PERLFAQ(1) PERLFAQ(1)
NAME
perlfaq - frequently asked questions about Perl ($Date: 1997/04/24
22:46:06 $)
DESCRIPTION
This document is structured into the following sections:
perlfaq: Structural overview of the FAQ.
This document.
the perlfaq1 manpage: General Questions About Perl
Very general, high-level information about Perl.
the perlfaq2 manpage: Obtaining and Learning about Perl
Where to find source and documentation to Perl, support and
training, and related matters.
the perlfaq3 manpage: Programming Tools
Programmer tools and programming support.
the perlfaq4 manpage: Data Manipulation
Manipulating numbers, dates, strings, arrays, hashes, and
miscellaneous data issues.
the perlfaq5 manpage: Files and Formats
I/O and the "f" issues: filehandles, flushing, formats and footers.
the perlfaq6 manpage: Regexps
Pattern matching and regular expressions.
the perlfaq7 manpage: General Perl Language Issues
General Perl language issues that don't clearly fit into any of the
other sections.
the perlfaq8 manpage: System Interaction
Interprocess communication (IPC), control over the user-interface
(keyboard, screen and pointing devices).
the perlfaq9 manpage: Networking
Networking, the Internet, and a few on the web.
Where to get this document
This document is posted regularly to comp.lang.perl.announce and several
other related newsgroups. It is available in a variety of formats from
CPAN in the /CPAN/doc/FAQs/FAQ/ directory, or on the web at
http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/ .
How to contribute to this document
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You may mail corrections, additions, and suggestions to perlfaq-
suggestions@perl.com . Mail sent to the old perlfaq alias will merely
cause the FAQ to be sent to you.
What will happen if you mail your Perl programming problems to the
authors
Your questions will probably go unread, unless they're suggestions of new
questions to add to the FAQ, in which case they should have gone to the
perlfaq-suggestions@perl.com instead.
You should have read section 2 of this faq. There you would have learned
that comp.lang.perl.misc is the appropriate place to go for free advice.
If your question is really important and you require a prompt and correct
answer, you should hire a consultant.
Credits
When I first began the Perl FAQ in the late 80s, I never realized it
would have grown to over a hundred pages, nor that Perl would ever become
so popular and widespread. This document could not have been written
without the tremendous help provided by Larry Wall and the rest of the
Perl Porters.
Author and Copyright Information
Copyright (c) 1997 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington. All rights
reserved.
Noncommercial Reproduction
Permission is granted to distribute this document, in part or in full,
via electronic means or printed copy providing that (1) that all credits
and copyright notices be retained, (2) that no charges beyond
reproduction be involved, and (3) that a reasonable attempt be made to
use the most current version available.
Furthermore, you may include this document in any distribution of the
full Perl source or binaries, in its verbatim documentation, or on a
complete dump of the CPAN archive, providing that the three stipulations
given above continue to be met.
Commercial Reproduction
Requests for all other distribution rights, including the incorporation
in part or in full of this text or its code into commercial products such
as but not limited to books, magazine articles, or CD-ROMs, must be made
to perlfaq-legal@perl.com. Any commercial use of any portion of this
document without prior written authorization by its authors will be
subject to appropriate action.
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Disclaimer
This information is offered in good faith and in the hope that it may be
of use, but is not guaranteed to be correct, up to date, or suitable for
any particular purpose whatsoever. The authors accept no liability in
respect of this information or its use.
Changes
24/April/97
Style and whitespace changes from Chip, new question on reading one
character at a time from a terminal using POSIX from Tom.
23/April/97
Added http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/ to the perlfaq2 manpage. Style
fix to the perlfaq3 manpage. Added floating point precision, fixed
complex number arithmetic, cross-references, caveat for Text::Wrap,
alternative answer for initial capitalizing, fixed incorrect regexp,
added example of Tie::IxHash to the perlfaq4 manpage. Added example
of passing and storing filehandles, added commify to the perlfaq5
manpage. Restored variable suicide, and added mass commenting to the
perlfaq7 manpage. Added Net::Telnet, fixed backticks, added
reader/writer pair to telnet question, added FindBin, grouped module
questions together in the perlfaq8 manpage. Expanded caveats for the
simple URL extractor, gave LWP example, added CGI security question,
expanded on the email address answer in the perlfaq9 manpage.
25/March/97
Added more info to the binary distribution section of the perlfaq2
manpage. Added Net::Telnet to the perlfaq6 manpage. Fixed typos in
the perlfaq8 manpage. Added mail sending example to the perlfaq9
manpage. Added Merlyn's columns to the perlfaq2 manpage.
18/March/97
Added the DATE to the NAME section, indicating which sections have
changed.
Mentioned SIGPIPE and the perlipc manpage in the forking open answer
in the perlfaq8 manpage.
Fixed description of a regular expression in the perlfaq4 manpage.
17/March/97 Version
Various typos fixed throughout.
Added new question on Perl BNF on the perlfaq7 manpage.
Initial Release: 11/March/97
This is the initial release of version 3 of the FAQ; consequently
there have been no changes since its initial release.
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