FindBin

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
EXPORTABLE VARIABLES
KNOWN ISSUES
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;

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>