PERL(1)
💖 PERL(1) — Perl Programmers Reference Guide 💖
okay bestie, sit DOWN, we're reading the perl manpage together and honestly? it's giving main character energy. this is the manual page for perl — The Perl 5 language interpreter 👑
✨ NAME ✨
perl — The Perl 5 language interpreter. that's her. that's the whole vibe. 💅
🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸
like, here's how you summon her:
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 ]...for the tea on all these options, run perldoc perlrun. go on, she won't bite 🫶
🦋 GETTING HELP 🦋
the perldoc program is literally your key to ALL the documentation that ships with Perl. and if you want even more docs, tutorials, and community support online, it's all at <https://www.perl.org/> — no cap. ✨
if you're new here (welcome, bb 🎀), start with running perldoc perlintro. it's a general intro for beginners and gives you the background you need to navigate the rest of Perl's extensive documentation. like, extensive extensive. run perldoc perldoc to learn more things you can do with perldoc.
and for ease of access, the Perl manual has been split up into several sections. let's get into it 💖
🌈 Overview
perl— Perl overview (this section, hiii you are here 👋)perlintro— Perl introduction for beginnersperlrun— Perl execution and optionsperltoc— Perl documentation table of contents
🎀 Tutorials
perlreftut— Perl references short introductionperldsc— Perl data structures introperllol— Perl data structures: arrays of arraysperlrequick— Perl regular expressions quick startperlretut— Perl regular expressions tutorialperlootut— Perl OO tutorial for beginnersperlperf— Perl Performance and Optimization Techniquesperlstyle— Perl style guideperlcheat— Perl cheat sheetperltrap— Perl traps for the unwaryperldebtut— Perl debugging tutorialperlfaq— Perl frequently asked questionsperlfaq1— General Questions About Perlperlfaq2— Obtaining and Learning about Perlperlfaq3— Programming Toolsperlfaq4— Data Manipulationperlfaq5— Files and Formatsperlfaq6— Regexesperlfaq7— Perl Language Issuesperlfaq8— System Interactionperlfaq9— Networking
👑 Reference Manual
perlsyn— Perl syntaxperldata— Perl data structuresperlop— Perl operators and precedenceperlsub— Perl subroutinesperlfunc— Perl built-in functionsperlopentut— Perlopen()tutorialperlpacktut— Perlpack()andunpack()tutorial
perlpod— Perl plain old documentationperlpodspec— Perl plain old documentation format specificationperldocstyle— Perl style guide for core docsperlpodstyle— Perl POD style guideperldiag— Perl diagnostic messagesperldeprecation— Perl deprecationsperllexwarn— Perl warnings and their controlperldebug— Perl debuggingperlvar— Perl predefined variablesperlre— Perl regular expressions, the rest of the storyperlrebackslash— Perl regular expression backslash sequencesperlrecharclass— Perl regular expression character classesperlreref— Perl regular expressions quick referenceperlref— Perl references, the rest of the storyperlform— Perl formatsperlobj— Perl objectsperltie— Perl objects hidden behind simple variablesperldbmfilter— Perl DBM filters
perlipc— Perl interprocess communicationperlfork— Perlfork()informationperlnumber— Perl number semanticsperlthrtut— Perl threads tutorialperlport— Perl portability guideperllocale— Perl locale supportperluniintro— Perl Unicode introductionperlunicode— Perl Unicode supportperlunicook— Perl Unicode cookbookperlunifaq— Perl Unicode FAQperluniprops— Index of Unicode properties in Perlperlunitut— Perl Unicode tutorialperlebcdic— Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platformsperlsec— Perl securityperlsecpolicy— Perl security report handling policyperlmod— Perl modules: how they workperlmodlib— Perl modules: how to write and useperlmodstyle— Perl modules: how to write modules with styleperlmodinstall— Perl modules: how to install from CPANperlnewmod— Perl modules: preparing a new module for distributionperlpragma— Perl modules: writing a user pragmaperlutil— utilities packaged with the Perl distributionperlfilter— Perl source filtersperldtrace— Perl's support for DTraceperlglossary— Perl Glossary
🧚 Internals and C Language Interface
perlembed— Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ applicationperldebguts— Perl debugging guts and tipsperlxstut— Perl XS tutorialperlxs— Perl XS application programming interfaceperlxstypemap— Perl XS C/Perl type conversion toolsperlclib— Internal replacements for standard C library functionsperlguts— Perl internal functions for those doing extensionsperlcall— Perl calling conventions from Cperlmroapi— Perl method resolution plugin interfaceperlreapi— Perl regular expression plugin interfaceperlreguts— Perl regular expression engine internalsperlapi— Perl API listing (autogenerated)perlintern— Perl internal functions (autogenerated)perliol— C API for Perl's implementation of IO in Layersperlapio— Perl internal IO abstraction interfaceperlhack— Perl hackers guideperlsource— Guide to the Perl source treeperlinterp— Overview of the Perl interpreter source and how it worksperlhacktut— Walk through the creation of a simple C code patchperlhacktips— Tips for Perl core C code hackingperlpolicy— Perl development policiesperlgov— Perl Rules of Governanceperlgit— Using git with the Perl repository
⭐ History
