par.pl - Make and run Perl Archives (Please see pp for convenient ways to make self-contained executables, scripts or PAR archives from perl programs.) To make a PAR distribution from a CPAN module distribution: % par.pl -p # make a PAR dist under the current path % par.pl -p Foo-0.01 # assume unpacked CPAN dist in Foo-0.01/ To manipulate a PAR distribution: % par.pl -i Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # install % par.pl -i http://foo.com/Foo-0.01 # auto-appends archname + perlver % par.pl -i cpan://AUTRIJUS/PAR-0.74 # uses CPAN author directory % par.pl -u Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # uninstall % par.pl -s Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # sign % par.pl -v Foo-0.01-i386-freebsd-5.8.0.par # verify To use Hello.pm from ./foo.par: % par.pl -A./foo.par -MHello % par.pl -A./foo -MHello # the .par part is optional Same thing, but search foo.par in the @INC; % par.pl -Ifoo.par -MHello % par.pl -Ifoo -MHello # ditto Run test.pl or script/test.pl from foo.par: % par.pl foo.par test.pl # looks for 'main.pl' by default, # otherwise run 'test.pl' To make a self-containing script containing a PAR file : % par.pl -O./foo.pl foo.par % ./foo.pl test.pl # same as above To embed the necessary non-core modules and shared objects for PAR's execution (like "Zlib", "IO", "Cwd", etc), use the -b flag: % par.pl -b -O./foo.pl foo.par % ./foo.pl test.pl # runs anywhere with core modules installed If you also wish to embed core modules along, use the -B flag instead: % par.pl -B -O./foo.pl foo.par % ./foo.pl test.pl # runs anywhere with the perl interpreter This is particularly useful when making stand-alone binary executables; see pp for details. This stand-alone command offers roughly the same feature as "perl -MPAR", except that it takes the pre-loaded .par files via "-Afoo.par" instead of "-MPAR=foo.par". Additionally, it lets you convert a CPAN distribution to a PAR distribution, as well as manipulate such distributions. For more information about PAR distributions, see PAR::Dist.

Binary PAR loader (parl)
If you have a C compiler, or a pre-built binary package of PAR is available for your platform, a binary version of par.pl will also be automatically installed as parl. You can use it to run .par files: # runs script/run.pl in archive, uses its lib/* as libraries % parl myapp.par run.pl # runs run.pl or script/run.pl in myapp.par % parl otherapp.pl # also runs normal perl scripts However, if the .par archive contains either main.pl or script/main.pl, it is used instead: % parl myapp.par run.pl # runs main.pl, with 'run.pl' as @ARGV Finally, the "-O" option makes a stand-alone binary executable from a PAR file: % parl -B -Omyapp myapp.par % ./myapp # run it anywhere without perl binaries With the "--par-options" flag, generated binaries can act as "parl" to pack new binaries: % ./myapp --par-options -Omyap2 myapp.par # identical to ./myapp % ./myapp --par-options -Omyap3 myap3.par # now with different PAR

Stand-alone executable format
The format for the stand-alone executable is simply concatenating the following elements: Either in plain-text (par.pl) or native executable format (parl or parl.exe). These are typically used for bootstrapping PAR's various XS dependencies. Each section contains: This is just a zip file beginning with the magic string ""PK\003\004"". The pre-computed cache name. A pack('Z40') string of the value of -T (--tempcache) or the hash of the file, followed by "\0CACHE". The hash of the file is calculated with Digest::SHA, Digest::SHA1, or Digest::MD5. If none of those modules is available, the "mtime" of the file is used. A pack('N') number of the total length of FILE and PAR sections, followed by a 8-bytes magic string: ""\012PAR.pm\012"". PAR, PAR::Dist, parl, pp Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org> <http://par.perl.org/> is the official PAR website. You can write to the mailing list at <par@perl.org>, or send an empty mail to <par-subscribe@perl.org> to participate in the discussion. Please submit bug reports to <bug-par@rt.cpan.org>. Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>. Neither this program nor the associated parl program impose any licensing restrictions on files generated by their execution, in accordance with the 8th article of the Artistic License: "Aggregation of this Package with a commercial distribution is always permitted provided that the use of this Package is embedded; that is, when no overt attempt is made to make this Package's interfaces visible to the end user of the commercial distribution. Such use shall not be construed as a distribution of this Package." Therefore, you are absolutely free to place any license on the resulting executable, as long as the packed 3rd-party libraries are also available under the Artistic License. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See <http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html>