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The Perl Reference Guide

The Perl Reference Guide is a typeset quick reference guide to Larry Wall's Perl program, version 5.004. It is freely available (in PostScript format) on the Internet.

The Perl Pocket Reference

The Perl Pocket Reference is a booklet published by O'Reilly & Associates. It is based on the Reference Guide but contains much more information. The fifth edition is updated for Perl 5.14.1 and contains 92 pages.
The ISBN of the Perl Pocket Reference, 5th edition, is 978-1-4493-0370-9.

Description

The Guide contains a concise description of all Perl statements, functions, variables and lots of other useful information.

The purpose of the Reference Guide is to aid in the use of Perl, to look up the syntax of specific functions, statements and the meaning of built-in variables. It is not a self-contained user guide - basic knowledge of the Perl language is required. It is not complete - some of the more obscure variants of perl constructs have been left out. But all functions and variables are mentioned in at least one way they can be used.

The Reference Guide is designed and created by Johan Vromans using the LaTex typesetting system. The kit contains a ready-to-use PostScript file, and a special formatting tool, written in Perl, that makes it possible to reformat this PostScript output for reproduction in a number of formats (the most important being DIN A4 and US Letter).

The version number of the Reference Guide is coupled to the version of Perl, e.g. 5.012.2 means: the second release suitable for Perl 5 patchlevel 12.
(This is an example. There is no Perl 5 patchlevel 12. Besides, with 5.6, the numbering scheme changed anyway.)

Take a look at the impressive history of the Reference Guide.

Availability

Perl resources are available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a global-wide network of sites that all carry the same information. The CPAN search engine will find it for you.
Alternatively, you can look in directory authors/Johan_Vromans for file perlref-5.004.1.tar.gz.

A PDF version has been distilled by Randy Wilcox.

For a japanese version of the reference guide, please contact Yoshiyuki KONDO <cond@lsi-j.co.jp>.

A text-only version has been prepared by Phil Macias. I squirreled away a copy here.

Rex Swain transcripted the Reference Guide to HTML: http://www.rexswain.com/perl5.html.

Doc formatted version for the Palm PDA, by David Coppit and Darryl Lee.

Copyright notice

The Perl Reference Guide is Copyright 2004,1989 by Johan Vromans. It may be reproduced, printed and distributed freely for non-profit purposes, in the exact format as distributed through the Internet. It may not be used as or in combination with a commercial product except with written permission of the author.
The Perl5 Desktop Reference, the Perl5 Pocket Reference, and the Perl Pocket Reference are Copyright 2011,2002,2000,1998,1996 by Johan Vromans.
The camel as an image associated with Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. and is used with permission.