This is the comment directive which just discards all data up to and including the
           newline character. Use this one to comment out any stuff, even other preprocessor
           directives.

   Provided Functionality
       Up to know you've understand that ePerl provides a nice facility to embed Perl code into
       any ASCII data. But now the typical question is: Which Perl code can be put into these
       ePerl blocks and does ePerl provide any special functionality inside these ePerl blocks?

       The answers are: First, you can put really any Perl code into the ePerl blocks which are
       valid to the Perl interpreter ePerl was linked with. Second, ePerl does not provide any
       special functionality inside these ePerl blocks, because Perl is already sophisticated
       enough ;-)

       The implication of this is: Because you can use any valid Perl code you can make use of
       all available Perl 5 modules, even those ones which use shared objects (because ePerl is a
       Perl interpreter, including DynaLoader support). So, browse to the Comprehensive Perl
       Archive Network (CPAN) via http://www.perl.com/perl/CPAN and grab your favorite packages
       which can make your life easier (both from within plain Perl scripts and ePerl scripts)
       and just use the construct ``"use name;"'' in any ePerl block to use them from within
       ePerl.

       When using ePerl as a Server-Side-Scripting-Language I really recommend you to install at
       least the packages CGI.pm (currently vers.  2.36), HTML-Stream (1.40), libnet (1.0505) and
       libwww-perl (5.08).  When you want to generate on-the-fly images as well, I recommend you
       to additionally install at least GD (1.14) and Image-Size (2.3). The ePerl interpreter in
       conjunction with these really sophisticated Perl 5 modules will provide you with maximum
       flexibility and functionality. In other words: Make use of maximum Software Leverage in
       the hackers world of Perl as great as possible.

OPTIONS

       -d name=value
           Sets a Perl variable in the package "main" which can be referenced via $name or more
           explicitly via $main::name. The command

             eperl -d name=value ..

           is actually equivalent to having

             <? $name = value; !>

           at the beginning of inputfile. This option can occur more than once.

       -D name=value
           Sets a environment variable which can be referenced via $ENV{'variable'} inside the
           Perl blocks. The command

             eperl -D name=value ..

           is actually equivalent to

             export name=value; eperl ...

           but the advantage of this option is that it doesn't manipulate the callers
           environment. This option can occur more than once.

       -B begin_delimiter
           Sets the Perl block begin delimiter string. Use this in conjunction with "-E" to set
           different delimiters when using ePerl as an offline HTML creation-language while still
           using it as an online HTML scripting-language.  Default delimiters are "<?" and "!>"
           for CGI modes and "<:" and ":>" for stand-alone Unix filtering mode.

           There are a lot of possible variations you could choose: ""<:"" and "":>"" (the
           default ePerl stand-alone filtering mode delimiters), ""<?"" and ""!>"" (the default
           ePerl CGI interface mode delimiters), ""<script language='ePerl'>"" and ""</script>""
           (standard HTML scripting language style), ""<script type="text/eperl">"" and
           ""</script>"" (forthcoming HTML3.2+ aka Cougar style), ""<eperl>"" and ""</eperl>""
           (HTML-like style), ""<!--#eperl code='"" and ""' -->"" (NeoScript and SSI style) or
           even ""<?"" and "">"" (PHP/FI style; but this no longer recommended because it can
           lead to parsing problems. Should be used only for backward compatibility to old ePerl
           versions 1.x).

           The begin and end delimiters are searched case-insensitive.

       -E end_delimiter
           Sets the Perl block end delimiter string. See also option -B.

       -i  Forces the begin and end delimiters to be searched case-insensitive.  Use this when
           you are using delimiters like ``"<ePerl>"..."</ePerl>"'' or other more textual ones.

       -m mode
           This forces ePerl to act in a specific runtime mode.  See above for a detailed
           description of the three possible modes: Stand-alone filter (mode="f", i.e. option
           -mf), CGI/1.1 interface mode (mode="c", i.e. option -mc) or the NPH-CGI/1.1 interface
           mode (mode="n", i.e. option -mn).

       -o outputfile
           Forces the output to be written to outputfile instead of STDOUT. Use this option when
           using ePerl as a filter. The outputfile ``-'' sets STDOUT as the output handle
           explicitly. Notice that this file is relative to the source file directory when the
           runtime mode is forced to CGI or NPH-CGI.

       -k  Forces ePerl to keep the current working directory from where it was started.  Per
           default ePerl will change to the directory where the file to be executed stays. This
           option is useful if you use ePerl as an offline filter on a temporary file.

