Provided by: perl-doc_5.18.2-2ubuntu1.7_all 
NAME
perlrun - how to execute the Perl interpreter
SYNOPSIS
perl [ -sTtuUWX ] [ -hv ] [ -V[:configvar] ]
[ -cw ] [ -d[t][:debugger] ] [ -D[number/list] ]
[ -pna ] [ -Fpattern ] [ -l[octal] ] [ -0[octal/hexadecimal] ]
[ -Idir ] [ -m[-]module ] [ -M[-]'module...' ] [ -f ] [ -C [number/list] ]
[ -S ] [ -x[dir] ] [ -i[extension] ]
[ [-e|-E] 'command' ] [ -- ] [ programfile ] [ argument ]...
DESCRIPTION
The normal way to run a Perl program is by making it directly executable, or else by
passing the name of the source file as an argument on the command line. (An interactive
Perl environment is also possible--see perldebug for details on how to do that.) Upon
startup, Perl looks for your program in one of the following places:
1. Specified line by line via -e or -E switches on the command line.
2. Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line. (Note that
systems supporting the "#!" notation invoke interpreters this way. See "Location of
Perl".)
3. Passed in implicitly via standard input. This works only if there are no filename
arguments--to pass arguments to a STDIN-read program you must explicitly specify a "-"
for the program name.
With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file from the beginning, unless you've
specified a -x switch, in which case it scans for the first line starting with "#!" and
containing the word "perl", and starts there instead. This is useful for running a
program embedded in a larger message. (In this case you would indicate the end of the
program using the "__END__" token.)
The "#!" line is always examined for switches as the line is being parsed. Thus, if
you're on a machine that allows only one argument with the "#!" line, or worse, doesn't
even recognize the "#!" line, you still can get consistent switch behaviour regardless of
how Perl was invoked, even if -x was used to find the beginning of the program.
Because historically some operating systems silently chopped off kernel interpretation of
the "#!" line after 32 characters, some switches may be passed in on the command line, and
some may not; you could even get a "-" without its letter, if you're not careful. You
probably want to make sure that all your switches fall either before or after that
32-character boundary. Most switches don't actually care if they're processed
redundantly, but getting a "-" instead of a complete switch could cause Perl to try to
execute standard input instead of your program. And a partial -I switch could also cause
odd results.
Some switches do care if they are processed twice, for instance combinations of -l and -0.
Either put all the switches after the 32-character boundary (if applicable), or replace
the use of -0digits by "BEGIN{ $/ = "\0digits"; }".
Parsing of the "#!" switches starts wherever "perl" is mentioned in the line. The
sequences "-*" and "- " are specifically ignored so that you could, if you were so
inclined, say
#!/bin/sh
#! -*-perl-*-
eval 'exec perl -x -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
if 0;
to let Perl see the -p switch.
A similar trick involves the env program, if you have it.
#!/usr/bin/env perl
The examples above use a relative path to the perl interpreter, getting whatever version
is first in the user's path. If you want a specific version of Perl, say, perl5.14.1, you
should place that directly in the "#!" line's path.
If the "#!" line does not contain the word "perl" nor the word "indir" the program named
after the "#!" is executed instead of the Perl interpreter. This is slightly bizarre, but
it helps people on machines that don't do "#!", because they can tell a program that their
SHELL is /usr/bin/perl, and Perl will then dispatch the program to the correct interpreter
for them.
After locating your program, Perl compiles the entire program to an internal form. If
there are any compilation errors, execution of the program is not attempted. (This is
unlike the typical shell script, which might run part-way through before finding a syntax
error.)
If the program is syntactically correct, it is executed. If the program runs off the end
without hitting an exit() or die() operator, an implicit exit(0) is provided to indicate
successful completion.
#! and quoting on non-Unix systems
Unix's "#!" technique can be simulated on other systems:
OS/2
Put
extproc perl -S -your_switches
as the first line in "*.cmd" file (-S due to a bug in cmd.exe's `extproc' handling).
MS-DOS
Create a batch file to run your program, and codify it in "ALTERNATE_SHEBANG" (see the
dosish.h file in the source distribution for more information).
Win95/NT
The Win95/NT installation, when using the ActiveState installer for Perl, will modify
the Registry to associate the .pl extension with the perl interpreter. If you install
Perl by other means (including building from the sources), you may have to modify the
Registry yourself. Note that this means you can no longer tell the difference between
an executable Perl program and a Perl library file.
VMS Put
$ perl -mysw 'f$env("procedure")' 'p1' 'p2' 'p3' 'p4' 'p5' 'p6' 'p7' 'p8' !
$ exit++ + ++$status != 0 and $exit = $status = undef;
at the top of your program, where -mysw are any command line switches you want to pass
to Perl. You can now invoke the program directly, by saying "perl program", or as a
DCL procedure, by saying @program (or implicitly via DCL$PATH by just using the name
of the program).
This incantation is a bit much to remember, but Perl will display it for you if you
say "perl "-V:startperl"".
Command-interpreters on non-Unix systems have rather different ideas on quoting than Unix
shells. You'll need to learn the special characters in your command-interpreter ("*", "\"
and """ are common) and how to protect whitespace and these characters to run one-liners
(see -e below).
On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to double ones, which you must not
do on Unix or Plan 9 systems. You might also have to change a single % to a %%.
