ActivePerl User Guide

Thank you for using ActivePerl, ActiveState's quality-assured binary build of Perl, available for Linux, Solaris and Windows. As part of ActiveState's support for Perl, ActiveState provides the ActivePerl binary packages free to the community through ASPN.  ActivePerl contains Perl, the Perl Package Manager, (for installing packages of CPAN modules), and complete online help.

The Windows version of ActivePerl also includes Perl for ISAPI and PerlScript.

ActiveState Products

ActiveState Programmer Network (ASPN) provides the latest information and productivity tools to build applications with open source technology. New programming technologies and methods are becoming mainstream at an accelerating pace. ActiveState's leadership and support of the programming community allow it to deliver technologies that will be critical for programmers creating and maintaining software. ASPN Perl assures access to the latest programming tools and information.

Perl Dev Kit
Provides essential tools for Windows Perl programmers.

PerlMx Enterprise
Solution for corporate Email administrators using Sendmail.

PerlEx
Improve the speed and performance of Perl on your Windows Web Server — now with support for Web services.

Documentation

General

ActivePerl Release Notes
Contains up-to-the-minute release information about ActivePerl.

ActivePerl Change Log
Version histories, what's changed in Perl since the early stages of the 500 series of ActivePerl, and what's changed since the 300 series of Perl for Win32.

Core Perl FAQ
The original Frequently Asked Questions document that comes with core Perl.

Perl Documentation
The exhaustive (i.e., huge) documentation that comes with Perl, and is the official language reference for the Perl language.

Installation Notes

Linux
Solaris
Windows

Module Documentation

ActivePerl comes with complete documentation for all of the modules available. The table of contents on the left shows the exhaustive listing of modules available for ActivePerl from the ActiveState repository.  Note that many of these modules are not installed by default.  If you wish to use a module that does not come with ActivePerl, you will need to install it using PPM.

Installing Modules

Want to install a module such as Tk or GD? Here's how it's done.

PPM and Firewalls

Are you having trouble installing modules from behind a firewall through a proxy? This document shows how. It also tells how to download packages directly via HTTP to store them in a local repository, so you can use them on a machine with no internet connection, or on networked machines without having to download the modules for each install.

Support

ActiveState provides online documentation and free installation support for all of our products. Additional support options and resources are outlined below.

FAQs

Please check these documents before posting to mailing lists, requesting installation support or reporting a bug.

• Availability and Installation
• PPM
• Documentation and Support

Mailing Lists

ActivePerl Mailing List
For peer-to-peer support and discussion regarding the use of ActivePerl specifically.
All ActiveState Mailing Lists
Many more discussion forums covering all ActiveState products and technologies.

Commercial Support Options

The Perl Clinic
Fee-based, per incident commercial support service for Perl.

PerlDirect
Corporate support solutions for Perl. PerlDirect provides the comprehensive support that an enterprise needs to deploy Perl in mission-critical applications.

Other Resources

ASPN Perl  - ASPN Perl combines the most advanced Perl programming technology and information.
http://www.perl.com - The Perl home page
http://language.perl.com - The Perl language home page