assosiating .pl files with perl on linux

[abhishes]

Hello all,

I have been a active state perl user on windows. There if I type
tele.pl params

on the console, the perl interperter automatically comes into play. also I can run this from anywhere so long as the directory which contains my tele.pl script is in the path.

Now I am on linux (mandarke 9.2, gnome 2.4) and I try to do the same thing (add my script directory to the path)

but I get a slew of errors

/mnt/windows/myapps/perl/hptele.pl: line 1: use: command not found : command not found/perl/hptele.pl: line 1: /mnt/windows/myapps/perl/hptele.pl: line 2: use: command not found : command not found/perl/hptele.pl: line 2: : command not found/perl/hptele.pl: line 3: /mnt/windows/myapps/perl/hptele.pl: line 4: my: command not found : command not found/perl/hptele.pl: line 4: : command not found/perl/hptele.pl: line 5: /mnt/windows/myapps/perl/hptele.pl: line 6: syntax error near unexpected token `defined' 'mnt/windows/myapps/perl/hptele.pl: line 6: `unless (defined($namePattern))

I will grately appriciate any help in this regard.

regards,
Abhishek.

[Corion]

Making any file under Linux executable is a two-fold process:

1. First, you need to mark the file as executable by setting it's "executable" bit. You seem to have done that, as you see some errors.
2. Second, for text files to be executable, you must make the first line of the script point to the interpreter it is to be executed with. You don't seem to have that, as you get some errors about commands not being found. Try the below script as a starting point.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

print "Hello World from Perl\n";

The first line ("hashbang line", due to the first to characters in it) must point to where perl is located on your machine.

[edan]

The first line ("hashbang line", due to the first to characters in it) ...

I hate to be pedantic, but that is more commonly called the 'shebang' line, not 'hashbang'. Authorities disagree if the source for the 'she-' is 'sharp' or 'shell'.

References:
dictionary.com
Jargon File
Re: Re: Re: How do I pronounce all this stuff

[doom]

I hate to be pedantic, but that is more commonly called the 'shebang' line, not 'hashbang'.

If you find something in the Jargon file, that means that most likely no one really talks that way.

I think 'hashbang' is pretty common, though 'shebang' is still heard occasionally.

[gellyfish]

Corion is, of course, completely correct. You can find more about running perl programs in the perlrun manpage.

However, just for fun of course, you can make linux behave in a similar fashion to windows. If you run the following as 'root' in the shell:

modprobe binfmt_misc
                                                                      
+          
echo ':perl:E::pl::/usr/bin/perl:'>/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register

(Adjusting the path to perl as necessary) Then the Linux kernel will recognise the extension .pl as a program that will be run by perl without requiring a shebang line - of course the file still has to be executable. You probably don't want to do this on a production machine however and YMMV as regards the kernel configuration.

/J\

[z3d]

Are you asking how to get gnome (or kde, I suppose, the only two that come to mind with built in filebrowsers) to recognize the .pl extension? In Nautilus (gnome's browser) you can set up a file association to /usr/bin/perl, telling it to run in terminal. In KDE, you can setup a similar execute association.

Unless you meant on the console, then listen to the others :)

[zentara]

Not that I use .pl extensions, but midnight commander handles extensions very well on linux. Look at the mc.ext file usually in /usr/share/mc or /usr/local/share/mc. Just hit enter on the .pl file and it will invoke perl if you set it up right. I like the way it launches .html files and audio files.