For example:
# Unix
perl -e 'print "Hello world\n"'
# MS-DOS, etc.
perl -e "print \"Hello world\n\""
# VMS
perl -e "print ""Hello world\n"""
The problem is that none of this is reliable: it depends on the command and it is entirely
possible neither works. If 4DOS were the command shell, this would probably work better:
perl -e "print <Ctrl-x>"Hello world\n<Ctrl-x>""
CMD.EXE in Windows NT slipped a lot of standard Unix functionality in when nobody was
looking, but just try to find documentation for its quoting rules.
There is no general solution to all of this. It's just a mess.
Location of Perl
It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can easily find it. When
possible, it's good for both /usr/bin/perl and /usr/local/bin/perl to be symlinks to the
actual binary. If that can't be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities into a directory typically found
along a user's PATH, or in some other obvious and convenient place.
In this documentation, "#!/usr/bin/perl" on the first line of the program will stand in
for whatever method works on your system. You are advised to use a specific path if you
care about a specific version.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.14
or if you just want to be running at least version, place a statement like this at the top
of your program:
use 5.014;
Command Switches
As with all standard commands, a single-character switch may be clustered with the
following switch, if any.
#!/usr/bin/perl -spi.orig # same as -s -p -i.orig
Switches include:
-0[octal/hexadecimal]
specifies the input record separator ($/) as an octal or hexadecimal number. If
there are no digits, the null character is the separator. Other switches may precede
or follow the digits. For example, if you have a version of find which can print
filenames terminated by the null character, you can say this:
find . -name '*.orig' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink
The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in paragraph mode. Any value
0400 or above will cause Perl to slurp files whole, but by convention the value 0777
is the one normally used for this purpose.
You can also specify the separator character using hexadecimal notation: -0xHHH...,
where the "H" are valid hexadecimal digits. Unlike the octal form, this one may be
used to specify any Unicode character, even those beyond 0xFF. So if you really want
a record separator of 0777, specify it as -0x1FF. (This means that you cannot use
the -x option with a directory name that consists of hexadecimal digits, or else Perl
will think you have specified a hex number to -0.)
-a turns on autosplit mode when used with a -n or -p. An implicit split command to the
@F array is done as the first thing inside the implicit while loop produced by the -n
or -p.
perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";'
is equivalent to
while (<>) {
@F = split(' ');
print pop(@F), "\n";
}
An alternate delimiter may be specified using -F.
-C [number/list]
The -C flag controls some of the Perl Unicode features.
As of 5.8.1, the -C can be followed either by a number or a list of option letters.
The letters, their numeric values, and effects are as follows; listing the letters is
equal to summing the numbers.
I 1 STDIN is assumed to be in UTF-8
O 2 STDOUT will be in UTF-8
E 4 STDERR will be in UTF-8
S 7 I + O + E
i 8 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for input streams
o 16 UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for output streams
D 24 i + o
A 32 the @ARGV elements are expected to be strings encoded
in UTF-8
L 64 normally the "IOEioA" are unconditional, the L makes
them conditional on the locale environment variables
(the LC_ALL, LC_TYPE, and LANG, in the order of
decreasing precedence) -- if the variables indicate
UTF-8, then the selected "IOEioA" are in effect
a 256 Set ${^UTF8CACHE} to -1, to run the UTF-8 caching
code in debugging mode.
For example, -COE and -C6 will both turn on UTF-8-ness on both STDOUT and STDERR.
Repeating letters is just redundant, not cumulative nor toggling.
The "io" options mean that any subsequent open() (or similar I/O operations) in the
current file scope will have the ":utf8" PerlIO layer implicitly applied to them, in
other words, UTF-8 is expected from any input stream, and UTF-8 is produced to any
output stream. This is just the default, with explicit layers in open() and with
binmode() one can manipulate streams as usual.
-C on its own (not followed by any number or option list), or the empty string "" for
the "PERL_UNICODE" environment variable, has the same effect as -CSDL. In other
words, the standard I/O handles and the default "open()" layer are UTF-8-fied but
only if the locale environment variables indicate a UTF-8 locale. This behaviour
follows the implicit (and problematic) UTF-8 behaviour of Perl 5.8.0. (See "UTF-8 no
longer default under UTF-8 locales" in perl581delta.)
You can use -C0 (or "0" for "PERL_UNICODE") to explicitly disable all the above
Unicode features.
The read-only magic variable "${^UNICODE}" reflects the numeric value of this
setting. This variable is set during Perl startup and is thereafter read-only. If
you want runtime effects, use the three-arg open() (see "open" in perlfunc), the two-
arg binmode() (see "binmode" in perlfunc), and the "open" pragma (see open).
(In Perls earlier than 5.8.1 the -C switch was a Win32-only switch that enabled the
use of Unicode-aware "wide system call" Win32 APIs. This feature was practically
unused, however, and the command line switch was therefore "recycled".)
Note: Since perl 5.10.1, if the -C option is used on the "#!" line, it must be
specified on the command line as well, since the standard streams are already set up
at this point in the execution of the perl interpreter. You can also use binmode()
to set the encoding of an I/O stream.
-c causes Perl to check the syntax of the program and then exit without executing it.
Actually, it will execute and "BEGIN", "UNITCHECK", or "CHECK" blocks and any "use"
statements: these are considered as occurring outside the execution of your program.
"INIT" and "END" blocks, however, will be skipped.
-d
-dt runs the program under the Perl debugger. See perldebug. If t is specified, it
indicates to the debugger that threads will be used in the code being debugged.
-d:MOD[=bar,baz]
-dt:MOD[=bar,baz]
runs the program under the control of a debugging, profiling, or tracing module
installed as "Devel::MOD". E.g., -d:DProf executes the program using the
"Devel::DProf" profiler. As with the -M flag, options may be passed to the
"Devel::MOD" package where they will be received and interpreted by the
"Devel::MOD::import" routine. Again, like -M, use --d:-MOD to call
"Devel::MOD::unimport" instead of import. The comma-separated list of options must
follow a "=" character. If t is specified, it indicates to the debugger that threads
will be used in the code being debugged. See perldebug.
-Dletters
-Dnumber
sets debugging flags. To watch how it executes your program, use -Dtls. (This works
only if debugging is compiled into your Perl.) Another nice value is -Dx, which
lists your compiled syntax tree. And -Dr displays compiled regular expressions; the
format of the output is explained in perldebguts.
As an alternative, specify a number instead of list of letters (e.g., -D14 is
equivalent to -Dtls):
1 p Tokenizing and parsing (with v, displays parse stack)
2 s Stack snapshots (with v, displays all stacks)
4 l Context (loop) stack processing
8 t Trace execution
16 o Method and overloading resolution
32 c String/numeric conversions
64 P Print profiling info, source file input state
128 m Memory and SV allocation
256 f Format processing
512 r Regular expression parsing and execution
1024 x Syntax tree dump
2048 u Tainting checks
4096 U Unofficial, User hacking (reserved for private,
unreleased use)
8192 H Hash dump -- usurps values()
16384 X Scratchpad allocation
32768 D Cleaning up
65536 S Op slab allocation
131072 T Tokenizing
262144 R Include reference counts of dumped variables (eg when
using -Ds)
524288 J show s,t,P-debug (don't Jump over) on opcodes within
package DB
1048576 v Verbose: use in conjunction with other flags
2097152 C Copy On Write
4194304 A Consistency checks on internal structures
8388608 q quiet - currently only suppresses the "EXECUTING"
message
16777216 M trace smart match resolution
33554432 B dump suBroutine definitions, including special Blocks
like BEGIN
All these flags require -DDEBUGGING when you compile the Perl executable (but see
":opd" in Devel::Peek or "'debug' mode" in re which may change this). See the
INSTALL file in the Perl source distribution for how to do this. This flag is
automatically set if you include -g option when "Configure" asks you about
optimizer/debugger flags.
If you're just trying to get a print out of each line of Perl code as it executes,
the way that "sh -x" provides for shell scripts, you can't use Perl's -D switch.
Instead do this
# If you have "env" utility
env PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program
# Bourne shell syntax
$ PERLDB_OPTS="NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2" perl -dS program
# csh syntax
% (setenv PERLDB_OPTS "NonStop=1 AutoTrace=1 frame=2"; perl -dS program)
See perldebug for details and variations.
-e commandline
may be used to enter one line of program. If -e is given, Perl will not look for a
filename in the argument list. Multiple -e commands may be given to build up a
multi-line script. Make sure to use semicolons where you would in a normal program.
-E commandline
behaves just like -e, except that it implicitly enables all optional features (in the
main compilation unit). See feature.
-f Disable executing $Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl at startup.
Perl can be built so that it by default will try to execute
$Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl at startup (in a BEGIN block). This is a hook that
allows the sysadmin to customize how Perl behaves. It can for instance be used to
add entries to the @INC array to make Perl find modules in non-standard locations.
Perl actually inserts the following code:
BEGIN {
do { local $!; -f "$Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl"; }
&& do "$Config{sitelib}/sitecustomize.pl";
}
Since it is an actual "do" (not a "require"), sitecustomize.pl doesn't need to return
a true value. The code is run in package "main", in its own lexical scope. However,
if the script dies, $@ will not be set.
The value of $Config{sitelib} is also determined in C code and not read from
"Config.pm", which is not loaded.
The code is executed very early. For example, any changes made to @INC will show up
in the output of `perl -V`. Of course, "END" blocks will be likewise executed very
late.
To determine at runtime if this capability has been compiled in your perl, you can
check the value of $Config{usesitecustomize}.
-Fpattern
specifies the pattern to split on if -a is also in effect. The pattern may be
surrounded by "//", "", or '', otherwise it will be put in single quotes. You can't
use literal whitespace in the pattern.
-h prints a summary of the options.
-i[extension]
specifies that files processed by the "<>" construct are to be edited in-place. It
does this by renaming the input file, opening the output file by the original name,
and selecting that output file as the default for print() statements. The extension,
if supplied, is used to modify the name of the old file to make a backup copy,
following these rules:
If no extension is supplied, and your system supports it, the original file is kept
open without a name while the output is redirected to a new file with the original
filename. When perl exits, cleanly or not, the original file is unlinked.
