PERLI11NDOC(1p)

📦
version 0.052 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ perli11ndoc 💅 (that's the PERLI11NDOC(1p) page bestie, we fold the manual name in up top like civilized people)

Okay so real talk — you know how some Perl modules are actually just fancy lil puppet strings pulling on big C libraries? Yeah. This is the doc-viewer for exactly those. And it's giving librarian but make it cunty.

💖 NAME 💖

perli11ndoc — view documentation of installed libraries bound using Glib::Object::Introspection.

Periodt. That's the whole job.

🌸 ABSTRACT 🌸

perli11ndoc lets you view Perl documentation for Glib libraries that are bound to Perl using Glib::Object::Introspection. 🦋

And what is Glib::Object::Introspection? Not to be dramatic but it's kind of an icon: it uses the gobject-introspection and libffi projects to dynamically create Perl bindings for a whole buffet of libraries. Examples? oh you know, just gtk+, webkit, libsoup, and many many more. No cap. 🔥

Every library that's currently installed gets shown to you with Perl-specific documentation and examples. And where Glib::Object::Introspection differs from the C library? The differences get pointed out, and the Perl-specific interface gets defined right there. It's giving translated-and-annotated. 💜

🎀 DEPENDENCIES 🎀

A couple things have to be true before this baby will run, so let's do a vibe check:

  • perli11ndoc requires that XML::LibXML be installed to run. Not optional, bestie, it's a hard require. 🫶
  • It also requires that the corresponding C library headers be installed on the system, because that's where the documentation actually comes from. Like, that's the source of truth. 👑

Concrete example so it's not just vibes: on a Debian-based system you would need libgtk-3-dev to see the Perl introspected documentation for Gtk3. That's the tradeoff, that's the deal. ✨

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

Go touch grass in these other docs, iykyk:

🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

The main characters responsible for this, and we thank them for their service 🫡:

  • Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi at linux intel com>
  • muppet <scott asofyet org>
  • Torsten Schönfeld <kaffeetisch at gmx de>

💀 LICENSE 💀

This utility is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). For more information, see http://www.fsf.org/licenses/lgpl.txt

(Yes you have to actually read the license. I don't make the rules. Actually I literally don't make the rules, the LGPL does. 🙈)

tiny heads up bestie: perli11ndoc is a User Contributed Perl doc page — not core, not shipped-with-the-interpreter, contributed. So if it acts up, you know who to thank (see AUTHORS above 💜).

okay that's the whole page! this edition was from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-08-22, and it lives in the PERLI11NDOC(1p) slot of the User Contributed Perl Documentation. read it, run it, slay it. bye bestie 🎀✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from