About Perl - www.perl.org

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">  <meta name="description" content="What is Perl? Features and History." /> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/favicon.ico" /> <title>About Perl - www.perl.org</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/css/perlweb_bootstrap.min.css" />  <link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lato:400,100,300,700,900' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>   <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.perl.org/about.html" /> </head> <body class="page-www section_about"> <nav class="navbar navbar-inverse" data-height="120"> <div class="container-fluid"> <div class="navbar-header"> <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="navbar"> <span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> </button> <a class="navbar-brand" href="/"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/logo.svg" alt="About Perl | Perl, modern programming" class="page-logo"> </a> </div> <div id="navbar" class="collapse navbar-collapse"> <ul class="list-inline text-center nav navbar-nav navbar-right"> <li class="sub selected"> <a href="/about.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_about.svg" class="header-img-nav"> About </a> </li> <li class="sub"> <a href="/get.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_download.svg" class="header-img-nav"> <div class="perl-version hidden-xs"> <span class="version-highlight">5.40.1</span> </div> Download </a> </li> <li class="sub"> <a href="/learn.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_learn.svg" class="header-img-nav"> Learn </a> </li> <li class="sub"> <a href="/docs.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_docs.svg" class="header-img-nav"> Docs </a> </li> <li class="sub"> <a href="/cpan.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_cpan.svg" class="header-img-nav"> CPAN </a> </li> <li class="sub"> <a href="/community.html"> <img src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/ic_header_community.svg" class="header-img-nav"> Community </a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> <div class="jumbotron jumbotron-internal"> <div class="container text-center"> <h1>About Perl</h1> <p>What is Perl? Features and History.</p> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <div class="row row-height"> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6"> <h3>Powerful, stable, mature, portable</h3> <p> Perl is a highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over 37 years of development. Perl runs on over 100 platforms from portables to mainframes and is suitable for both rapid prototyping and large scale development projects. </p> <p>"Perl" is a family of languages, "Raku" (formerly known as "Perl 6") is part of the family, but it is a separate language which has its own development team. Its existence has no significant impact on the continuing development of "Perl". </p> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6"> <h3>White papers: Technical Showcases</h3> <p><a href="/about/whitepapers/">White papers</a> of Perl technology at your disposal.</p> <ul class="list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-database-orm.html">Perl database ORM</a> - Making database queries easy and code clean </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-webframework.html">Perl web framework</a> - Create the website your company needs </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-object-oriented.html">Object oriented Perl</a> - Clear object syntax with lots of power when you need it </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-profiling.html">Perl profiling</a> - Speeding up code with a feature-rich code profiler </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-testing.html">Perl testing</a> - Automated tests for better quality code </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-plack.html">Perl Plack/PSGI</a> - Simple and flexible web development </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-ipv6.html">Perl IPv6</a> - Perl and IPv6 Networks </li> <li> <a href="/about/whitepapers/perl-cpan.html">CPAN</a> - complete, mature ecosystem for Perl developers </li> </ul> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6"> <h3>Perl features</h3> <h4> Mission critical </h4> <p> Used for mission critical projects in the public and private sectors. </p> <h4> Object-oriented, procedural and functional </h4> <p> Supports object-oriented, procedural and functional programming. </p> <h4> Easily extendible </h4> <p> There are over 25,000 open source modules available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (<a href="http://cpan.perl.org">CPAN</a>). </p> <h4> Text manipulation </h4> <p> Perl includes powerful tools for processing text that make it ideal for working with HTML, XML, and all other mark-up and natural languages. </p> <h4> Unicode support </h4> <p> Supports <a href="http://www.unicode.org/">Unicode version 13</a> (from Perl 5.32). </p> <h4> Database integration </h4> <p> Perl's database integration interface (<a href="http://dbi.perl.org">DBI</a>) supports third-party databases including Oracle, Sybase, <a href="http://www.postgresql.org">Postgres</a>, <a href="http://www.mysql.com">MySQL</a> and <a href="https://metacpan.org/search?q=DBD%3A%3A">many</a> others. </p> <h4> C/C++ library interface </h4> <p> Perl interfaces with external C/C++ libraries through XS or <a href="http://www.swig.org">SWIG</a>. </p> <h4> Embeddable </h4> <p> The Perl interpreter can be embedded into other systems such as <a href="http://perl.apache.org/">web servers</a> and <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/plperl.html">database servers</a>. </p> <h4> Open Source </h4> <p> Perl is <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> software, <a href="http://dev.perl.org/licenses/">licensed</a> under its <a href="http://dev.perl.org/licenses/artistic.html">Artistic License</a>, or the <a href="http://dev.perl.org/licenses/gpl1.