If the extension doesn't contain a "*", then it is appended to the end of the current
filename as a suffix. If the extension does contain one or more "*" characters, then
each "*" is replaced with the current filename. In Perl terms, you could think of
this as:
($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$file_name/g;
This allows you to add a prefix to the backup file, instead of (or in addition to) a
suffix:
$ perl -pi'orig_*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to
# 'orig_fileA'
Or even to place backup copies of the original files into another directory (provided
the directory already exists):
$ perl -pi'old/*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to
# 'old/fileA.orig'
These sets of one-liners are equivalent:
$ perl -pi -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
$ perl -pi'*' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # overwrite current file
$ perl -pi'.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
$ perl -pi'*.orig' -e 's/bar/baz/' fileA # backup to 'fileA.orig'
From the shell, saying
$ perl -p -i.orig -e "s/foo/bar/; ... "
is the same as using the program:
#!/usr/bin/perl -pi.orig
s/foo/bar/;
which is equivalent to
#!/usr/bin/perl
$extension = '.orig';
LINE: while (<>) {
if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) {
if ($extension !~ /\*/) {
$backup = $ARGV . $extension;
}
else {
($backup = $extension) =~ s/\*/$ARGV/g;
}
rename($ARGV, $backup);
open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV");
select(ARGVOUT);
$oldargv = $ARGV;
}
s/foo/bar/;
}
continue {
print; # this prints to original filename
}
select(STDOUT);
except that the -i form doesn't need to compare $ARGV to $oldargv to know when the
filename has changed. It does, however, use ARGVOUT for the selected filehandle.
Note that STDOUT is restored as the default output filehandle after the loop.
As shown above, Perl creates the backup file whether or not any output is actually
changed. So this is just a fancy way to copy files:
$ perl -p -i'/some/file/path/*' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
or
$ perl -p -i'.orig' -e 1 file1 file2 file3...
You can use "eof" without parentheses to locate the end of each input file, in case
you want to append to each file, or reset line numbering (see example in "eof" in
perlfunc).
If, for a given file, Perl is unable to create the backup file as specified in the
extension then it will skip that file and continue on with the next one (if it
exists).
For a discussion of issues surrounding file permissions and -i, see "Why does Perl
let me delete read-only files? Why does -i clobber protected files? Isn't this a
bug in Perl?" in perlfaq5.
You cannot use -i to create directories or to strip extensions from files.
Perl does not expand "~" in filenames, which is good, since some folks use it for
their backup files:
$ perl -pi~ -e 's/foo/bar/' file1 file2 file3...
Note that because -i renames or deletes the original file before creating a new file
of the same name, Unix-style soft and hard links will not be preserved.
Finally, the -i switch does not impede execution when no files are given on the
command line. In this case, no backup is made (the original file cannot, of course,
be determined) and processing proceeds from STDIN to STDOUT as might be expected.
-Idirectory
Directories specified by -I are prepended to the search path for modules (@INC).
-l[octnum]
enables automatic line-ending processing. It has two separate effects. First, it
automatically chomps $/ (the input record separator) when used with -n or -p.
Second, it assigns "$\" (the output record separator) to have the value of octnum so
that any print statements will have that separator added back on. If octnum is
omitted, sets "$\" to the current value of $/. For instance, to trim lines to 80
columns:
perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""'
Note that the assignment "$\ = $/" is done when the switch is processed, so the input
record separator can be different than the output record separator if the -l switch
is followed by a -0 switch:
gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p'
This sets "$\" to newline and then sets $/ to the null character.
-m[-]module
-M[-]module
-M[-]'module ...'
-[mM][-]module=arg[,arg]...
-mmodule executes "use" module "();" before executing your program.
-Mmodule executes "use" module ";" before executing your program. You can use quotes
to add extra code after the module name, e.g., '-MMODULE qw(foo bar)'.
If the first character after the -M or -m is a dash (-) then the 'use' is replaced
with 'no'.
A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say -mMODULE=foo,bar or
-MMODULE=foo,bar as a shortcut for '-MMODULE qw(foo bar)'. This avoids the need to
use quotes when importing symbols. The actual code generated by -MMODULE=foo,bar is
"use module split(/,/,q{foo,bar})". Note that the "=" form removes the distinction
between -m and -M.
A consequence of this is that -MMODULE=number never does a version check, unless
"MODULE::import()" itself is set up to do a version check, which could happen for
example if MODULE inherits from Exporter.
-n causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which makes it iterate
over filename arguments somewhat like sed -n or awk:
LINE:
while (<>) {
... # your program goes here
}
Note that the lines are not printed by default. See "-p" to have lines printed. If
a file named by an argument cannot be opened for some reason, Perl warns you about it
and moves on to the next file.
Also note that "<>" passes command line arguments to "open" in perlfunc, which
doesn't necessarily interpret them as file names. See perlop for possible security
implications.
Here is an efficient way to delete all files that haven't been modified for at least
a week:
find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle unlink
This is faster than using the -exec switch of find because you don't have to start a
process on every filename found. It does suffer from the bug of mishandling newlines
in pathnames, which you can fix if you follow the example under -0.
"BEGIN" and "END" blocks may be used to capture control before or after the implicit
program loop, just as in awk.
-p causes Perl to assume the following loop around your program, which makes it iterate
over filename arguments somewhat like sed:
LINE:
while (<>) {
... # your program goes here
} continue {
print or die "-p destination: $!\n";
}
If a file named by an argument cannot be opened for some reason, Perl warns you about
it, and moves on to the next file. Note that the lines are printed automatically.
