perl command line option

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

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Re: perl command line option - ( -x ) by McDarren (Abbot) on Jan 30, 2007 at 07:09 UTC
I think perlrun explains it pretty well: -x -x directory tells Perl that the program is embedded in a larger chunk +of unrelated ASCII text, such as in a mail message. Leading garbage +will be discarded until the first line that starts with #! and contains the string "perl". Any meaningful sw +itches on that line will be applied. If a directory name is specifie +d, Perl will switch to that directory before running the program. The -x switch controls only the disposal of +leading garbage. The program must be terminated with "__END__" if th +ere is trailing garbage to be ignored (the program can process any or all of the trailing garbage via the DAT +A filehandle if desired). [download] Example: `cducdsgcsdcyvdsctydwcfvsc rubbish ..... more rubbish... blah blah blah #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; print "Hello World\n"; __END__ more garbage here ignored.` [download] Output: `darren@barney:~/perlmonks$ perl -x garbage.pl Hello World` [download] Cheers, Darren :)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
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Re: perl command line option - ( -x ) by siva kumar (Pilgrim) on Jan 30, 2007 at 08:15 UTC
A Sample program for using -x option with directory name. `Unwanted Lines Here ............... ---------------- etc., #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; print "Hai Ashok ...\n"; system('ls'); __END__` [download] If I run the above program as #perl test.pl I will be getting syntax error. `syntax error at test.pl line 3, near "......" "use" not allowed in expression at test.pl line 9, at end of line Execution of test.pl aborted due to compilation errors.` [download] If I run the program as #perl -x test.pl `Output is Hai Ashok .. x.pl y.pl z.pl dirName1 dirName2` [download] Here dirName1 and dirName2 are directories. If I run the same progrma by #perl -xdirName1 test.pl `Output is Hai Ashok .. abc.pl xyz.pl` [download] abc.pl and xyz.pl are the files under dirName1.	[reply] [d/l] [select]