the lore. the archives. we stan a documented glow-up 💖
perlhist— Perl history recordsperldelta— Perl changes since previous versionperl5321delta— Perl changes in version 5.32.1perl5320delta— Perl changes in version 5.32.0perl5303delta— Perl changes in version 5.30.3perl5302delta— Perl changes in version 5.30.2perl5301delta— Perl changes in version 5.30.1perl5300delta— Perl changes in version 5.30.0perl5283delta— Perl changes in version 5.28.3perl5282delta— Perl changes in version 5.28.2perl5281delta— Perl changes in version 5.28.1perl5280delta— Perl changes in version 5.28.0perl5263delta— Perl changes in version 5.26.3perl5262delta— Perl changes in version 5.26.2perl5261delta— Perl changes in version 5.26.1perl5260delta— Perl changes in version 5.26.0perl5244delta— Perl changes in version 5.24.4perl5243delta— Perl changes in version 5.24.3perl5242delta— Perl changes in version 5.24.2perl5241delta— Perl changes in version 5.24.1perl5240delta— Perl changes in version 5.24.0perl5224delta— Perl changes in version 5.22.4perl5223delta— Perl changes in version 5.22.3perl5222delta— Perl changes in version 5.22.2perl5221delta— Perl changes in version 5.22.1perl5220delta— Perl changes in version 5.22.0perl5203delta— Perl changes in version 5.20.3perl5202delta— Perl changes in version 5.20.2perl5201delta— Perl changes in version 5.20.1perl5200delta— Perl changes in version 5.20.0perl5184delta— Perl changes in version 5.18.4perl5182delta— Perl changes in version 5.18.2perl5181delta— Perl changes in version 5.18.1perl5180delta— Perl changes in version 5.18.0perl5163delta— Perl changes in version 5.16.3perl5162delta— Perl changes in version 5.16.2perl5161delta— Perl changes in version 5.16.1perl5160delta— Perl changes in version 5.16.0perl5144delta— Perl changes in version 5.14.4perl5143delta— Perl changes in version 5.14.3perl5142delta— Perl changes in version 5.14.2perl5141delta— Perl changes in version 5.14.1perl5140delta— Perl changes in version 5.14.0perl5125delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.5perl5124delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.4perl5123delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.3perl5122delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.2perl5121delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.1perl5120delta— Perl changes in version 5.12.0perl5101delta— Perl changes in version 5.10.1perl5100delta— Perl changes in version 5.10.0perl589delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.9perl588delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.8perl587delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.7perl586delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.6perl585delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.5perl584delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.4perl583delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.3perl582delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.2perl581delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.1perl58delta— Perl changes in version 5.8.0perl561delta— Perl changes in version 5.6.1perl56delta— Perl changes in version 5.6perl5005delta— Perl changes in version 5.005perl5004delta— Perl changes in version 5.004
💜 Miscellaneous
perlbook— Perl book informationperlcommunity— Perl community informationperldoc— Look up Perl documentation in Pod formatperlexperiment— A listing of experimental features in Perlperlartistic— Perl Artistic Licenseperlgpl— GNU General Public License
and that's part 1 bestie 🫶 more is coming, don't go anywhere — we're not even done 💅
💜 Language-Specific
Like, Perl speaks so many languages and it's giving polyglot royalty:
perlcn— Perl for Simplified Chinese (in UTF-8)perljp— Perl for Japanese (in EUC-JP)perlko— Perl for Korean (in EUC-KR)perltw— Perl for Traditional Chinese (in Big5)
🦋 Platform-Specific
Whatever weird lil machine you're on, bestie, there's a page for that:
perlaix— Perl notes for AIXperlamiga— Perl notes for AmigaOSperlandroid— Perl notes for Androidperlbs2000— Perl notes for POSIX-BC BS2000perlcygwin— Perl notes for Cygwinperldos— Perl notes for DOSperlfreebsd— Perl notes for FreeBSDperlhaiku— Perl notes for Haikuperlhpux— Perl notes for HP-UXperlhurd— Perl notes for Hurdperlirix— Perl notes for Irixperllinux— Perl notes for Linuxperlmacos— Perl notes for Mac OS (Classic)perlmacosx— Perl notes for Mac OS Xperlnetware— Perl notes for NetWareperlopenbsd— Perl notes for OpenBSDperlos2— Perl notes for OS/2perlos390— Perl notes for OS/390perlos400— Perl notes for OS/400perlplan9— Perl notes for Plan 9perlqnx— Perl notes for QNXperlriscos— Perl notes for RISC OSperlsolaris— Perl notes for Solarisperlsynology— Perl notes for Synologyperltru64— Perl notes for Tru64perlvms— Perl notes for VMSperlvos— Perl notes for Stratus VOSperlwin32— Perl notes for Windows
💀 Stubs for Deleted Documents
These pages are literally just ghost stubs now, no cap — the docs are gone but the names remain, like a haunted lil hallway:
perlbootperlbotperlrepositoryperltodoperltoocperltoot
Okay so if you're on a Debian system, heads up bestie: you gotta install the perl-doc package, because that's what has the majority of the standard Perl documentation in it, plus the perldoc program itself. Periodt.