An error occurring during printing is treated as fatal. To suppress printing use the
-n switch. A -p overrides a -n switch.
"BEGIN" and "END" blocks may be used to capture control before or after the implicit
loop, just as in awk.
-s enables rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the command line after the program
name but before any filename arguments (or before an argument of --). Any switch
found there is removed from @ARGV and sets the corresponding variable in the Perl
program. The following program prints "1" if the program is invoked with a -xyz
switch, and "abc" if it is invoked with -xyz=abc.
#!/usr/bin/perl -s
if ($xyz) { print "$xyz\n" }
Do note that a switch like --help creates the variable "${-help}", which is not
compliant with "use strict "refs"". Also, when using this option on a script with
warnings enabled you may get a lot of spurious "used only once" warnings.
-S makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search for the program unless the
name of the program contains path separators.
On some platforms, this also makes Perl append suffixes to the filename while
searching for it. For example, on Win32 platforms, the ".bat" and ".cmd" suffixes
are appended if a lookup for the original name fails, and if the name does not
already end in one of those suffixes. If your Perl was compiled with "DEBUGGING"
turned on, using the -Dp switch to Perl shows how the search progresses.
Typically this is used to emulate "#!" startup on platforms that don't support "#!".
It's also convenient when debugging a script that uses "#!", and is thus normally
found by the shell's $PATH search mechanism.
This example works on many platforms that have a shell compatible with Bourne shell:
#!/usr/bin/perl
eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
if $running_under_some_shell;
The system ignores the first line and feeds the program to /bin/sh, which proceeds to
try to execute the Perl program as a shell script. The shell executes the second
line as a normal shell command, and thus starts up the Perl interpreter. On some
systems $0 doesn't always contain the full pathname, so the -S tells Perl to search
for the program if necessary. After Perl locates the program, it parses the lines
and ignores them because the variable $running_under_some_shell is never true. If
the program will be interpreted by csh, you will need to replace "${1+"$@"}" with $*,
even though that doesn't understand embedded spaces (and such) in the argument list.
To start up sh rather than csh, some systems may have to replace the "#!" line with a
line containing just a colon, which will be politely ignored by Perl. Other systems
can't control that, and need a totally devious construct that will work under any of
csh, sh, or Perl, such as the following:
eval '(exit $?0)' && eval 'exec perl -wS $0 ${1+"$@"}'
& eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -wS $0 $argv:q'
if $running_under_some_shell;
If the filename supplied contains directory separators (and so is an absolute or
relative pathname), and if that file is not found, platforms that append file
extensions will do so and try to look for the file with those extensions added, one
by one.
On DOS-like platforms, if the program does not contain directory separators, it will
first be searched for in the current directory before being searched for on the PATH.
On Unix platforms, the program will be searched for strictly on the PATH.
-t Like -T, but taint checks will issue warnings rather than fatal errors. These
warnings can now be controlled normally with "no warnings qw(taint)".
Note: This is not a substitute for "-T"! This is meant to be used only as a temporary
development aid while securing legacy code: for real production code and for new
secure code written from scratch, always use the real -T.
-T turns on "taint" so you can test them. Ordinarily these checks are done only when
running setuid or setgid. It's a good idea to turn them on explicitly for programs
that run on behalf of someone else whom you might not necessarily trust, such as CGI
programs or any internet servers you might write in Perl. See perlsec for details.
For security reasons, this option must be seen by Perl quite early; usually this
means it must appear early on the command line or in the "#!" line for systems which
support that construct.
-u This switch causes Perl to dump core after compiling your program. You can then in
theory take this core dump and turn it into an executable file by using the undump
program (not supplied). This speeds startup at the expense of some disk space (which
you can minimize by stripping the executable). (Still, a "hello world" executable
comes out to about 200K on my machine.) If you want to execute a portion of your
program before dumping, use the dump() operator instead. Note: availability of
undump is platform specific and may not be available for a specific port of Perl.
-U allows Perl to do unsafe operations. Currently the only "unsafe" operations are
attempting to unlink directories while running as superuser and running setuid
programs with fatal taint checks turned into warnings. Note that warnings must be
enabled along with this option to actually generate the taint-check warnings.
-v prints the version and patchlevel of your perl executable.
-V prints summary of the major perl configuration values and the current values of @INC.
-V:configvar
Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration variable(s), with multiples
when your "configvar" argument looks like a regex (has non-letters). For example:
$ perl -V:libc
libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so';
$ perl -V:lib.
libs='-lnsl -lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc';
libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so';
$ perl -V:lib.*
libpth='/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib';
libs='-lnsl -lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lcrypt -lutil -lc';
lib_ext='.a';
libc='/lib/libc-2.2.4.so';
libperl='libperl.a';
....
Additionally, extra colons can be used to control formatting. A trailing colon
suppresses the linefeed and terminator ";", allowing you to embed queries into shell
commands. (mnemonic: PATH separator ":".)
$ echo "compression-vars: " `perl -V:z.*: ` " are here !"
compression-vars: zcat='' zip='zip' are here !
A leading colon removes the "name=" part of the response, this allows you to map to
the name you need. (mnemonic: empty label)
$ echo "goodvfork="`./perl -Ilib -V::usevfork`
goodvfork=false;
Leading and trailing colons can be used together if you need positional parameter
values without the names. Note that in the case below, the "PERL_API" params are
returned in alphabetical order.
