PAR(1)

📦
version 1.064 · 6 versions
, in alpine 3.24

💅 PAR(1) — the par.pl era, but make it make sense

okay bestie so this is the user-contributed Perl documentation page for PAR(1), and honestly? it's giving "old faithful." let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

par.pl — Make and run Perl Archives. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

quick heads-up before we start, straight from the source: (Please see pp for convenient ways to make self-contained executables, scripts or PAR archives from perl programs.) — so like, if you want the easy road, go read pp. this page is the raw one 💅

To make a PAR distribution from a CPAN module distribution:

% par.pl -p                 # make a PAR dist under the current path
% par.pl -p Foo-0.01        # assume unpacked CPAN dist in Foo-0.01/

To manipulate a PAR distribution:

% par.pl -i Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # install
% par.pl -i http://foo.com/Foo-0.01         # auto-appends archname + perlver
% par.pl -i cpan://AUTRIJUS/PAR-0.74        # uses CPAN author directory
% par.pl -u Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # uninstall
% par.pl -s Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # sign
% par.pl -v Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # verify

To use Hello.pm from ./foo.par:

% par.pl -A./foo.par -MHello
% par.pl -A./foo -MHello    # the .par part is optional

Same thing, but search foo.par in the @INC; (yes the original semi-colon is right there, we respect the semicolon 👑)

% par.pl -Ifoo.par -MHello
% par.pl -Ifoo -MHello      # ditto

Run test.pl or script/test.pl from foo.par:

% par.pl foo.par test.pl    # looks for 'main.pl' by default,
                            # otherwise run 'test.pl'

To make a self-containing script containing a PAR file : (yes with the space before the colon, we're keeping it, it's canon 💖)

% par.pl -O./foo.pl foo.par
% ./foo.pl test.pl          # same as above

To embed the necessary non-core modules and shared objects for PAR's execution (like Zlib, IO, Cwd, etc), use the -b flag:

% par.pl -b -O./foo.pl foo.par
% ./foo.pl test.pl          # runs anywhere with core modules installed

If you also wish to embed core modules along, use the -B flag instead:

% par.pl -B -O./foo.pl foo.par
% ./foo.pl test.pl          # runs anywhere with the perl interpreter

This is particularly useful when making stand-alone binary executables; see pp for details. 🔥

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this stand-alone command offers roughly the same feature as perl -MPAR, except — and this is the plot twist — it takes the pre-loaded .par files via -Afoo.par instead of -MPAR=foo.par. main character energy, honestly. 💅

Additionally, it lets you convert a CPAN distribution to a PAR distribution, as well as manipulate such distributions. For more information about PAR distributions, see PAR::Dist. 🎀

🧚 Binary PAR loader (parl)

If you have a C compiler, or a pre-built binary package of PAR is available for your platform, a binary version of par.pl will also be automatically installed as parl. You can use it to run .par files:

# runs script/run.pl in archive, uses its lib/* as libraries
% parl myapp.par run.pl     # runs run.pl or script/run.pl in myapp.par
% parl otherapp.pl          # also runs normal perl scripts

However, if the .par archive contains either main.pl or script/main.pl, it is used instead:

% parl myapp.par run.pl     # runs main.pl, with 'run.pl' as @ARGV

Finally, the -O option makes a stand-alone binary executable from a PAR file:

% parl -B -Omyapp myapp.par
% ./myapp                   # run it anywhere without perl binaries

With the --par-options flag, generated binaries can act as parl to pack new binaries:

% ./myapp --par-options -Omyap2 myapp.par   # identical to ./myapp
% ./myapp --par-options -Omyap3 myap3.par   # now with different PAR
side note, bestie: -Omyap2 and -Omyap3 and myap3.par are spelled exactly like that in the original. not a typo on my end, i promise. 💀

🌈 Stand-alone executable format

The format for the stand-alone executable is simply concatenating the following elements. literally just vibes stacked on vibes:

  • The executable itself

Either in plain-text (par.pl) or native executable format (parl or parl.exe).

  • Any number of embedded files

These are typically used for bootstrapping PAR's various XS dependencies. Each section contains:

  • The magic string FILE
  • Length of file name in pack('N') format plus 9
  • 8 bytes of hex-encoded CRC32 of file content
  • A single slash (/)
  • The file name (without path)
  • File length in pack('N') format
  • The file's content (not compressed)
  • One PAR file

This is just a zip file beginning with the magic string PK\003\004.

  • Ending section

The pre-computed cache name. A pack('Z40') string of the value of -T (--tempcache) or the hash of the file, followed by \0CACHE. The hash of the file is calculated with Digest::SHA.

A pack('N') number of the total length of FILE and PAR sections, followed by a 8-bytes magic string: \012PAR.pm\012.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

PAR, PAR::Dist, parl, pp — go read them, they're all iconic in their own way 🫶

💌 AUTHORS 💌

Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>, Steffen Mueller <smueller@cpan.org>

You can write to the mailing list at <par@perl.org>, or send an empty mail to <par-subscribe@perl.org> to participate in the discussion. Archives of the mailing list are available at <https://www.mail-archive.com/par@perl.org/> or <https://groups.google.com/g/perl.par>. 🌸

Please submit bug reports to <https://github.com/rschupp/PAR-Packer/issues>.

Copyright 2002-2009 by Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>.

Neither this program nor the associated parl program impose any licensing restrictions on files generated by their execution, in accordance with the 8th article of the Artistic License:

"Aggregation of this Package with a commercial distribution is
always permitted provided that the use of this Package is embedded;
that is, when no overt attempt is made to make this Package's
interfaces visible to the end user of the commercial distribution.
Such use shall not be construed as a distribution of this Package."

Therefore, you are absolutely free to place any license on the resulting executable, as long as the packed 3rd-party libraries are also available under the Artistic License. no cap, that's genuinely generous of them 💜

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

See LICENSE.

🎀 okay that's the whole page, bestie. this one's perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03, and that's the PAR(1) page — go forth and pack some archives, you absolute icon 💖✨

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