path: root/pod/perlrun.pod

=head1 NAME

perlrun - how to execute the Perl interpreter

=head1 SYNOPSIS

B<perl>	S<[ B<-sTuU> ]>
	S<[ B<-hv> ] [ B<-V>[:I<configvar>] ]>
	S<[ B<-cw> ] [ B<-d>[:I<debugger>] ] [ B<-D>[I<number/list>] ]>
	S<[ B<-pna> ] [ B<-F>I<pattern> ] [ B<-l>[I<octal>] ] [ B<-0>[I<octal>] ]>
	S<[ B<-I>I<dir> ] [ B<-m>[B<->]I<module> ] [ B<-M>[B<->]I<'module...'> ]>
	S<[ B<-P> ]>
	S<[ B<-S> ]>
	S<[ B<-x>[I<dir>] ]>
	S<[ B<-i>[I<extension>] ]>
	S<[ B<-e> I<'command'> ] [ B<--> ] [ I<programfile> ] [ I<argument> ]...>

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Upon startup, Perl looks for your script in one of the following
places:

=over 4

=item 1.

Specified line by line via B<-e> switches on the command line.

=item 2.

Contained in the file specified by the first filename on the command line.
(Note that systems supporting the #! notation invoke interpreters this way.)

=item 3.

Passed in implicitly via standard input.  This works only if there are
no filename arguments--to pass arguments to a STDIN script you
must explicitly specify a "-" for the script name.

=back

With methods 2 and 3, Perl starts parsing the input file from the
beginning, unless you've specified a B<-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 script
embedded in a larger message.  (In this case you would indicate the end
of the script using the C<__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 behavior regardless of how Perl was
invoked, even if B<-x> was used to find the beginning of the script.

Because many operating systems silently chop 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 script.  And a partial B<-I> switch
could also cause odd results.

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 -*- -p
    eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl $0 -S ${1+"$@"}'
        if $running_under_some_shell;

to let Perl see the B<-p> switch.

If the #! line does not contain the word "perl", 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 script, Perl compiles the entire script to an
internal form.  If there are any compilation errors, execution of the
script is not attempted.  (This is unlike the typical shell script,
which might run part-way through before finding a syntax error.)

If the script is syntactically correct, it is executed.  If the script
runs off the end without hitting an exit() or die() operator, an implicit
C<exit(0)> is provided to indicate successful completion.

=head2 #! and quoting on non-Unix systems

Unix's #! technique can be simulated on other systems:

=over 4

=item OS/2

Put

    extproc perl -S -your_switches

as the first line in C<*.cmd> file (C<-S> due to a bug in cmd.exe's
`extproc' handling).

=item MS-DOS

Create a batch file to run your script, and codify it in
C<ALTERNATIVE_SHEBANG> (see the F<dosish.h> file in the source
distribution for more information).

=item Win95/NT

The Win95/NT installation, when using the Activeware port of Perl,
will modify the Registry to associate the .pl extension with the perl
interpreter.  If you install another port of Perl, including the one
in the Win32 directory of the Perl distribution, then you'll have to
modify the Registry yourself.

=item Macintosh

Macintosh perl scripts will have the appropriate Creator and
Type, so that double-clicking them will invoke the perl application.

=back

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 (C<*>, C<\> and C<"> are
common) and how to protect whitespace and these characters to run
one-liners (see C<-e> below).

On some systems, you may have to change single-quotes to double ones,
which you must I<NOT> do on Unix or Plan9 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\""

    # Macintosh
    print "Hello world\n"
     (then Run "Myscript" or Shift-Command-R)

    # 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 was 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.

Under the Macintosh, it depends which environment you are using.  The MacPerl
shell, or MPW, is much like Unix shells in its support for several
quoting variants, except that it makes free use of the Macintosh's non-ASCII
characters as control characters.

There is no general solution to all of this.  It's just a mess.

=head2 Switches

A single-character switch may be combined with the following switch, if
any.

    #!/usr/bin/perl -spi.bak	# same as -s -p -i.bak

Switches include:

=over 5

=item B<-0>[I<digits>]

specifies the input record separator (C<$/>) as an octal 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
B<find> which can print filenames terminated by the null character, you
can say this:

    find . -name '*.bak' -print0 | perl -n0e unlink

The special value 00 will cause Perl to slurp files in paragraph mode.
The value 0777 will cause Perl to slurp files whole because there is no
legal character with that value.

=item B<-a>

turns on autosplit mode when used with a B<-n> or B<-p>.  An implicit
split command to the @F array is done as the first thing inside the
implicit while loop produced by the B<-n> or B<-p>.

    perl -ane 'print pop(@F), "\n";'

is equivalent to

    while (<>) {
	@F = split(' ');
	print pop(@F), "\n";
    }

An alternate delimiter may be specified using B<-F>.

=item B<-c>

causes Perl to check the syntax of the script and then exit without
executing it.  Actually, it I<will> execute C<BEGIN>, C<END>, and C<use> blocks,
because these are considered as occurring outside the execution of
your program.

=item B<-d>

runs the script under the Perl debugger.  See L<perldebug>.

=item B<-d:>I<foo>

runs the script under the control of a debugging or tracing module
installed as Devel::foo. E.g., B<-d:DProf> executes the script using the
Devel::DProf profiler.  See L<perldebug>.

=item B<-D>I<letters>

=item B<-D>I<number>

sets debugging flags.  To watch how it executes your script, use
B<-Dtls>.  (This works only if debugging is compiled into your
Perl.)  Another nice value is B<-Dx>, which lists your compiled
syntax tree.  And B<-Dr> displays compiled regular expressions. As an
alternative, specify a number instead of list of letters (e.g., B<-D14> is
equivalent to B<-Dtls>):

        1  p  Tokenizing and parsing
        2  s  Stack snapshots
        4  l  Context (loop) stack processing
        8  t  Trace execution
       16  o  Method and overloading resolution
       32  c  String/numeric conversions
       64  P  Print preprocessor command for -P
      128  m  Memory allocation
      256  f  Format processing
      512  r  Regular expression parsing and execution
     1024  x  Syntax tree dump
     2048  u  Tainting checks
     4096  L  Memory leaks (not supported anymore)
     8192  H  Hash dump -- usurps values()
    16384  X  Scratchpad allocation
    32768  D  Cleaning up

=item B<-e> I<commandline>

may be used to enter one line of script.
If B<-e> is given, Perl
will not look for a script filename in the argument list.
Multiple B<-e> commands may
be given to build up a multi-line script.
Make sure to use semicolons where you would in a normal program.

=item B<-F>I<pattern>

specifies the pattern to split on if B<-a> is also in effect.  The
pattern may be surrounded by C<//>, C<"">, or C<''>, otherwise it will be
put in single quotes.

=item B<-h>

prints a summary of the options.

=item B<-i>[I<extension>]

specifies that files processed by the C<E<lt>E<gt>> 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 added to the name
of the old file to make a backup copy.  If no extension is supplied, no
backup is made.  From the shell, saying

    $ perl -p -i.bak -e "s/foo/bar/; ... "

is the same as using the script:

    #!/usr/bin/perl -pi.bak
    s/foo/bar/;

which is equivalent to

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    while (<>) {
	if ($ARGV ne $oldargv) {
	    rename($ARGV, $ARGV . '.bak');
	    open(ARGVOUT, ">$ARGV");
	    select(ARGVOUT);
	    $oldargv = $ARGV;
	}
	s/foo/bar/;
    }
    continue {
	print;	# this prints to original filename
    }
    select(STDOUT);

except that the B<-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.

You can use C<eof> without parenthesis to locate the end of each input file,
in case you want to append to each file, or reset line numbering (see
example in L<perlfunc/eof>).

