Perl source code documentation?

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

Hi monks,

I was just able to compile Perl on Windows which made me really really excited! It didn't require much after all, but a compiler (I used gcc of course) and some other GNUware (dmake etc).

I would really like to get into it, but the source code seems chaotic. Is there any documentation, or a reference that guides through the magic of Perl source code? Some documentation about the inner algorithms and the respective source files perhaps?

Update: I am much interested in the inner workings of the Perl interpreter. For example, how does it adjust an array on demand, or how it actually implements garbage collection?

UPDATE: I found a very very interesting repository describing the inner workings of Perl.Just what I was looking for. You may find it here http://www.faqs.org/docs/perl5int

Comment on Perl source code documentation?

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Re: Perl source code documentation? by moritz (Cardinal) on Nov 17, 2008 at 21:06 UTC
`perldoc`perlguts is a short introduction. perl uses a large collection of macros, and perlguts describes the most important ones, as well as the basic concepts. If you have questions beyond that documentation, I can recommend the IRC channel `#p5p` on irc.perl.org, that's where many core hackers hang out.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Perl source code documentation? by Fletch (Bishop) on Nov 17, 2008 at 21:12 UTC
Related (but unfortunately, somewhat dated) is perlguts Illustrated. Update: Dated in the sense it hasn't been updated in a while; I think the underlying info's still mostly sound though. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie.	[reply]
Re: Perl source code documentation? by rurban (Scribe) on Nov 18, 2008 at 09:28 UTC
Search for perlguts.pod, perlhack.pod, perloptreeguts.pod. The source code has lots of good comments, and is not chaotic at all at a second glance. You just time to understand it. Use `gdb` to step through the sections you are interested in.	[reply]