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

I am new to perl and I would like to know why the following lines don't work on my pc. 

 perl -le 'print 2**255;'
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.

[download]
I actually want to execute this line to see if bignum is found. 
perl -Mbignum -le 'print 2**255;'
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.

[download]

The version of perl is this: >perl -v This is perl, v5.10.0 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread Copyright 1987-2007, Larry Wall

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: 'perl -le' not working on the command line
by bart (Canon) on May 26, 2011 at 10:47 UTC
    In the Windows command line you must use double quotes instead of single quotes for the shell.

    If you need double-quoting in Perl code, the easiest way is to use qq instead of real double quotes.

[reply]
Re: 'perl -le' not working on the command line
by Bloodnok (Vicar) on May 26, 2011 at 10:48 UTC
    As the AM has already indicated, the fault lies with the shell, or what Windoze chooses to call it.

    The 'shell' ignores, or appears not to recognise, single quotes - try enclosing your CLI command in double quotes ... 

    perl -Mbignum -le "print 2**255;"

    [download]
    As I haven't had a Windoze box for quite a while, I can't actually demonstrate this.

    A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))
[reply]
[d/l]
      If I passed C source code to perl, the resulting error is not Perl's fault. Similarly, the error that results from presenting cmd with a bash command is not the shell's fault.
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: 'perl -le' not working on the command line
by ww (Archbishop) on May 26, 2011 at 10:55 UTC

    I can't reproduce your results on either an Ubuntu or a Red Hat box.

    But that the error message may be misleading: It's what I see if I try your code on a win32 machine.

    So, if you're running 'doze, the correct quoting is:

    perl -le "2**255;"
          but probably a better way to "see if bignum is found" is to check this way:
    perldoc bignum

    Update: Duh! Missed the <c>perl -v...<c> in the OP. Nonetheless, using perldoc to test if a module is installed is apt to be less error prone.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
Re: 'perl -le' not working on the command line
by Anonymous Monk on May 26, 2011 at 10:37 UTC
[reply]
[d/l]
      To say it explicitly, cmd.exe, turns perl -le 'print 2**255;' into 
      $ perl -le " 'print " "2**255;'"
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.

      [download]
      that is, the program is 'print , a syntax error. 2**255;' ends up in @ARGV.
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
Re: 'perl -le' not working on the command line
by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on May 26, 2011 at 11:29 UTC

    Windows did try to come out with something that is vaguely closer to “a real shell,” which their marketroids promptly dubbed, “PowerShell.”     (Google it ...)   But I haven’t fooled with it much ... It is free, though, IIRC.

      And how does that help the new person who doesn't know anything about the shell he already has?
[reply]
      I've heard rumors that you can also buy C shells from some lady down at the beach.
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom