[Chicago-talk] perl question

Steven Lembark lembark at wrkhors.com
Thu Mar 8 06:33:50 PST 2007


> But the key is you don't have to compile it to run it on Linux.  I
> think the original poster doesn't realize that you don't have to
> compile it.

Actually, Perl is a compiled language: always has been.
The perl executable performs the compile automatically
as part of running the code (sort of like gcc calling
the assembler for you to create object files). That
provides the portability between systems (source is the
only thing that has to be moved). It's also why calling
Perl an "interpreter" is incorrect: the execution
engine doesn't have to re-interpret the source as, say,
a shell program would be.

Beyond the code itself, however, many functins within
Perl are rather specific to *NIX. The password and
group lookups return a gecos filed, for example, that
has nada to do with msdog or VMS.

The O'Reilly perl for SysAdmins book gives a good
look at writing cross-platform coding (e.g., using
File::Spec instead of join '/', @dirz, $basename).

-- 
Steven Lembark                                         85-09 90th Street
Workhorse Computing                                  Woodhaven, NY 11421
lembark at wrkhors.com                                      +1 888 359 3508


More information about the Chicago-talk mailing list