       -x  This sets debug mode where ePerl outputs the internally created Perl script to the
           console (/dev/tty) before executing it. Only for debugging problems with the inputfile
           conversion.

       -I directory
           Specify a directory which is both used for "#include" and "#sinclude" directives of
           the ePerl preprocessor and added to @INC under runtime.  This option can occur more
           than once.

       -P  Manually enables the special ePerl Preprocessor (see above). This option is enabled
           for all CGI modes automatically.

       -C  This enables the HTML entity conversion for ePerl blocks. This option is automatically
           forced in CGI modes.

           The solved problem here is the following: When you use ePerl as a Server-Side-
           Scripting-Language for HTML pages and you edit your ePerl source files via a HTML
           editor, the chance is high that your editor translates some entered characters to HTML
           entities, for instance ``"<"'' to ``"&lt;"''.  This leads to invalid Perl code inside
           ePerl blocks, because the HTML editor has no knowledge about ePerl blocks. Using this
           option the ePerl parser automatically converts all entities found inside ePerl blocks
           back to plain characters, so the Perl interpreter again receives valid code blocks.

       -L  This enables the line continuation character ``"\"'' (backslash) outside ePerl blocks.
           With this option you can spread oneline-data over more lines.  But use with care: This
           option changes your data (outside ePerl blocks).  Usually ePerl really pass through
           all surrounding data as raw data. With this option the newlines become new semantics.

       -T  This enabled Perl's Tainting mode where the Perl interpreter takes special precautions
           called taint checks to prevent both obvious and subtle traps.  See perlsec(1) for more
           details.

       -w  This enables Warnings where the Perl interpreter produces some lovely diagnostics. See
           perldiag(1) for more details.

       -c  This runs a pure syntax check which is similar to ``"perl -c"''.

       -r  This prints the internal ePerl README file to the console.

       -l  This prints the internal ePerl LICENSE file to the console.

       -v  This prints ePerl version information to the console.

       -V  Same as option -v but additionally shows the Perl compilation parameters.

ENVIRONMENT

   Used Variables
       "PATH_TRANSLATED"
           This CGI/1.1 variable is used to determine the source file when ePerl operates as a
           NPH-CGI/1.1 program under the environment of a webserver.

   Provided Variables
       "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH"
           The absolute pathname of the script. Use this when you want to directly access the
           script from within itself, for instance to do "stat()" and other calls.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH_DIR"
           The directory part of "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH". Use this one when you want to directly access
           other files residing in the same directory as the script, for instance to read config
           files, etc.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH_FILE"
           The filename part of "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH". Use this one when you need the name of the
           script, for instance for relative self-references through URLs.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_URL"
           The fully-qualified URL of the script. Use this when you need a URL for self-
           reference.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_URL_DIR"
           The directory part of "SCRIPT_SRC_URL". Use this one when you want to directly access
           other files residing in the same directory as the script via the Web, for instance to
           reference images, etc.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_URL_FILE"
           The filename part of "SCRIPT_SRC_URL". Use this one when you need the name of the
           script, for instance for relative self-references through URLs.  Actually the same as
           "SCRIPT_SRC_PATH_FILE", but provided for consistency.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_SIZE"
           The filesize of the script, in bytes.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_MODIFIED"
           The last modification time of the script, in seconds since 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0
           seconds, January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time.

       "SCRIPT_SRC_MODIFIED_CTIME"
           The last modification time of the script, in ctime(3) format (``WDAY MMM DD HH:MM:SS
           YYYY\n'').

       "SCRIPT_SRC_MODIFIED_ISOTIME"
           The last modification time of the script, in ISO format (``DD-MM-YYYY HH:MM'').

       "SCRIPT_SRC_OWNER"
           The username of the script owner.

       "VERSION_INTERPRETER"
           The ePerl identification string.

       "VERSION_LANGUAGE"
           The identification string of the used Perl interpreter library.

   Provided Built-In Images
       The following built-in images can be accessed via URL "/url/to/nph-eperl/"NAME".gif":

       "logo.gif"
           The standard ePerl logo. Please do not include this one on your website.

       "powered.gif"
           The ``powered by ePerl 2.2'' logo. Feel free to use this on your website.

AUTHOR

         Ralf S. Engelschall
         rse@engelschall.com
         www.engelschall.com

SEEALSO

       Parse::ePerl(3), Apache::ePerl(3).

       Web-References:

         Perl:   perl(1),  http://www.perl.com/
         ePerl:  eperl(1), http://www.ossp.org/pkg/tool/eperl/
         Apache: httpd(8), http://www.apache.org/