contents

perldoc.perl.org contains the core documentation for perl version 5.8.8, in html and pdf formats.

if you are new to the perl language, good places to start reading are the introduction and overview at perlintro, and the extensive faq section, which provides answers to over 300 common questions.

site features

fast page lookup

for quicker navigation, enter any perl function, manpage, or core module name into the search box to jump directly to the appropriate section (full search results will still be available).

highlighting and linking of code examples

the perl documentation contains thousands of examples of perl code. these feature syntax highlighting and linking of function / module names to their respective documentation pages, e.g.

labels

any page or search query on this site may be labeled by selecting the "add this page" link in the toolbar at the top right corner of the page.

adding a label creates a dynamic link to the document in the labels section of the toolbar, allowing frequently used pages to be accessed with one click from anywhere in the site.

customisable display

the toolbar and navigation menu may be hidden by clicking the relevant close () icons at the top of the page.

the display settings and label details are stored in a cookie on your browser so they will be preserved whenever you visit the site from the same computer.

downloads

the complete documentation set is available to download for off-line use.

full version - contains html and pdf files

http://perldoc.perl.org/perldoc.tar.gz (16mb download).

lite version - contains html files only

http://perldoc.perl.org/perldoc-html.tar.gz (3mb download).

as well as the documentation pages, the perldoc search engine is also included in the above downloads. no installation is required, just unpack the archive and open the index.html file in your web browser.

to obtain perl itself, please go to http://www.perl.org/get.html.