=pod =head1 Name Perl::Syntax -- Syntax Check Perl files and strings =head1 Summary This module syntax checks Perl files and strings. It is identical to running C, but output doesn't go by default to STDOUT. You run his like this from a command line: $ perl -MPerl::Syntax perl-program.pl $ perl -MPerl::Syntax -e 'your perl code' which is like: $ perl -c perl-program.pl 2>/dev/null $ perl -MPerl::Syntax -e 'your perl code' 2>/dev/null Or from inside Perl: system($^X, '-M', 'Perl::Syntax', $perl_program); system("$^X -M Perl::Syntax $perl_program"); # check $? By default, no output is produced. You will get a zero return code if everything checks out or nonzero if there was a syntax error. To capture output to a file, you can specify a file name by adding an equal sign after "Perl::Syntax" like this: perl -MPerl::Syntax=/tmp/output-file.txt perl-program.pl or inside PerL: system($^X, '-M', 'Perl::Syntax=/tmp/outfile-file.txt', $perl_program); File I will have either the messages Perl normally produces on C: XXXX syntax OK or syntax error at XXXX line DDDD ... ... =head1 Examples use English; my @prefix = ($EXECUTABLE_NAME, '-MPerl::Syntax'); # test this Perl code to see if it is syntactically correct; system(@prefix, __FILE__); print "Yep, we're good" unless $? >> 8; # test of invalid Perl code: system(@prefix, '-e', '$Incomplete + $Expression +'; print "Try again" if $? >> 8; # Show capturing output system($EXECUTABLE_NAME, '-MPerl::Syntax=/tmp/Syntax.log', __FILE__); # results are in /tmp/Syntax.log =head1 Bugs/Caveats There doesn't seem to be much benefit here over using C with C redirected. What I really want is a kind of eval that just does the syntax checking. =head1 Author Rocky Bernstein =head1 See Also C<-c> switch from L =head1 Copyright Copyright (C) 2012 Rocky Bernstein This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The program is free software. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation (either version 2 or any later version) and the Perl Artistic License as published by O'Reilly Media, Inc. Please open the files named gpl-2.0.txt and Artistic for a copy of these licenses. =cut