1Perl is Copyright (C) 1993 - 2025 by Larry Wall and others. 2 3All rights reserved. 4 5# ABOUT PERL 6 7Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for 8text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including 9system administration, web development, network programming, GUI 10development, and more. 11 12The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, 13complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). Its major 14features are that it's easy to use, supports both procedural and 15object-oriented (OO) programming, has powerful built-in support for text 16processing, and has one of the world's most impressive collections of 17third-party modules. 18 19For an introduction to the language's features, see pod/perlintro.pod. 20 21For a discussion of the important changes in this release, see 22pod/perldelta.pod. 23 24There are also many Perl books available, covering a wide variety of topics, 25from various publishers. See pod/perlbook.pod for more information. 26 27 28# INSTALLATION 29 30If you're using a relatively modern operating system and want to 31install this version of Perl locally, run the following commands: 32 33 ./Configure -des -Dprefix=$HOME/localperl 34 make test 35 make install 36 37This will configure and compile perl for your platform, run the regression 38tests, and install perl in a subdirectory "localperl" of your home directory. 39 40If you run into any trouble whatsoever or you need to install a customized 41version of Perl, you should read the detailed instructions in the "INSTALL" 42file that came with this distribution. Additionally, there are a number of 43"README" files with hints and tips about building and using Perl on a wide 44variety of platforms, some more common than others. 45 46Once you have Perl installed, a wealth of documentation is available to you 47through the 'perldoc' tool. To get started, run this command: 48 49 perldoc perl 50 51 52# IF YOU RUN INTO TROUBLE 53 54Perl is a large and complex system that's used for everything from 55knitting to rocket science. If you run into trouble, it's quite 56likely that someone else has already solved the problem you're 57facing. Once you've exhausted the documentation, please report bugs to us 58at the GitHub issue tracker at https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues 59 60While it was current when we made it available, Perl is constantly evolving 61and there may be a more recent version that fixes bugs you've run into or 62adds new features that you might find useful. 63 64You can always find the latest version of perl on a CPAN (Comprehensive Perl 65Archive Network) site near you at https://www.cpan.org/src/ 66 67If you want to submit a simple patch to the perl source, see the "SUPER 68QUICK PATCH GUIDE" in pod/perlhack.pod. 69 70Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this 71because it pleases the Author of my story. If this bothers you, then your 72notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-) 73 74The author. 75 76 77# LICENSING 78 79This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 80it under the terms of either: 81 82a. the GNU General Public License as published by the Free 83 Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any 84 later version, or 85 86b. the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit. 87 88This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 89but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 90MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either 91the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details. 92 93You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this 94Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one. 95 96You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License 97along with this program in the file named "Copying". If not, write to the 98Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, 99Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA or visit their web page on the internet at 100https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. 101 102For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License, 103my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl 104script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put 105said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any 106object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the 107terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions 108of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the 109resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I 110consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral 111equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You 112may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide 113or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General 114Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input 115to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of 116a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or 117offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The 118fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file 119is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation 120of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding 121my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License 122spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that. 123