$ echo building_on `perl -V::osname: -V::PERL_API_.*:` now
building_on 'linux' '5' '1' '9' now
-w prints warnings about dubious constructs, such as variable names mentioned only once
and scalar variables used before being set; redefined subroutines; references to
undefined filehandles; filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting to write
on; values used as a number that don't look like numbers; using an array as though it
were a scalar; if your subroutines recurse more than 100 deep; and innumerable other
things.
This switch really just enables the global $^W variable; normally, the lexically
scoped "use warnings" pragma is preferred. You can disable or promote into fatal
errors specific warnings using "__WARN__" hooks, as described in perlvar and "warn"
in perlfunc. See also perldiag and perltrap. A fine-grained warning facility is
also available if you want to manipulate entire classes of warnings; see warnings or
perllexwarn.
-W Enables all warnings regardless of "no warnings" or $^W. See perllexwarn.
-X Disables all warnings regardless of "use warnings" or $^W. See perllexwarn.
-x
-xdirectory
tells Perl that the program is embedded in a larger chunk of unrelated text, such as
in a mail message. Leading garbage will be discarded until the first line that
starts with "#!" and contains the string "perl". Any meaningful switches on that
line will be applied.
All references to line numbers by the program (warnings, errors, ...) will treat the
"#!" line as the first line. Thus a warning on the 2nd line of the program, which is
on the 100th line in the file will be reported as line 2, not as line 100. This can
be overridden by using the "#line" directive. (See "Plain Old Comments (Not!)" in
perlsyn)
If a directory name is specified, Perl will switch to that directory before running
the program. The -x switch controls only the disposal of leading garbage. The
program must be terminated with "__END__" if there is trailing garbage to be ignored;
the program can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the "DATA" filehandle
if desired.
The directory, if specified, must appear immediately following the -x with no
intervening whitespace.
ENVIRONMENT
HOME Used if "chdir" has no argument.
LOGDIR Used if "chdir" has no argument and HOME is not set.
PATH Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding the program if -S is used.
PERL5LIB A list of directories in which to look for Perl library files before looking
in the standard library and the current directory. Any architecture-specific
and version-specific directories, such as version/archname/, version/, or
archname/ under the specified locations are automatically included if they
exist, with this lookup done at interpreter startup time. In addition, any
directories matching the entries in $Config{inc_version_list} are added.
(These typically would be for older compatible perl versions installed in the
same directory tree.)
If PERL5LIB is not defined, PERLLIB is used. Directories are separated (like
in PATH) by a colon on Unixish platforms and by a semicolon on Windows (the
proper path separator being given by the command "perl -V:path_sep").
When running taint checks, either because the program was running setuid or
setgid, or the -T or -t switch was specified, neither PERL5LIB nor PERLLIB is
consulted. The program should instead say:
use lib "/my/directory";
PERL5OPT Command-line options (switches). Switches in this variable are treated as if
they were on every Perl command line. Only the -[CDIMUdmtwW] switches are
allowed. When running taint checks (either because the program was running
setuid or setgid, or because the -T or -t switch was used), this variable is
ignored. If PERL5OPT begins with -T, tainting will be enabled and subsequent
options ignored. If PERL5OPT begins with -t, tainting will be enabled, a
writable dot removed from @INC, and subsequent options honored.
PERLIO A space (or colon) separated list of PerlIO layers. If perl is built to use
PerlIO system for IO (the default) these layers affect Perl's IO.
It is conventional to start layer names with a colon (for example, ":perlio")
to emphasize their similarity to variable "attributes". But the code that
parses layer specification strings, which is also used to decode the PERLIO
environment variable, treats the colon as a separator.
An unset or empty PERLIO is equivalent to the default set of layers for your
platform; for example, ":unix:perlio" on Unix-like systems and ":unix:crlf" on
Windows and other DOS-like systems.
The list becomes the default for all Perl's IO. Consequently only built-in
layers can appear in this list, as external layers (such as ":encoding()")
need IO in order to load them! See "open pragma" for how to add external
encodings as defaults.
Layers it makes sense to include in the PERLIO environment variable are
briefly summarized below. For more details see PerlIO.
:bytes A pseudolayer that turns the ":utf8" flag off for the layer below;
unlikely to be useful on its own in the global PERLIO environment
variable. You perhaps were thinking of ":crlf:bytes" or
":perlio:bytes".
:crlf A layer which does CRLF to "\n" translation distinguishing "text" and
"binary" files in the manner of MS-DOS and similar operating systems.
(It currently does not mimic MS-DOS as far as treating of Control-Z as
being an end-of-file marker.)
:mmap A layer that implements "reading" of files by using mmap(2) to make an
entire file appear in the process's address space, and then using that
as PerlIO's "buffer".
:perlio This is a re-implementation of stdio-like buffering written as a
PerlIO layer. As such it will call whatever layer is below it for its
operations, typically ":unix".
:pop An experimental pseudolayer that removes the topmost layer. Use with
the same care as is reserved for nitroglycerine.
:raw A pseudolayer that manipulates other layers. Applying the ":raw"
layer is equivalent to calling "binmode($fh)". It makes the stream
pass each byte as-is without translation. In particular, both CRLF
translation and intuiting ":utf8" from the locale are disabled.
