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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 directory.


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 persistent 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 filename
  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.

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