=item B<-I>I<directory>

Directories specified by B<-I> are prepended to the search path for
modules (C<@INC>), and also tells the C preprocessor where to search for
include files.  The C preprocessor is invoked with B<-P>; by default it
searches /usr/include and /usr/lib/perl.

=item B<-l>[I<octnum>]

enables automatic line-ending processing.  It has two effects:  first,
it automatically chomps "C<$/>" (the input record separator) when used
with B<-n> or B<-p>, and second, it assigns "C<$\>"
(the output record separator) to have the value of I<octnum> so that
any print statements will have that separator added back on.  If
I<octnum> is omitted, sets "C<$\>" to the current value of "C<$/>".  For
instance, to trim lines to 80 columns:

    perl -lpe 'substr($_, 80) = ""'

Note that the assignment C<$\ = $/> is done when the switch is processed,
so the input record separator can be different than the output record
separator if the B<-l> switch is followed by a B<-0> switch:

    gnufind / -print0 | perl -ln0e 'print "found $_" if -p'

This sets C<$\> to newline and then sets C<$/> to the null character.

=item B<-m>[B<->]I<module>

=item B<-M>[B<->]I<module>

=item B<-M>[B<->]I<'module ...'>

=item B<-[mM]>[B<->]I<module=arg[,arg]...>

C<-m>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<();> before executing your
script.

C<-M>I<module> executes C<use> I<module> C<;> before executing your
script.  You can use quotes to add extra code after the module name,
e.g., C<-M'module qw(foo bar)'>.

If the first character after the C<-M> or C<-m> is a dash (C<->)
then the 'use' is replaced with 'no'.

A little builtin syntactic sugar means you can also say
C<-mmodule=foo,bar> or C<-Mmodule=foo,bar> as a shortcut for
C<-M'module qw(foo bar)'>.  This avoids the need to use quotes when
importing symbols.  The actual code generated by C<-Mmodule=foo,bar> is
C<use module split(/,/,q{foo,bar})>.  Note that the C<=> form
removes the distinction between C<-m> and C<-M>.

=item B<-n>

causes Perl to assume the following loop around your script, which
makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed -n> or
B<awk>:

    while (<>) {
	...		# your script goes here
    }

Note that the lines are not printed by default.  See B<-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.

Here is an efficient way to delete all files older than a week:

    find . -mtime +7 -print | perl -nle 'unlink;'

This is faster than using the C<-exec> switch of B<find> because you don't
have to start a process on every filename found.

C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
the implicit loop, just as in B<awk>.

=item B<-p>

causes Perl to assume the following loop around your script, which
makes it iterate over filename arguments somewhat like B<sed>:


    while (<>) {
	...		# your script 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 occuring during printing is
treated as fatal.  To suppress printing use the B<-n> switch.  A B<-p>
overrides a B<-n> switch.

C<BEGIN> and C<END> blocks may be used to capture control before or after
the implicit loop, just as in awk.

=item B<-P>

causes your script to be run through the C preprocessor before
compilation by Perl.  (Because both comments and cpp directives begin
with the # character, you should avoid starting comments with any words
recognized by the C preprocessor such as "if", "else", or "define".)

=item B<-s>

enables some rudimentary switch parsing for switches on the command
line after the script name but before any filename arguments (or before
a B<-->).  Any switch found there is removed from @ARGV and sets the
corresponding variable in the Perl script.  The following script
prints "true" if and only if the script is invoked with a B<-xyz> switch.

    #!/usr/bin/perl -s
    if ($xyz) { print "true\n"; }

=item B<-S>

makes Perl use the PATH environment variable to search for the
script (unless the name of the script contains directory 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.

If the file supplied contains directory separators (i.e. it is an
absolute or relative pathname), and if the 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 script 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
script will be searched for strictly on the PATH.

