FindBin(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide FindBin(3p)NAMEFindBin - Locate directory of original perl script
SYNOPSIS
use FindBin;
use lib "$FindBin::Bin/../lib";
or
use FindBin qw($Bin);
use lib "$Bin/../lib";
DESCRIPTION
Locates the full path to the script bin directory to allow
the use of paths relative to the bin directory.
This allows a user to setup a directory tree for some
software with directories "<root>/bin" and "<root>/lib", and
then the above example will allow the use of modules in the
lib directory without knowing where the software tree is
installed.
If perl is invoked using the -e option or the perl script is
read from "STDIN" then FindBin sets both $Bin and $RealBin
to the current directory.
EXPORTABLE VARIABLES
$Bin - path to bin directory from where script was invoked
$Script - basename of script from which perl was invoked
$RealBin - $Bin with all links resolved
$RealScript - $Script with all links resolved
KNOWN ISSUES
If there are two modules using "FindBin" from different
directories under the same interpreter, this won't work.
Since "FindBin" uses a "BEGIN" block, it'll be executed only
once, and only the first caller will get it right. This is a
problem under mod_perl and other persistent Perl environ-
ments, where you shouldn't use this module. Which also means
that you should avoid using "FindBin" in modules that you
plan to put on CPAN. To make sure that "FindBin" will work
is to call the "again" function:
use FindBin;
FindBin::again(); # or FindBin->again;
In former versions of FindBin there was no "again" function.
The workaround was to force the "BEGIN" block to be executed
again:
delete $INC{'FindBin.pm'};
require FindBin;
perl v5.8.8 2005-02-05 1
FindBin(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide FindBin(3p)KNOWN BUGS
If perl is invoked as
perl filename
and filename does not have executable rights and a program
called filename exists in the users $ENV{PATH} which satis-
fies both -x and -T then FindBin assumes that it was invoked
via the $ENV{PATH}.
Workaround is to invoke perl as
perl ./filename
AUTHORSFindBin is supported as part of the core perl distribution.
Please send bug reports to <perlbug@perl.org> using the
perlbug program included with perl.
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com> Nick Ing-Simmons
<nik@tiuk.ti.com>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1995 Graham Barr & Nick Ing-Simmons. All
rights reserved. This program is free software; you can
redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
Perl itself.
perl v5.8.8 2005-02-05 2
