Table of Contents

#$EPIC: perl_command.txt,v 1.3 2006/07/28 04:14:52 jnelson Exp $

Synopsis:

perl {perl statement}

Purpose:

If EPIC was linked with an embedded perl interpreter, the perl statement shall be executed by perl. If EPIC was not linked against perl, then no action shall take place.

Although every perl statement resolves to a (perl) scalar value, that (perl) scalar value is discarded when you run it this way.

If the perl statement has an error, the result is undefined, but usually an error message is output to the window.

Remember that the insides of {}s are protected from ircII expansion, so if you want to pass ircII values into your perl script, you do best to export the value to perl using the perl function first. The insides of the {} should be a literal segment of perl code.

You can call back to EPIC from perl:

EPIC::cmd(string) Run “string” without $-expansion
EPIC::eval(string) Run “string” with $-expansion
EPIC::expr(string) Return value of epic expression “string”
EPIC::call(string) Call an epic function: string must be of the form “name(args)”. $* will expand to the empty string.
EPIC::yell(string) Output something on the epic window.

You are permitted to register perl END blocks. They will run when epic initiates shutdown procedures.

Examples:

	PERL { do script.pl }
Loads and runs script.pl.  See the perl documentation for the "do" function.

	PERL { use Time::localtime }
Loads the standard perl module Time::localtime.

	PERL {
		sub foo {
			reverse(wantarray ? @_ : "@_")
		}
	}
Defines a perl subroutine which returns the reverse of its input, whether 
it is called in scalar or list context.

	PERL {
		push @array, "value with $perlvar"
	}
Pushes a string containing a perl variable into a perl array.

	PERL \{
		push @array, "value with $epicvar"
	\}
Pushes a string containing an EPIC variable into a perl array.
DANGER -- be careful with [[quoting hell]].

History:

The perl command first appeared in EPIC5-0.3.1.