Native Modules

PetaPerl does not support XS (C extensions). Instead, performance-critical CPAN modules are reimplemented natively in Rust. These ”native modules“ provide the same Perl-level API as their XS counterparts but integrate directly with PetaPerl’s runtime — enabling JIT compilation, auto-parallelization, and zero FFI overhead.

How It Works

When you write use List::Util qw(sum min max), PetaPerl’s module loader detects that List::Util has a native implementation and registers Rust function pointers directly. There is no compilation step, no .so loading, and no XS glue code.

Native functions are dispatched via NativeFn — a direct function pointer with O(1) call overhead, identical to built-in operators.

Available Native Modules

Core Utilities

Module	Functions	Notes
Scalar::Util	blessed, reftype, refaddr, weaken, isweak, looks_like_number, …	Full API
List::Util	sum, min, max, first, any, all, none, reduce, …	MULTICALL optimized
Sub::Util	subname, set_subname
Hash::Util	lock_keys, lock_hash, …

Digest / Crypto

Module	Functions	Notes
Digest::MD5	md5, md5_hex, md5_base64, OO interface	Full API
Digest::SHA	sha1, sha256, sha512, OO interface	Full API
MIME::Base64	encode_base64, decode_base64
MIME::QuotedPrint	encode_qp, decode_qp

File / System

Module	Functions	Notes
File::Basename	basename, dirname, fileparse
File::Copy	copy, move
File::Find	find, finddepth
File::Glob	bsd_glob
File::Path	make_path, remove_tree
File::Spec	catdir, catfile, rel2abs, …
File::Temp	tempfile, tempdir	OO + functional
File::stat	stat (OO)
Cwd	cwd, getcwd, abs_path
Sys::Hostname	hostname

I/O

Module	Functions	Notes
IO::File	OO file handle
IO::Handle	OO handle base
IO::Dir	OO directory handle
IO::Pipe	OO pipe handle
IO::Select	select wrapper
IO::Socket	OO socket handle
IO::Seekable	seek/tell mixin
FileHandle	Legacy OO handle
Socket	socket primitives

Data / Encoding

Module	Functions	Notes
Data::Dumper	Dumper
Storable	freeze, thaw, nstore, retrieve
Encode	encode, decode, find_encoding
JSON::PP	encode_json, decode_json	Via Pure Perl

Numeric / Math

Module	Functions	Notes
POSIX	floor, ceil, fmod, strtod, strftime, …	Subset
Math::GMP	Arbitrary precision integers	Via Peta::FFI::GMP

Build / Config

Module	Functions	Notes
Config	%Config hash	Build configuration
Fcntl	O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, …	Constants auto-loaded
Errno	ENOENT, EACCES, …	Constants auto-loaded

Introspection

Module	Functions	Notes
B	Compiler backend introspection	Minimal
PadWalker	peek_my, peek_our
mro	get_linear_isa, set_mro
version	Version object handling	Full OO API

Performance

Native modules run at the same speed as built-in operators since they share the same dispatch mechanism. For block-taking functions (first, any, all, reduce), PetaPerl uses MULTICALL optimization to avoid per-element subroutine call overhead.

Benchmarks (vs perl5 with XS):

Function	PetaPerl native	perl5 XS	Ratio
List::Util::sum	1.7x faster	baseline
List::Util::min/max	2.9x faster	baseline
List::Util::first	~1x	baseline	MULTICALL parity

Adding Native Modules

Native module documentation is extracted from the module’s Rust source (//! module docs and /// function docs) by docs/sphinx/bin/02-reference during the docs build.