FindBin - Locate directory of original perl script

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION
- EXPORTABLE VARIABLES
- KNOWN ISSUES
- KNOWN BUGS
- AUTHORS
- COPYRIGHT

# 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.

FindBin - Locate directory of original perl script