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</a>. </p> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6"> <h3>Perl and the Web</h3> <h4> Ideal web programming language </h4> <p> Perl is an ideal web programming language due to its text manipulation capabilities and rapid development cycle. </p> <h4> Web Frameworks </h4> <p> There are many web frameworks written in Perl, a leading one is <a href="https://metacpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Manual/view/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Intro.pod">Catalyst</a>. </p> <h4> Database integration </h4> <p> Perl's <a href="http://dbi.perl.org">DBI</a> package makes web-database integration easy. <a href="https://metacpan.org/module/DBIx::Class">DBIx::Class</a> - is available as an Object Relational Mapper. </p> <h4> Web modules </h4> <p> <a href="http://www.cpan.org/">CPAN</a> offers thousands of modules, so almost any task you need to accomplish will be made easier, from URL or image manipulation, to Amazon EC2 APIs and much more. </p> <h4> Duct-tape of the internet, and more... </h4> <p> Perl has long been known as "<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=the%20duct-tape%20of%20the%20Internet">the duct-tape of the Internet</a>", however many large web based applications are also written solely in Perl. </p> <h4> Encryption capable </h4> <p> Perl can handle encrypted Web data, including e-commerce transactions. </p> <h4> Embed into Apache </h4> <p> Perl can be embedded into web servers to speed up processing by as much as 2000%, <a href="http://perl.apache.org">mod_perl</a> allows the Apache web server to embed a Perl interpreter. </p> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-12 text-center"> <h3>Larry Wall on Perl...</h3> <ul class="list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="http://www.perl.com/pub/a/1999/03/pm.html">Perl, the first postmodern computer language</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/larry.html">Diligence, Patience, and Humility</a> in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution </li> <li> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/7137/">Amazon.com interview with Larry Wall</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue61/3394.html">Linux Journal interview</a> (May 1999) </li> <li> <a href="http://www.salon.com/1998/10/13/feature_269/">The Joy Of Perl</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container space-top-large"> <div class="row"> <div class="quicklinks"> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-4"> <h4>More about Perl</h4> <ul class="list-unstyled"> <li><a href="/about/whitepapers/">White papers</a></li> <li><a href="/app.html">Application programming</a></li> <li><a href="/about/reduce-risks.html">Reducing Business Risks</a></li> <li><a href="http://jobs.perl.org/">Perl Jobs</a></li> <li><a href="/about/style-guide.html">"perl" or "Perl"?</a></li> <li><a href="/camel.html">Camels and Perl</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container-fluid"> <footer class="row"> <div class="tip-module text-center hidden-xs"> Perl -- More braces. Fewer spaces. </div> <div class="footer"> <ul class="col-xs-12 col-sm-4 list-unstyled"> <li><h4>Latest Uploads to CPAN</h4></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/GWYN/Devel-Walk-0.03">Devel-Walk-0.03</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/TOBYINK/Type-Tiny-2.007_009">Type-Tiny-2.007_009</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/KOCEASY/Devel-PDB-1.7">Devel-PDB-1.7</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/SYBER/XS-libcatch-3.7.1.1">XS-libcatch-3.7.1.1</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/BINGOS/Module-CoreList-5.20250321">Module-CoreList-5.20250321</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/BINGOS/CPAN-Perl-Releases-5.20250321">CPAN-Perl-Releases-5.20250321</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/MAUKE/perl-5.41.10">perl-5.41.10</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/JDEGUEST/Module-Generic-v0.40.0">Module-Generic-v0.40.0</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/GWS/Map-Tube-Muenchen-v0.1.0">Map-Tube-Muenchen-v0.1.0</a></li> <li><a href="https://metacpan.org/release/HANJE/Tk-FileBrowser-0.11">Tk-FileBrowser-0.11</a></li> </ul> <ul class="col-xs-12 col-sm-4 list-unstyled"> <li><h4>Perl News</h4></li> <li><a href="https://www.perl.com/article/why-deriv-supports-the-perl-ecosystem/">Why Deriv Supports the Perl Ecosystem</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.perl.com/article/from-code-to-community-sponsoring-tprc-2025/">From Code to Community: Sponsoring TPRC 2025</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-january-2025/">What's new on CPAN - January 2025</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-december-2024/">What's new on CPAN - December 2024</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.perl.com/article/enhancing-midi-hardware-with-perl/">Enhancing your MIDI devices with Perl</a></li> </ul> <ul class="col-xs-12 col-sm-2 list-unstyled"> <li><h4>Perl.org</h4></li> <li><a href="http://www.perl.org/">www</a></li> <li><a href="http://blogs.perl.org/">blogs</a></li> <li><a href="http://jobs.perl.org/">jobs</a></li> <li><a href="http://learn.perl.org/">learn</a></li> <li><a href="http://dev.perl.org/">dev</a></li> </ul> <ul class="col-xs-12 col-sm-2 list-unstyled"> <li><h4>Connect</h4></li> <li><a href="/siteinfo.html">Site Info</a></li>  </ul> <div class="col-xs-12 footer-info"> <p class="copyright"> <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/images/icons/creativecommons-by-nc-nd-3.0-us-80x15.png" /></a> 漏 2002-2025 Perl.org </p> </div> </div> </footer> </div>  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-50555-1"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'UA-50555-1', { 'link_attribution': true, 'custom_map': {'dimension1': 'protocol'} }); gtag('event', 'pageload', {'protocol': window.location.protocol}); </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn.perl.org/perlweb/js/perlweb_bootstrap.min.js" charset="UTF-8"></script> </body> </html>

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About Perl - www.perl.org