How should I capitalize Perl?

Question

PERL? Perl? perl? What's good style?

I know the answer—I just wanted to make sure the question was out there and questioners were aware that there is a correct form.

Capitalize it any way you want - user "brian d foy" will probably come by and correct it for you. ;) — fenomas, Oct 08 '08 at 07:31
I believe you're supposed to prefix it with a 'The' and refer to it in the plural. ie: I was coding The Perls this morning. — George Godik, Dec 18 '09 at 04:24
See http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/70496/ concerning repeatedly deleted comments on this thread. — dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten, Nov 19 '10 at 01:41
I've now asked the same about RUBY :) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6053240/how-should-i-capitalize-ruby — Andrew Grimm, May 19 '11 at 02:51

Michael Carman · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-30T14:57:05.923

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The correct casing is "Perl" for the language and "perl" for the executable. Using "PERL" flags you as someone who isn't particularly familiar with the language or community.

See also What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"? in perlfaq1.

edited Mar 30 '11 at 14:57

answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:43

Michael Carman

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Actually, I'd suggest definite familiarity with older versions of the language - the name *used* to be written this way in the manual page for perl 4, along with an explanation that it was an acronym for "practical extraction and reporting language" (ref: http://www-cgi.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/perl-man) many of us older users ignore the revisionist complaints that it isn't an acronym and therefore shouldn't be capitalised. – Jules Feb 03 '16 at 16:23

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 10 '09 at 01:18

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Quoting the Perl article on Wikipedia.

The name is normally capitalized (Perl) when referring to the language and uncapitalized (perl) when referring to the interpreter program itself since Unix-like file systems are case-sensitive. Before the release of the first edition of Programming Perl, it was common to refer to the language as perl; Randal L. Schwartz, however, capitalised the language's name in the book to make it stand out better when typeset. The case distinction was subsequently adopted by the community.

Also check the perlfaq about this question.

edited Apr 10 '09 at 01:18

1800 INFORMATION

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answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:43

chakrit

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Here's the link to perlfaq: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#What's-the-difference-between-%22perl%22-and-%22Perl%22%3f – chakrit Sep 16 '08 at 13:48

brian d foy · Answer 3 · 2010-09-16T22:20:58.713

Here's the answer from perlfaq1:

What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?

One bit. Oh, you weren't talking ASCII? :-) Larry now uses "Perl" to signify the language proper and "perl" the implementation of it, i.e. the current interpreter. Hence Tom's quip that "Nothing but perl can parse Perl." You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look OK, while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding.

Darren Meyer · Answer 4 · 2008-09-16T14:28:01.510

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Despite a lot of anecdote to the contrary, "PERL" was never really an acronym -- it's a "backronym". The name Perl was chosen first, then some people jokingly applied expansions to it, which caught on.

The PerlMonks community (highly recommended!) taught me the convention, and it's similar to Java's:

It's never PERL (or JAVA)
When you're talking about the language, it's Perl (or Java)
When you're talking about the interpreter itself, it's perl (or java).

That said, it doesn't make a whole hill of beans if you do it "wrong".

edited Sep 16 '08 at 14:28

answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:47

Darren Meyer

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Actually those conventions were in place long before Perl Monks arrived :-) – Dave Cross Sep 16 '08 at 14:21
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You say "it doesn't make a whole hill of beans", but it certainly can. Spelling it as "PERL" pegs you as someone who is not very familiar with Perl. It's a bit of a shibboleth. – Andy Lester Sep 16 '10 at 21:57

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 08 '08 at 07:32

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"The name is normally capitalized (Perl) when referring to the language and uncapitalized (perl) when referring to the interpreter program itself since Unix-like file systems are case-sensitive." From wikipedia at time of posting.

edited Oct 08 '08 at 07:32

brian d foy

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answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:43

Marc Gear

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score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 14:16

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While, as has been said, it doesn't make THAT much difference if you get it wrong, some folks do use correct capitalization (or at least, NOT referring to 'PERL' or any of the more sensible backcronyms) as a shibboleth for clue in job ads. :)

answered Sep 16 '08 at 14:16

Penfold

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:42

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Perl

answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:42

Tom Ritter

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:43

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perl or Perl is fine.

answered Sep 16 '08 at 13:43

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But they mean different things. "Perl" is the language, "perl" is the compiler. – Dave Cross Sep 16 '08 at 14:12

How should I capitalize Perl?

8 Answers8

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