| Perl is Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, |
| 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 |
| by Larry Wall and others. All rights reserved. |
| |
| |
| |
| ABOUT PERL |
| ========== |
| |
| Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for |
| text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including |
| system administration, web development, network programming, GUI |
| development, and more. |
| |
| The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, |
| complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). Its major |
| features are that it's easy to use, supports both procedural and |
| object-oriented (OO) programming, has powerful built-in support for text |
| processing, and has one of the world's most impressive collections of |
| third-party modules. |
| |
| For an introduction to the language's features, see pod/perlintro.pod. |
| |
| For a discussion of the important changes in this release, see |
| pod/perldelta.pod. |
| |
| There are also many Perl books available, covering a wide variety of topics, |
| from various publishers. See pod/perlbook.pod for more information. |
| |
| |
| INSTALLATION |
| ============ |
| |
| If you're using a relatively modern operating system and want to |
| install this version of Perl locally, run the following commands: |
| |
| ./Configure -des -Dprefix=$HOME/localperl |
| make test |
| make install |
| |
| This will configure and compile perl for your platform, run the regression |
| tests, and install perl in a subdirectory "localperl" of your home directory. |
| |
| If you run into any trouble whatsoever or you need to install a customized |
| version of Perl, you should read the detailed instructions in the "INSTALL" |
| file that came with this distribution. Additionally, there are a number of |
| "README" files with hints and tips about building and using Perl on a wide |
| variety of platforms, some more common than others. |
| |
| Once you have Perl installed, a wealth of documentation is available to you |
| through the 'perldoc' tool. To get started, run this command: |
| |
| perldoc perl |
| |
| |
| IF YOU RUN INTO TROUBLE |
| ======================= |
| |
| Perl is a large and complex system that's used for everything from |
| knitting to rocket science. If you run into trouble, it's quite |
| likely that someone else has already solved the problem you're |
| facing. Once you've exhausted the documentation, please report bugs to us |
| using the 'perlbug' tool. For more information about perlbug, either type |
| 'perldoc perlbug' or just 'perlbug' on a line by itself. |
| |
| While it was current when we made it available, Perl is constantly evolving |
| and there may be a more recent version that fixes bugs you've run into or |
| adds new features that you might find useful. |
| |
| You can always find the latest version of perl on a CPAN (Comprehensive Perl |
| Archive Network) site near you at http://www.cpan.org/src/ |
| |
| |
| Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this |
| because it pleases the Author of my story. If this bothers you, then your |
| notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-) |
| |
| The author. |
| |
| |
| LICENSING |
| ========= |
| |
| This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify |
| it under the terms of either: |
| |
| a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free |
| Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any |
| later version, or |
| |
| b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit. |
| |
| This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
| but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
| MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either |
| the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details. |
| |
| You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this |
| Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one. |
| |
| You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
| along with this program in the file named "Copying". If not, write to the |
| Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, |
| Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA or visit their web page on the internet at |
| http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. |
| |
| For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License, |
| my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl |
| script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put |
| said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any |
| object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the |
| terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions |
| of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the |
| resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I |
| consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral |
| equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You |
| may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide |
| or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General |
| Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input |
| to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of |
| a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or |
| offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The |
| fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file |
| is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation |
| of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding |
| my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License |
| spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that. |
| |
| |