The Standard Modules

Below we list the modules that should come with all distributions of Perl. Some of these modules are not portable across all operating systems, however. The descriptions for the modules mention the incompatibility

Text::AbbrevCreates

-- an abbreviation table from a list. The abbreviation table consists of the shortest sequence of characters that can uniquely identify each element of the list.

AnyDBM_File

-- Provides a framework for accessing multiple DBMs. This is a UNIX-based module. AutoLoaderLoads functions on demand. This enables your scripts to use less memory.

AutoSplit

-- Splits a package or module into its component parts for autoloading. BenchmarkTracks the running time of code. This module can be modified to run under Windows but some of its functionality will be lost.

Carp

-- Provides an alternative to the warn() and die() functions that report the line number of the calling routine. See "Example: The Carp Module" later in the chapter for more information.

I18N::Collate

-- Compares 8-bit scalar data according to the current locale. This helps to give an international viewpoint to your script.

Config

-- Accesses the Perl configuration options.

Cwd

-- Gets the pathname of the current working directory. This module will generate a warning message when used with the -w command line option under the Windows and VAX VMS operating systems. You can safely ignore the warning.

Dynaloader

-- Lets you dynamically load C libraries into Perl code.

English

-- Lets you use English terms instead of the normal special variable names.

Env

-- Lets you access the system environment variables using scalars instead of a hash. If you make heavy use of the environment variables, this module might improve the speed of your script.

Exporter

-- Controls namespace manipulations.

Fcntl

-- Loads file control definition used by the fcntl() function.

FileHandle

-- Provides an object-oriented interface to filehandles.

File::Basename

-- Separates a file name and path from a specification.

File::CheckTree

-- Runs filetest checks on a directory tree.

File::Find

-- Traverse a file tree. This module will not work under the Windows operating systems without modification.

Getopt

-- Provides basic and extended options processing.

ExtUtils::MakeMaker

-- Creates a Makefile for a Perl extension.

Ipc::Open2

-- Opens a process for both reading and writing.

Ipc::Open3

-- Opens a process for reading, writing, and error handling.

POSIX

-- Provides an interface to IEEE 1003.1 namespace.

Net::Ping

-- Checks to see if a host is available.

Socket

-- Loads socket definitions used by the socket functions.