Download Perl

Perl is a highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over 37 years of development. Perl runs on over 100 platforms from portables to mainframes and is suitable for both rapid prototyping and large scale development projects.

5.40.2 is the current stable version of Perl. Always running the latest stable version is recommended for you. If you're running a version older than 5.8.3, you may find that the latest version of CPAN modules will not work. You can browse all Perl 5 release from here.

Unix

Running Linux, Solaris, AIX, HPUX, or any other UNIX-like system? You probably already have perl installed. Type perl -v on a command line to find out which version.

Source

Consider looking at App::perlbrew to help compile and manage Perl from source.

Find out more about the source code, development versions as well as current releases of the Perl source code.

macOS

macOS already has Perl installed. Open a Terminal application (in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder) and run perl -v to find out which version.

Source

Consider looking at App::perlbrew to help compile and manage Perl from source.

Find out more about the source code, development versions as well as current releases of the Perl source code.

Windows

Windows does not have Perl installed by default.

Binaries

Strawberry Perl: A 100% Open Source Perl for Windows that is exactly the same as Perl everywhere else; this includes using modules from CPAN, without the need for binary packages. Help is available from other Windows Perl developers on the #win32 irc channel on irc.perl.org (see website for access through a browser).

Download Strawberry Perl

Source

Consider looking at App::perlbrew to help compile and manage Perl from source.

Find out more about the source code, development versions as well as current releases of the Perl source code.

Documentation

Official Docs

The perldoc.perl.org contains the official documentation from the Perl distribution(s). Here are some direct links which may be of interest.

Module Docs

Perl modules come with their own documentation. This includes modules installed from CPAN. On Unix-like (including Linux and Mac OS X) systems, you can access the documentation (for installed modules) with the perldoc command.

For example, to get the documentation for IO::File, enter
perldoc IO::File from your command prompt. Module documentation is also available on metacpan.org

Learning Perl

learn.perl.org has many resources to help you get started, also contact others in the Perl Community to find out more and get help.

Presentations are not necessarily the best way to learn, but they can be worth reviewing.
- Introduction to Perl: Part 1, Part 2
- DBIx::Class - Database ORM introduction
- Catalyst web framework
Modules: If you are looking for a list of recommended modules for many day-to-day tasks, look at Task::Kensho.
Perl FAQs are available as part of your Perl distribution with the perldoc perlfaq command. Read FAQs online at http://learn.perl.org/faq/