You don't need a shebang line

Mar 25, 2013 by David Farrell

The shebang line is the first line of code in a Perl script and usually looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

The shebang line is the path to the Perl binary, and allows programmers to invoke Perl scripts directly instead of passing the script filename as an argument to Perl itself.

./myperltrick.pl #execute directly, no need to type 'perl' first

However, the shebang line is not mandatory, and reduces the portability of Perl scripts (by requiring execute permissions and maintaining the shebang). It also obfuscates which version of Perl is being called when a script is executed, which can make debugging more difficult.

./myperltrick.pl
Cant locate Catalyst.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.14.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.14 /usr/share/perl/5.14 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at ./perltricks.pl line 2.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./perltricks.pl line 2.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.
# Hmm which version of Perl did I run ?

By not including the shebang line, programmers can write one-less line of code and retain modularity by separating the behaviour of the script from the executing programme.

perl myperltricks.pl #this works fine

Perl being Perl, it will try to ‘Do What You Mean’ if a script that contains a shebang line is passed to the Perl program as an argument, the shebang line will be ignored. So write or don’t write the shebang, but you don’t need it.

This article was originally posted on PerlTricks.com.