CLI options

pperl accepts a small set of command-line flags. Most are perl-compatible; a handful are pperl-specific (JIT, parallelism, runtime selection, bytecode cache). The authoritative list is whatever pperl --help prints; the tables below show those flags, extracted from the interpreter source and rendered here on every documentation build.

Note

The actual pperl --help output on the terminal is always in English — the binary does not localise help strings. Translated documentation shows the same flags with descriptions in the page’s language so readers can study what each flag does; flag tokens (-T, --pp, --threads=N, …) are always verbatim.

PetaPerl - Next-generation Perl 5 runtime

Usage

pperl [OPTIONS] [--] [SCRIPT [ARGS...]]
pperl -e 'code'

Perl-compatible options

Flag	Description
-e 'code'	Execute one-liner (modern features always enabled)
-Idirectory	Prepend directory to @INC
-c	Check syntax only, don’t execute
-w	Enable warnings
-T	Taint mode (forced; p5 runtime only — warns under –pp)
-t	Taint warnings (p5 runtime only — warns under –pp)
-v	Show version information
-V	Show detailed configuration
-h, -?, --help	Show this help message

Pperl-specific options

Flag	Description
--from-json, -j	Read op tree from stdin (B::PetaPerl JSON format)
--optree, -o	Read op tree from stdin (B::Concise format)
--stats, -s	Show performance statistics (time, memory, ops)
--trace	Enable execution tracing (note: short -t is perl5 taint-warn)
--timeout=SECS	Set execution timeout in seconds (default: none)
--dump-optree	Dump canonical op tree (don’t execute)
--compare-bytecode	Compare op trees: perl5 backend vs native parser
--cache	Enable bytecode caching (~/.pperl/cache/)
--flush	Clear all bytecode caches and exit

Runtime options

Flag	Description
--pp	Use pp runtime (native Rust parser + interpreter)
--p5	(default) Use p5 self-contained runtime
--no-jit	Disable JIT compilation (on by default)
--no-parallel	Disable auto-parallelization (on by default)
--threads=N	Number of threads (default: all CPUs)
--parallel-threshold=N	Minimum iterations to parallelize (default: 100)

Examples

pperl script.pl

Execute a Perl script

pperl -e 'say "Hello!"'

Execute a one-liner (say, state, etc. always available)

pperl -c script.pl

Check script syntax without executing

pperl script.pl arg1 arg2

Pass arguments to script (@ARGV)

For more information, see: https://gl.petatech.eu/petatech/peta-perl

Environment variables

pperl sets several environment variables inside the process it runs, so scripts can introspect the running interpreter:

Variable	Meaning
PPERL	Version string (same as pperl -v)
PPERL_FEATURES	Comma-separated list of compiled-in Cargo features
PPERL_MODS	Comma-separated Name/version pairs for every native module
PPERL_RUNTIMES	Comma-separated runtimes built in (p5, pp, or both)
PPERL_SHELL	Shell integration flavor (empty if shell feature off)
PPERL_STATIC	yes if the binary is musl-statically linked, else no

Run pperl -V to see all values for the current binary.

When to use --pp

The default p5 runtime is the full-feature interpreter: every module available, JIT enabled, taint mode functional. --pp selects the native-Rust pp runtime — faster to start, smaller binary, but with a narrower module set and no JIT. Pick --pp for miniperl-style deployments or when the specific module you need is available in it (see the pp runtime badge on module pages).