ActivePerl is a distribution of
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...
from
ActiveState
ActiveState Software Inc is a Canadian software company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It develops, sells, and supports cross-platform development tools for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, as well ...
(formerly part of
Sophos
Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company. Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management. Sophos is primarily ...
) for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
,
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...
,
Solaris,
AIX
Aix or AIX may refer to:
Computing
* AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems
*An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set
* Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point
Places Belgiu ...
and
HP-UX
HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Se ...
.
A few main editions are available, including: Community (free, for development use only), and several paid tiers up to Enterprise that includes support for OEM licensing. It includes a version of the
Perl package manager Perl Package Manager (''PPM'') is a Perl utility intended to simplify the tasks of locating, installing, upgrading and removing software packages. It can determine if the most recent version of a software package is installed on a system, and can in ...
(PPM) for installing packages from
CPAN
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a repository of over 250,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 39,000 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 12,000 contributors. ''CPAN'' can denote ei ...
, etc.
The Windows version includes an
Active Scripting
Active Scripting (formerly known as ActiveX Scripting) is the technology used in Windows to implement component-based scripting support. It is based on OLE Automation (part of COM) and allows installation of additional scripting engines in the for ...
component for
Windows Script Host
The Microsoft Windows Script Host (WSH) (formerly named Windows Scripting Host) is an automation technology for Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides scripting abilities comparable to batch files, but with a wider range of supported fe ...
(WSH) called PerlScript and an
ISAPI module for embedding within
Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services (IIS-pronounced 2S, formerly Internet Information Server) is an extensible web server software created by Microsoft for use with the Windows NT family. IIS supports HTTP, HTTP/2, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NN ...
(IIS).
PerlScript
PerlScript was initially solely an
ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide We ...
Scripting Engine produced by the company ActiveState for use with
Microsoft's
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
Internet Information Services (IIS) that allows for programmers to use Perl-based code in addition to, or in place of,
VBScript
VBScript (''" Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition"'') is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing comput ...
or
JScript
JScript is Microsoft's legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older.
JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applica ...
in the context of web servers running the
ASP protocol. Subsequentl
Apache::ASPwas created for the
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño a ...
web server, which allows for coding with only Perl, but neither VBScript nor JScript. PerlScript can also be used to write Windows Script Host-based programs, similar to VBScript.
Standalone PerlScripts can be executed if they are created with the file extension .pls, in which case they do not require enclosing
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
, e.g.
use strict;
our $WScript;
$WScript->Echo("Hello, world!");
.pls files do not gain access to drag and drop WSH functionality.
PerlScripts which have the extension wsf require XML tags which specify the job id and script language, e.g.
wsf PerlScripts gain access to WSH drag and drop functionality, similarly to Perl Droplets in the now-obsolete
MacPerl.
Most WSH objects are available via the implicitly created $WScript object.
See also
*
ActivePython
*
ActiveTcl
References
External links
*
Introduction to PerlScriptat ActiveState
{{DEFAULTSORT:ActivePerl
Perl
Perl software
Scripting languages