Unlike in earlier versions of Perl, ":raw" is not just the inverse of
":crlf": other layers which would affect the binary nature of the
stream are also removed or disabled.
:stdio This layer provides a PerlIO interface by wrapping system's ANSI C
"stdio" library calls. The layer provides both buffering and IO. Note
that the ":stdio" layer does not do CRLF translation even if that is
the platform's normal behaviour. You will need a ":crlf" layer above
it to do that.
:unix Low-level layer that calls "read", "write", "lseek", etc.
:utf8 A pseudolayer that enables a flag in the layer below to tell Perl that
output should be in utf8 and that input should be regarded as already
in valid utf8 form. WARNING: It does not check for validity and as
such should be handled with extreme caution for input, because
security violations can occur with non-shortest UTF-8 encodings, etc.
Generally ":encoding(utf8)" is the best option when reading UTF-8
encoded data.
:win32 On Win32 platforms this experimental layer uses native "handle" IO
rather than a Unix-like numeric file descriptor layer. Known to be
buggy in this release (5.14).
The default set of layers should give acceptable results on all platforms
For Unix platforms that will be the equivalent of "unix perlio" or "stdio".
Configure is set up to prefer the "stdio" implementation if the system's
library provides for fast access to the buffer; otherwise, it uses the "unix
perlio" implementation.
On Win32 the default in this release (5.14) is "unix crlf". Win32's "stdio"
has a number of bugs/mis-features for Perl IO which are somewhat depending on
the version and vendor of the C compiler. Using our own "crlf" layer as the
buffer avoids those issues and makes things more uniform. The "crlf" layer
provides CRLF conversion as well as buffering.
This release (5.14) uses "unix" as the bottom layer on Win32, and so still
uses the C compiler's numeric file descriptor routines. There is an
experimental native "win32" layer, which is expected to be enhanced and should
eventually become the default under Win32.
The PERLIO environment variable is completely ignored when Perl is run in
taint mode.
PERLIO_DEBUG
If set to the name of a file or device, certain operations of PerlIO subsystem
will be logged to that file, which is opened in append mode. Typical uses are
in Unix:
% env PERLIO_DEBUG=/dev/tty perl script ...
and under Win32, the approximately equivalent:
> set PERLIO_DEBUG=CON
perl script ...
This functionality is disabled for setuid scripts and for scripts run with -T.
PERLLIB A list of directories in which to look for Perl library files before looking
in the standard library and the current directory. If PERL5LIB is defined,
PERLLIB is not used.
The PERLLIB environment variable is completely ignored when Perl is run in
taint mode.
PERL5DB The command used to load the debugger code. The default is:
BEGIN { require "perl5db.pl" }
The PERL5DB environment variable is only used when Perl is started with a bare
-d switch.
PERL5DB_THREADED
If set to a true value, indicates to the debugger that the code being debugged
uses threads.
PERL5SHELL (specific to the Win32 port)
On Win32 ports only, may be set to an alternative shell that Perl must use
internally for executing "backtick" commands or system(). Default is "cmd.exe
/x/d/c" on WindowsNT and "command.com /c" on Windows95. The value is
considered space-separated. Precede any character that needs to be protected,
like a space or backslash, with another backslash.
Note that Perl doesn't use COMSPEC for this purpose because COMSPEC has a high
degree of variability among users, leading to portability concerns. Besides,
Perl can use a shell that may not be fit for interactive use, and setting
COMSPEC to such a shell may interfere with the proper functioning of other
programs (which usually look in COMSPEC to find a shell fit for interactive
use).
Before Perl 5.10.0 and 5.8.8, PERL5SHELL was not taint checked when running
external commands. It is recommended that you explicitly set (or delete)
$ENV{PERL5SHELL} when running in taint mode under Windows.
PERL_ALLOW_NON_IFS_LSP (specific to the Win32 port)
Set to 1 to allow the use of non-IFS compatible LSPs (Layered Service
Providers). Perl normally searches for an IFS-compatible LSP because this is
required for its emulation of Windows sockets as real filehandles. However,
this may cause problems if you have a firewall such as McAfee Guardian, which
requires that all applications use its LSP but which is not IFS-compatible,
because clearly Perl will normally avoid using such an LSP.
Setting this environment variable to 1 means that Perl will simply use the
first suitable LSP enumerated in the catalog, which keeps McAfee Guardian
happy--and in that particular case Perl still works too because McAfee
Guardian's LSP actually plays other games which allow applications requiring
IFS compatibility to work.
PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS
Relevant only if Perl is compiled with the "malloc" included with the Perl
distribution; that is, if "perl -V:d_mymalloc" is "define".
If set, this dumps out memory statistics after execution. If set to an
integer greater than one, also dumps out memory statistics after compilation.
PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
Relevant only if your Perl executable was built with -DDEBUGGING, this
controls the behaviour of global destruction of objects and other references.
See "PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL" in perlhacktips for more information.
PERL_DL_NONLAZY
Set to "1" to have Perl resolve all undefined symbols when it loads a dynamic
library. The default behaviour is to resolve symbols when they are used.
Setting this variable is useful during testing of extensions, as it ensures
that you get an error on misspelled function names even if the test suite
doesn't call them.
