# Perl/perl5

🐪 The Perl programming language

Repository: https://github.com/Perl/perl5
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/perl5
Homepage: https://dev.perl.org/perl5/
Language: Perl
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: perl, perl5, cpan, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-26T17:52:28+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4949, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2320, forks 641 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:37.093292+00:00)

## What it is
Perl 5 is a general-purpose, dynamically typed programming language originally developed for text manipulation, now used for system administration, web development, network programming, and more. This repository contains the official Perl 5 interpreter source, which is actively maintained and released under a permissive license.

## Use cases
- write scripts for text processing and report generation
- automate system administration tasks
- build web backends with CGI or frameworks
- parse and transform log files
- develop cross-platform command-line utilities
- maintain legacy Perl codebases

## When to choose
- you need powerful built-in regular expressions and text manipulation
- you rely on CPAN's large module ecosystem
- you're maintaining or extending existing Perl systems
- you want a mature, stable scripting language for sysadmin work

## When to avoid
- you're starting a modern web frontend project
- you need strong static typing or compile-time safety
- your team prefers more mainstream languages with larger hiring pools
- you need first-class mobile or embedded support

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: programming-language, interpreter, parser, cli
- domain: programming-languages, developer-tools, text-editors, web-development
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli
- tags: perl5, cpan, text-processing, scripting-language, system-administration, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- Perl/perl5 (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:37.093292+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:38:48.743534+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Perl/perl5 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:37.093292+00:00, sha d2f1863cee90)
  - homepage: https://dev.perl.org/perl5/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:18:55.700504+00:00, sha f0d2adebb496)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.