Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!spool.mu.edu!agate!ucbvax!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: using perl interactively
Message-ID: <1991May22.163523.2939@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 22 May 91 16:35:23 GMT
References: <MAYER.91May21115429@porky.sono.uucp>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 38
In-Reply-To: mayer@sono.uucp (Ronald &)

In article <MAYER.91May21115429@porky.sono.uucp> you write:
| Has anyone written a good interface for using perl interactively?

There are two.  "perlsh" is buried in the distribution, which I quote
here irreverently:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% quote
#!/usr/bin/perl

# Poor man's perl shell.

# Simply type two carriage returns every time you want to evaluate.
# Note that it must be a complete perl statement--don't type double
#  carriage return in the middle of a loop.

$/ = '';	# set paragraph mode
$SHlinesep = "\n";
while ($SHcmd = <>) {
    $/ = $SHlinesep;
    eval $SHcmd; print $@ || "\n";
    $SHlinesep = $/; $/ = '';
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% end quote

The other, which I use frequently, is to invoke:

	perl -de 0

which invokes the debugger on the one-line Perl program "0".  Once you
are in the debugger, it's trivial to type in Perl expressions to be
eval'ed.  And you even get a history feature and aliases that way. :-)

echo 'c' | perl -de 'print "Just another Perl hacker,"' # ugh. :-)
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/