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


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 mod-
       ules 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" func-
       tion. The workaround was to force the "BEGIN" block to be
       executed again:

         delete $INC{'FindBin.pm'};
         require FindBin;





perl v5.8.8                 2002-10-27                          1





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


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 sat-
       isfies 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 distribu-
       tion. Please send bug reports to <perlbugATperl.org> using
       the perlbug program included with perl.

       Graham Barr <gbarrATpobox.com> Nick Ing-Simmons
       <nikATtiuk.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 v5.8.8                 2002-10-27                          2