Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX

dracos has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I looked through the archives and didn't see this discused.

My wife recently got a Mac laptop with OSX (Tiger - 10.4.mumble) and I have writen some perl scripts for her. The following example will not run from the command line:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict; 
use warnings; 
print "Hello World\n";
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However, adding the -w flag, it will:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w 
use strict; 
use warnings; 
print "Hello World\n";
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on execution of the first all I get is

".: No such file or directory
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Adding a "-w" to get things to work is minor. I am just trying to understand what is happening.

Any ideas?

P.S. It isn't a execute permision issue the file permision is set to 777.

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Re: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by sgifford (Prior) on May 31, 2006 at 16:11 UTC
Sounds like a line-ending problem. Try looking at the script with `cat -vET`. If there's a Windows-style line end on a file, Unix will often misinterpret the "shebang" line saying where to find the interpreter as `/usr/bin/perl^M`, and since there isn't a program called `/usr/bin/perl^M` it fails. By editing that line, you may have fixed the line ending, accidentally fixing the problem. If that's the problem, tools like `dos2unix` can fix it, or something like: `perl -pi.bak -e 's/\r//g' your_script` [download] -- sgifford's Web page	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by dracos (Sexton) on May 31, 2006 at 16:23 UTC
Actualy I can spend all day editing it back and forth adding and removing the "-w" or even "-d" and if there is nothing after the #!/usr/bin/perl it fails.. But I will double check it when I get home and make sure that I have run dos2unix on it. The real confusion is it works fine on Fedora Core 5 even with the "^M" in it.	[reply]
Re: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by MonkE (Hermit) on May 31, 2006 at 16:46 UTC
If it's not the dos2unix issue, try creating a new script file from scratch -- no copying, etc -- type it in. You could have invisible control characters embedded in there somewhere, depending on your choice of editor. This issue has bitten me before. Just a security note -- I know it's your wife's laptop -- a better choice for permissions would be 755. Setting permissions to 777 (everyone has full access) is a bad habit. If you ever get a job doing perl CGI scripts or something like that, you'll need to be careful.	[reply]
Re^2: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by dracos (Sexton) on May 31, 2006 at 18:21 UTC
I relize that 777 is dangerous but that is what my wife set it to when she was trying to get it working initaly I am in the process of teaching her about unix security and good computing practices.	[reply]
Re: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by roboticus (Chancellor) on May 31, 2006 at 22:29 UTC
Ya don't happen to have ". in the PATH variable, do ya? I've seen that sort of behavior before when PATH gets munged. --roboticus	[reply]
Re: Problem with running Perl script on Mac OSX by dracos (Sexton) on Jun 02, 2006 at 17:49 UTC
Well it was an issue with the stupid ^M. Now I also remember the stupid thing doesn't have dos2unix on it. Guess thats my next script...	[reply]