1PERLSOURCE(1)          Perl Programmers Reference Guide          PERLSOURCE(1)
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NAME

6       perlsource - A guide to the Perl source tree
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DESCRIPTION

9       This document describes the layout of the Perl source tree. If you're
10       hacking on the Perl core, this will help you find what you're looking
11       for.
12

FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND

14       The Perl source tree is big. Here's some of the thing you'll find in
15       it:
16
17   C code
18       The C source code and header files mostly live in the root of the
19       source tree. There are a few platform-specific directories which
20       contain C code. In addition, some of the modules shipped with Perl
21       include C or XS code.
22
23       See perlinterp for more details on the files that make up the Perl
24       interpreter, as well as details on how it works.
25
26   Core modules
27       Modules shipped as part of the Perl core live in four subdirectories.
28       Two of these directories contain modules that live in the core, and two
29       contain modules that can also be released separately on CPAN. Modules
30       which can be released on cpan are known as "dual-life" modules.
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32lib/
33
34           This directory contains pure-Perl modules which are only released
35           as part of the core. This directory contains all of the modules and
36           their tests, unlike other core modules.
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38ext/
39
40           Like lib/, this directory contains modules which are only released
41           as part of the core.  Unlike lib/, however, a module under ext/
42           generally has a CPAN-style directory- and file-layout and its own
43           Makefile.PL.  There is no expectation that a module under ext/ will
44           work with earlier versions of Perl 5.  Hence, such a module may
45           take full advantage of syntactical and other improvements in Perl 5
46           blead.
47
48dist/
49
50           This directory is for dual-life modules where the blead source is
51           canonical. Note that some modules in this directory may not yet
52           have been released separately on CPAN.  Modules under dist/ should
53           make an effort to work with earlier versions of Perl 5.
54
55cpan/
56
57           This directory contains dual-life modules where the CPAN module is
58           canonical. Do not patch these modules directly! Changes to these
59           modules should be submitted to the maintainer of the CPAN module.
60           Once those changes are applied and released, the new version of the
61           module will be incorporated into the core.
62
63       For some dual-life modules, it has not yet been determined if the CPAN
64       version or the blead source is canonical. Until that is done, those
65       modules should be in cpan/.
66
67   Tests
68       The Perl core has an extensive test suite. If you add new tests (or new
69       modules with tests), you may need to update the t/TEST file so that the
70       tests are run.
71
72       •   Module tests
73
74           Tests for core modules in the lib/ directory are right next to the
75           module itself. For example, we have lib/strict.pm and lib/strict.t.
76
77           Tests for modules in ext/ and the dual-life modules are in t/
78           subdirectories for each module, like a standard CPAN distribution.
79
80t/base/
81
82           Tests for the absolute basic functionality of Perl. This includes
83           "if", basic file reads and writes, simple regexes, etc. These are
84           run first in the test suite and if any of them fail, something is
85           really broken.
86
87t/cmd/
88
89           Tests for basic control structures, "if"/"else", "while",
90           subroutines, etc.
91
92t/comp/
93
94           Tests for basic issues of how Perl parses and compiles itself.
95
96t/io/
97
98           Tests for built-in IO functions, including command line arguments.
99
100t/mro/
101
102           Tests for perl's method resolution order implementations (see mro).
103
104t/op/
105
106           Tests for perl's built in functions that don't fit into any of the
107           other directories.
108
109t/opbasic/
110
111           Tests for perl's built in functions which, like those in t/op/, do
112           not fit into any of the other directories, but which, in addition,
113           cannot use t/test.pl,as that program depends on functionality which
114           the test file itself is testing.
115
116t/re/
117
118           Tests for regex related functions or behaviour. (These used to live
119           in t/op).
120
121t/run/
122
123           Tests for features of how perl actually runs, including exit codes
124           and handling of PERL* environment variables.
125
126t/uni/
127
128           Tests for the core support of Unicode.
129
130t/win32/
131
132           Windows-specific tests.
133
134t/porting/
135
136           Tests the state of the source tree for various common errors. For
137           example, it tests that everyone who is listed in the git log has a
138           corresponding entry in the AUTHORS file.
139
140t/lib/
141
142           The old home for the module tests, you shouldn't put anything new
143           in here. There are still some bits and pieces hanging around in
144           here that need to be moved. Perhaps you could move them?  Thanks!
145
146   Documentation
147       All of the core documentation intended for end users lives in pod/.
148       Individual modules in lib/, ext/, dist/, and cpan/ usually have their
149       own documentation, either in the Module.pm file or an accompanying
150       Module.pod file.
151
152       Finally, documentation intended for core Perl developers lives in the
153       Porting/ directory.
154
155   Hacking tools and documentation
156       The Porting directory contains a grab bag of code and documentation
157       intended to help porters work on Perl. Some of the highlights include:
158
159check*
160
161           These are scripts which will check the source things like ANSI C
162           violations, POD encoding issues, etc.
163
164Maintainers, Maintainers.pl, and Maintainers.pm
165
166           These files contain information on who maintains which modules. Run
167           "perl Porting/Maintainers -M Module::Name" to find out more
168           information about a dual-life module.
169
170podtidy
171
172           Tidies a pod file. It's a good idea to run this on a pod file
173           you've patched.
174
175   Build system
176       The Perl build system on *nix-like systems starts with the Configure
177       script in the root directory.
178
179       Platform-specific pieces of the build system also live in platform-
180       specific directories like win32/, vms/, etc.  Windows and VMS have
181       their own Configure-like scripts, in their respective directories.
182
183       The Configure script (or a platform-specific similar script) is
184       ultimately responsible for generating a Makefile from Makefile.SH.
185
186       The build system that Perl uses is called metaconfig. This system is
187       maintained separately from the Perl core, and knows about the platform-
188       specific Configure-like scripts, as well as Configure itself.
189
190       The metaconfig system has its own git repository. Please see its README
191       file in <https://github.com/Perl/metaconfig> for more details.
192
193       The Cross directory contains various files related to cross-compiling
194       Perl. See Cross/README for more details.
195
196   AUTHORS
197       This file lists everyone who's contributed to Perl. If you submit a
198       patch, you should add your name to this file as part of the patch.
199
200   MANIFEST
201       The MANIFEST file in the root of the source tree contains a list of
202       every file in the Perl core, as well as a brief description of each
203       file.
204
205       You can get an overview of all the files with this command:
206
207         % perl -lne 'print if /^[^\/]+\.[ch]\s+/' MANIFEST
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211perl v5.36.3                      2023-11-30                     PERLSOURCE(1)
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