FindBin

FindBin(3)             Perl Programmers Reference Guide             FindBin(3)



NAME
       FindBin - 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 direc-
       tory.

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 persis-
       tent Perl environments, 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;

KNOWN BUGS
       If perl is invoked as

          perl filename

       and filename does not have executable rights and a program called file-
       name exists in the users $ENV{PATH} which satisfies both -x and -T then
       FindBin assumes that it was invoked via the $ENV{PATH}.

       Workaround is to invoke perl as

        perl ./filename

AUTHORS
       FindBin 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 v5.8.6                       2001-09-21                        FindBin(3)