favorite perl mode for Emacs?

[Anonymous Monk]

I have been using Emacs 22 for awhile now, & its perl-mode gets most syntax correct, but I'm curious; is there a favored third-party perl-mode amongst you Monks?

Us unwashed heathens would like to know...

:)

[Joost]

As an alternative to perl-mode, there's also cperl-mode, which most people prefer and is I think also better maintained. There should be a cperl-mode in your emacs installation, but if you want more up-to-date/expermental versions, see the cperl-mode page on emacswiki.

Also: don't forget to switch on flymake-mode. It's one of the most useful tools in emacs, not just for perl:

;; Use cperl-mode for perl
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.\\([pP][Llm]\\|al\\)\\'" . cperl-m
+ode))
(add-to-list 'interpreter-mode-alist '("perl" . cperl-mode))
(add-to-list 'interpreter-mode-alist '("perl5" . cperl-mode))
(add-to-list 'interpreter-mode-alist '("miniperl" . cperl-mode))

(add-hook 'cperl-mode-hook
  (lambda ()
    (require 'flymake)
    (flymake-mode 1) ;; use flymake
    (local-set-key (kbd "C-h f") 'cperl-perldoc))) ;; use perldoc inst
+ead of info on C-h f

You might also be interesed in Sepia and other stuff that turns up on CPAN

[Anonymous Monk]

Which is more updated cperl-mode?

One on emacs wiki or one on CPAN?

[Joost]

The CPAN link (which is the 5.25 version distributed with perl 5.10) is older, at least according to the version number/date than the v6.2 one in the "official" distribution @ Ilya's site

The other versions mentioned in emacswiki are probably based on/synched with the 6.2 version mentioned above, and may have some updates that ilya's version doesn't have, like more 5.10 syntax support.

In any case you will get a cperl-mode distributed with both emacs and perl, and if you use fairly recent versions of either you should get at least one usable version of cperl-mode. If you want to get the best mode you can get, you should probably start with ilya's site and then explore the other links on emacswiki to see what version suits you most.

As for me, I'm mostly writing perl 5.8 compatible code at the moment and Ilya's 6.2 version works fine for that.

[FunkyMonk]

There's also jrockway's hack of cperl-mode if you happen to be using either perl 5.10+ or MooseX::Declare.

As previously mentioned, the emacs wiki is an excellent resource for all things emacs. Investigating its Perl section will be particularly worthwhile.

[Bloodnok]

To answer the question posed in a misreading of the title and risking the inevitable flames - yeah, don't use it [emacs] at all :-D It used to cause no end of trouble on the Solaris boxes to whose needs I used to administer...