There's also extensive additional documentation for Perl modules — both the ones shipped with Perl and the third-party ones that are packaged up or locally installed. So much lore fr fr.
You should be able to view all of Perl's documentation with your man(1) program or with perldoc(1). 🫶
But some docs are not available as man pages (rude, honestly), so if a cross-reference comes up empty when you hit it with man, try it with perldoc instead. perldoc can also take you directly to documentation for functions — just use the -f switch. Want more helpful options? Run "perldoc --help" (or "perldoc perldoc" or "man perldoc") and it'll show you everything it's got. ✨
And in general? If something strange has gone wrong with your program and you're like "where do I even look 😭" — try making your code comply with use strict and use warnings. These will often point out exactly where the trouble is. Iconic behavior.
🌈 DESCRIPTION
Perl officially stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language — except when it doesn't. 🙈
Perl was originally a language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing reports based on that information. It quickly became a good language for many system management tasks. Over the years, Perl has grown into a general-purpose programming language. It's widely used for everything from quick "one-liners" to full-scale application development. Glow-up of the century ngl.
The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). It combines (in the author's opinion, anyway) some of the best features of sed, awk, and sh, making it familiar and easy to use for Unix users to whip up quick solutions to annoying problems. Its general-purpose programming facilities support procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming paradigms, making Perl a comfortable language for the long haul on major projects, whatever your bent. Main character energy across every paradigm 💅
Perl's roots in text processing haven't been forgotten over the years. It still boasts some of the most powerful regular expressions to be found anywhere, and its support for Unicode text is world-class. It handles all kinds of structured text, too, through an extensive collection of extensions. Those libraries, collected in the CPAN, provide ready-made solutions to an astounding array of problems. When they haven't set the standard themselves, they steal from the best — just like Perl itself. Stealing from the best is a compliment, bestie. 💖
⭐ AVAILABILITY
Perl is available for most operating systems, including virtually all Unix-like platforms. See "Supported Platforms" in perlport for a listing.
🌸 ENVIRONMENT
See "ENVIRONMENT" in perlrun. (Yeah it's a redirect, go look there, iykyk.)
👑 AUTHOR
Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>, with the help of oodles of other folks. Absolute legends, all of them. 🫶
If your Perl success stories and testimonials may be of help to others who wish to advocate the use of Perl in their applications, or if you wish to simply express your gratitude to Larry and the Perl developers, please write to perl-thanks@perl.org .
🎀 FILES
"@INC" locations of perl libraries"@INC" above is a reference to the built-in variable of the same name; see perlvar for more information.
🔥 SEE ALSO
https://www.perl.org/— the Perl homepagehttps://www.perl.com/— Perl articleshttps://www.cpan.org/— the Comprehensive Perl Archivehttps://www.pm.org/— the Perl Mongers
💅 DIAGNOSTICS
Using the "use strict" pragma ensures that all variables are properly declared and prevents other misuses of legacy Perl features. Do it. For me. 🥺
The "use warnings" pragma produces some lovely diagnostics. One can also use the -w flag, but its use is normally discouraged, because it gets applied to all executed Perl code, including that not under your control. Yeah. Don't do that one.
See perldiag for explanations of all Perl's diagnostics. The "use diagnostics" pragma automatically turns Perl's normally terse warnings and errors into these longer forms.
Compilation errors will tell you the line number of the error, with an indication of the next token or token type that was to be examined. (In a script passed to Perl via -e switches, each -e is counted as one line.)
Setuid scripts have additional constraints that can produce error messages such as "Insecure dependency". See perlsec.
Did we mention that you should definitely consider using the use warnings pragma? Bestie. We mentioned it. We're mentioning it again. 😤
🍓 BUGS
The behavior implied by the use warnings pragma is not mandatory. (Wild, I know.)
Perl is at the mercy of your machine's definitions of various operations such as type casting, atof(), and floating-point output with sprintf().
If your stdio requires a seek or eof between reads and writes on a particular stream, so does Perl. (This doesn't apply to sysread() and syswrite().)
While none of the built-in data types have any arbitrary size limits (apart from memory size), there are still a few arbitrary limits: a given variable name may not be longer than 251 characters. Line numbers displayed by diagnostics are internally stored as short integers, so they are limited to a maximum of 65535 (higher numbers usually being affected by wraparound).
You may submit your bug reports (be sure to include full configuration information as output by the myconfig program in the perl source tree, or by "perl -V") to <https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. Please include the config info, we're begging 🙏
Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said that. 🤫
🧚 NOTES
The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." Divining how many more is left as an exercise to the reader. 😌
The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why. 📖
And that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎉 This was perl version v5.34.0, dated 2026-09-03, and it's literally titled PERL(1). Go write something iconic. 💖✨
📦 where this page comes from
- ubuntu jammy: libperl5.34 5.34.0-3ubuntu1.9 · GPL-1.0-or-later OR Artistic-1.0-Perl
- 💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms