You bring up the perl documentation with the perldoc command. If you have perl installed on your system, open a command window and type perldoc perl for a directory of what's available. For starters, you can:

• look up help for perl functions with perldoc -f <function>.
• search for FAQ answers with perldoc -q <search-text>.
• look up module documentation with perldoc <module-name>.

If you are using ActivePerl, there should be an entry in your start menu that will start your browser on their html-ized documentation. I'm not sure what other Windows perl distributors provide for documentation.

---
print map { my ($m)=1<<hex($_)&11?' ':'';
$m.=substr('AHJPacehklnorstu',hex($_),1) }
split //,'2fde0abe76c36c914586c';
[download]

.. and if all else fails, there's always the online version of perldoc, which has a searchable archive of the perl docs and manpages.

-- Foxcub

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

You may want to "See also":

Learning Perl, 3rd Edition or Learning Perl on Win32 Systems (although I would not recommend buying both ;) ).

Three years ago, I would have agreed with you and I certainly have a few copies of both books lying around, but they are primarily for those quiet moments in the men's room. Nowadays, at the desk, I use perldoc exclusively when I want to look for something and C:/Perl/html/ when I want to browse through pages of docs. Paper is just no substitute, I'm afraid.

BTW, both are available in digital form, for example here,which is far more useful as you can copy and paste the examples into your program when coding. He he. Instant expert.

--
Regards,
Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is

I beg to differ. I have found that paper is far superior to perldoc. My books are highlighted, personalized, annotated, and can be used to kill spiders. Books clutter my physical desktop, but not my virtual desktop, which is far smaller. When was the last time you tried annotating an html file? Realistically, you can't do it. You'd have to start a separate text file of notes.

I won't argue that having html and perldoc for documentation isn't useful, because it is. And, true, having both the Perl Bookshelf and the Lincoln Stein CGI book in a digital form has been hugely convenient. Still, I wouldn't give up my books for anything. Sometimes, I just like to (gasp!) walk away from my PC, plunk myself down somewhere else, and read.

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

Three years ago, I would have agreed with you and I certainly have a few copies of both books lying around... Nowadays, at the desk, I use perldoc exclusively

Given that the guy said he's a perl newbie and a programming newbie, the books would almost certainly be better for him.

Or try one of the following links: Perl installed on C, D.

Note: you will probably have to copy and paste the url into a new window in order to view it.

With ActivePerl, and a default configuration, the HTML version of the manual starts at C:\Perl\lib\html\index.html

It's easier if you open index.html, as the documents are designed to be viewed using frames, with a list of links down the left side of the browser window.

Opening other documents directly will likely make it harder to navigate.

Online documentation? Of course, `perldoc' is the canonical answer. I believe however that Tom Christianson is perldoc's author and has himself referred to perldoc as "this noisome program" (for a sense of what 'noisome' means please read the entirety of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien ;-). Just mentioned as background data.

It doesn't hurt a newbie to *nix-style programming to learn to use man pages, in general, though. I happen to like manpages. GNU feel that the `info' system is superior but good 'ol `man' still does the trick in a pinch. On some systems that I have had, `man' worked considerably better than `perldoc' did.

A non-ActiveState Perl-Win32 installation might install the actual Perl man pages for you. One such would be the Perl built with Cygwin. So in fact on most *nix boxen and some Winboxen as well, you could type 'man perlfunc' and get the man-ized Perl functions documentation presented by the type formatting system backend behind the `man' command. That backend is a complex many-headed creature referred to variously as 'nroff' and 'troff' and also may involve a sort of wrapper program named 'groff' which is GNU software. So, just FYI, it is actually possible to read manpages on Windows -- not just the Perl manpages (which may well not be there unless you deliberately do something to generate some, 'cause ActivePerl won't), but any manpages at all: a Win32 port of groff is available as a precompiled binary (or download source yourself and build it using free tools like the mingw project provides): find it here at the SourceForge-hosted "Gnu-Win32" project site. With groff and some patience and pluck one can get a manreader working even without an available port of 'man'. I wrote one and it works pretty nicely (it is a shell script).

Intrepid a.k.a. perlspinr a.k.a. Soren Andersen

Tom didn't write perldoc, he loathed it! Perldoc was originally written by Andy Dougherty.

Abigail

I program using ActivePerl on Win32, but I use perldoc under Cygwin. Why? Because "less" is better. 8)

Typing "perldoc perltoc", "/term", then "perldoc whatever" means that my hands never have to leave the keyboard. I can alt-tab between my editor, a DOS box, and a Cygwin session without ever having to reach for the mouse, which seems quicker even if it isn't actually quicker.