Typically this is used to emulate #! startup on platforms that
don't support #!.  This example works on many platforms that
have a shell compatible with Bourne shell:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
	    if $running_under_some_shell;

The system ignores the first line and feeds the script to /bin/sh,
which proceeds to try to execute the Perl script 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 B<-S> tells Perl to search for the
script if necessary.  After Perl locates the script, it parses the
lines and ignores them because the variable $running_under_some_shell
is never true.  A better construct than C<$*> would be C<${1+"$@"}>, which
handles embedded spaces and such in the filenames, but doesn't work if
the script is being interpreted by csh.  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 /usr/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
	& eval 'exec /usr/bin/perl -S $0 $argv:q'
		if $running_under_some_shell;

=item B<-T>

forces "taint" checks to be turned on 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 run on another's behalf, such as CGI
programs.  See L<perlsec>.

=item B<-u>

causes Perl to dump core after compiling your script.  You can then
take this core dump and turn it into an executable file by using the
B<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 script before dumping,
use the dump() operator instead.  Note: availability of B<undump> is
platform specific and may not be available for a specific port of
Perl.

=item B<-U>

allows Perl to do unsafe operations.  Currently the only "unsafe"
operations are the unlinking of directories while running as superuser,
and running setuid programs with fatal taint checks turned into
warnings.

=item B<-v>

prints the version and patchlevel of your Perl executable.

=item B<-V>

prints summary of the major perl configuration values and the current
value of @INC.

=item B<-V:>I<name>

Prints to STDOUT the value of the named configuration variable.

=item B<-w>

prints warnings about variable names that are mentioned only once, and
scalar variables that are used before being set.  Also warns about
redefined subroutines, and references to undefined filehandles or
filehandles opened read-only that you are attempting to write on.  Also
warns you if you use values as a number that doesn'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.

You can disable specific warnings using C<__WARN__> hooks, as described
in L<perlvar> and L<perlfunc/warn>. See also L<perldiag> and L<perltrap>.

=item B<-x> I<directory>

tells Perl that the script is embedded in a 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.  If a directory name is specified, Perl will switch to
that directory before running the script.  The B<-x> switch controls
only the disposal of leading garbage.  The script must be
terminated with C<__END__> if there is trailing garbage to be ignored (the
script can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the DATA
filehandle if desired).

=back

=head1 ENVIRONMENT

=over 12

=item HOME

Used if chdir has no argument.

=item LOGDIR

Used if chdir has no argument and HOME is not set.

=item PATH

Used in executing subprocesses, and in finding the script if B<-S> is
used.

=item PERL5LIB

A colon-separated list of directories in which to look for Perl library
files before looking in the standard library and the current
directory.  If PERL5LIB is not defined, PERLLIB is used.  When running
taint checks (because the script was running setuid or setgid, or the
B<-T> switch was used), neither variable is used.  The script should
instead say

    use lib "/my/directory";

=item PERL5OPT

Command-line options (switches).  Switches in this variable are taken
as if they were on every Perl command line.  Only the B<-[DIMUdmw]>
switches are allowed.  When running taint checks (because the script
was running setuid or setgid, or the B<-T> switch was used), this
variable is ignored.

=item PERLLIB

A colon-separated 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.

=item PERL5DB

The command used to load the debugger code.  The default is:

	BEGIN { require 'perl5db.pl' }

=item PERL5SHELL (specific to WIN32 port)

May be set to an alternative shell that perl must use internally for
executing "backtick" commands or system().  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).

=item PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS

Relevant only if your perl executable was built with B<-DDEBUGGING_MSTATS>,
if set, this causes memory statistics to be dumped after execution.  If set
to an integer greater than one, also causes memory statistics to be dumped
after compilation.

=item PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL

Relevant only if your perl executable was built with B<-DDEBUGGING>,
this controls the behavior of global destruction of objects and other
references.

=back

Perl also has environment variables that control how Perl handles data
specific to particular natural languages.  See L<perllocale>.

Apart from these, Perl uses no other environment variables, except
to make them available to the script being executed, and to child
processes.  However, scripts 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)};