Contents
perli is a multi-platform Perl REPL (read-eval-print-loop)
for interactive experimentation with Perl code, convenient documentation lookups, and quick computations.
On Unix-like platforms, perli makes use of the rlwrap utility to provide
command-line editing support, persistent command history, and tab-completion;
see the Installation chapter below.
See the examples below, concise usage information further below, or read the manual.
Once you enter perli, use ? for help.
Results of expressions are automatically printed, which makes perli handy
as an interactive calculator:
Results are printed with the Data::Dumper core Perl module, which means
that they are reusable as input.
The following example inspects the special %INC variable, which contains the
list of loaded modules. Note the first entry, which is perli's own (optional)
initialization file.
The \ prefix here is not strictly necessary, but ensures that the hashtable is
printed in prettier form.
perli provides the .remi (for regular-expression match info)
command, which, in addition to an expression's own result, prints the values
of the special variables that Perl maintains about the most recent successful
regex match:
Invoking documentation overlays the REPL temporarily, as a man page would
(not shown here).
By default, perli tries to guess the type of the element to look up, and
invokes perldoc behind the scenes accordingly.
The following is the equivalent of perldoc perlrun:
This form is handy for lookups while you're in the middle of typing an expression.
The following is the equivalen of perldoc -f split:
If the "fuzzy" default lookup doesn't find anything, or shows the wrong page,
you can use the prefix form with explicit perldoc options.
The following example searches the FAQs (-q) for the term while (the default
lookup would have looked for the keyword).
perli runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and - as @matheusfillipe assures me - on Android, with Perl v5.6.2 or higher installed.
Using the manual installation process detailed below, perli may work on other Unix-like platforms too.
On Unix-like platforms, perli makes use of the rlwrap utility, if present,
to provide command-line editing support, persistent command history,
and simple tab completion.
On Windows, rlwrap is not available, unfortunately, but you do get
in-session history and basic command-line editing out of the box (but no
tab-completion).
You can install rlwrap as follows:
Debian-based Linux distros such as Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install rlwrap
Fedora:
sudo yum install rlwrap
macOS, via Homebrew:
brew install rlwrap
Unix-emulation environments for Windows:
Cygwin (Windows):
Re-run Cygwin's setup*.exe and install
Utils > rlwrap and Base > libreadline*
MSYS / MinGW / Git Bash (Windows):
Sadly, rlwrap is not offered. The next best thing is to use a
native Windows Perl version, with which you get at least basic command-line
editing and in-session history:
Deactivate the Unix Perl with mv /bin/perl /bin/perl.inactive
and install Strawberry Perl
All others: see rlwrap's homepage
Note: Even if you don't use Node.js, its package manager, npm, works across platforms and is easy to install; try curl -L http://git.io/n-install | bash
With Node.js or io.js installed, install the package as follows:
[sudo] npm install perli -g
Note:
sudo depends on how you installed Node.js / io.js and whether you've changed permissions later; if you get an EACCES error, try again with sudo.-g ensures global installation and is needed to put perli in your system's $PATH.perli.chmod +x perli.$PATH, such as /usr/local/bin (macOS) or /usr/bin (Linux).perli.pl.perli.pl itself into a folder in your %PATH%, or write a
wrapper batch file named perli.cmd that invokes it.Find brief usage information below; for complete documentation, once installed, run man perli (perli --man on Windows and if installed manually), or read the manual online.
$ perli --help
A simple, convenient Perl REPL for interactive experimentation.
perli [<options>]
--norc skips loading of the initialization file
The following Perl options are also supported:
-M<name> (repeatable) load a module and import its defaults,
or activate a pragma (-M-<name> deactivates)
-m<module> (repeatable) load a module without importing
-I<dir> (repeatable) prepend <dir> to module search path (@INC)
Initialization file is ~/.perli_rc
Standard options: --help, --man, --version, --home
Copyright (c) 2015-2021 Michael Klement mklement0@gmail.com (http://same2u.net), released under the MIT license.
This project gratefully depends on the following open-source components, according to the terms of their respective licenses.
npm dependencies below have optional suffixes denoting the type of dependency; the absence of a suffix denotes a required run-time dependency: (D) denotes a development-time-only dependency, (O) an optional dependency, and (P) a peer dependency.
Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).
v0.1.6 (2021-04-30):
perli works too (tip of the hat for the PR).v0.1.5 (2021-02-23):
rlwrap version 0.45, which in combination with Perl's exec function caused a breaking change.v0.1.4 (2019-02-11):
v0.1.3 (2019-02-11):
v0.1.2 (2015-09-30):
my) in older Perl versions (e.g., v5.14).v0.1.1 (2015-09-24):
v0.1.0 (2015-09-24):
FAQs
Multi-platform REPL for Perl
We found that perli demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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