Magic Word

Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.os.linux.misc

: Under Solaris, I always use the following lines in my perl code to
: invoke it:

: #!/bin/sh -- # -*- perl -*- -w
: eval 'exec perl $0 ${1+"$@"}'
:   if 0;

If you use

#! /usr/bin/env perl

as the first line of your script, then it will be run using whatever copy of perl is found first on your path. I know this trick works on both RH Linux and Solaris, and believe that it will work on most Unix systems.

The problem with using

#! /usr/bin/perl

for the first line, as suggested by some others, is that perl is often installed in /usr/local/bin/perl instead. (if it doesn't come with the system and is installed later by the sys admin).

Paul Hughett

documented on: 2001.03.22 Thu 17:04:22