PERL_ENCODING
If using the "use encoding" pragma without an explicit encoding name, the
PERL_ENCODING environment variable is consulted for an encoding name.
PERL_HASH_SEED
(Since Perl 5.8.1, new semantics in Perl 5.18.0) Used to override the
randomization of Perl's internal hash function. The value is expressed in
hexadecimal, and may include a leading 0x. Truncated patterns are treated as
though they are suffixed with sufficient 0's as required.
If the option is provided, and "PERL_PERTURB_KEYS" is NOT set, then a value of
'0' implies "PERL_PERTURB_KEYS=0" and any other value implies
"PERL_PERTURB_KEYS=2".
PLEASE NOTE: The hash seed is sensitive information. Hashes are randomized to
protect against local and remote attacks against Perl code. By manually
setting a seed, this protection may be partially or completely lost.
See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec and "PERL_PERTURB_KEYS"
"PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG" for more information.
PERL_PERTURB_KEYS
(Since Perl 5.18.0) Set to "0" or "NO" then traversing keys will be
repeatable from run to run for the same PERL_HASH_SEED. Insertion into a hash
will not change the order, except to provide for more space in the hash. When
combined with setting PERL_HASH_SEED this mode is as close to pre 5.18
behavior as you can get.
When set to "1" or "RANDOM" then traversing keys will be randomized. Every
time a hash is inserted into the key order will change in a random fashion.
The order may not be repeatable in a following program run even if the
PERL_HASH_SEED has been specified. This is the default mode for perl.
When set to "2" or "DETERMINISTIC" then inserting keys into a hash will cause
the key order to change, but in a way that is repeatable from program run to
program run.
NOTE: Use of this option is considered insecure, and is intended only for
debugging non-deterministic behavior in Perl's hash function. Do not use it in
production.
See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec and "PERL_HASH_SEED" and
"PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG" for more information. You can get and set the key
traversal mask for a specific hash by using the "hash_traversal_mask()"
function from Hash::Util.
PERL_HASH_SEED_DEBUG
(Since Perl 5.8.1.) Set to "1" to display (to STDERR) information about the
hash function, seed, and what type of key traversal randomization is in effect
at the beginning of execution. This, combined with "PERL_HASH_SEED" and
"PERL_PERTURB_KEYS" is intended to aid in debugging nondeterministic behaviour
caused by hash randomization.
Note that any information about the hash function, especially the hash seed is
sensitive information: by knowing it, one can craft a denial-of-service attack
against Perl code, even remotely; see "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in
perlsec for more information. Do not disclose the hash seed to people who
don't need to know it. See also "hash_seed()" and "key_traversal_mask()" in
Hash::Util.
An example output might be:
HASH_FUNCTION = ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD HASH_SEED = 0x652e9b9349a7a032 PERTURB_KEYS = 1 (RANDOM)
PERL_MEM_LOG
If your Perl was configured with -Accflags=-DPERL_MEM_LOG, setting the
environment variable "PERL_MEM_LOG" enables logging debug messages. The value
has the form "<number>[m][s][t]", where "number" is the file descriptor number
you want to write to (2 is default), and the combination of letters specifies
that you want information about (m)emory and/or (s)v, optionally with
(t)imestamps. For example, "PERL_MEM_LOG=1mst" logs all information to stdout.
You can write to other opened file descriptors in a variety of ways:
$ 3>foo3 PERL_MEM_LOG=3m perl ...
PERL_ROOT (specific to the VMS port)
A translation-concealed rooted logical name that contains Perl and the logical
device for the @INC path on VMS only. Other logical names that affect Perl on
VMS include PERLSHR, PERL_ENV_TABLES, and SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL, but are
optional and discussed further in perlvms and in README.vms in the Perl source
distribution.
PERL_SIGNALS
Available in Perls 5.8.1 and later. If set to "unsafe", the pre-Perl-5.8.0
signal behaviour (which is immediate but unsafe) is restored. If set to
"safe", then safe (but deferred) signals are used. See "Deferred Signals
(Safe Signals)" in perlipc.
PERL_UNICODE
Equivalent to the -C command-line switch. Note that this is not a boolean
variable. Setting this to "1" is not the right way to "enable Unicode"
(whatever that would mean). You can use "0" to "disable Unicode", though (or
alternatively unset PERL_UNICODE in your shell before starting Perl). See the
description of the -C switch for more information.
SYS$LOGIN (specific to the VMS port)
Used if chdir has no argument and HOME and LOGDIR are not set.
Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl handles data specific to
particular natural languages; see perllocale.
Perl and its various modules and components, including its test frameworks, may sometimes
make use of certain other environment variables. Some of these are specific to a
particular platform. Please consult the appropriate module documentation and any
documentation for your platform (like perlsolaris, perllinux, perlmacosx, perlwin32, etc)
for variables peculiar to those specific situations.
Perl makes all environment variables available to the program being executed, and passes
these along to any child processes it starts. However, programs running setuid would do
well to execute the following lines before doing anything else, just to keep people
honest:
$ENV{PATH} = "/bin:/usr/bin"; # or whatever you need
$ENV{SHELL} = "/bin/sh" if exists $ENV{SHELL};
delete @ENV{qw(IFS CDPATH ENV BASH_ENV)};