How can I start an interactive console for Perl?

Question

How can I start an interactive console for Perl, similar to the irb command for Ruby or python for Python?

Answer 1

I've created perli, a Perl REPL that runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Its focus is automatic result printing, convenient documentation lookups, and easy inspection of regular-expression matches.
You can see screenshots here.

It works stand-alone (has no dependencies other than Perl itself), but installation of rlwrap is strongly recommended so as to support command-line editing, persistent command history, and tab-completion - read more here.

Installation

• If you happen to have Node.js installed:

  npm install -g perli
  

• Otherwise:

  • Unix-like platforms: Download this script as perli to a folder in your system's path and make it executable with chmod +x.

  • Windows: Download the this script as perli.pl (note the .pl extension) to a folder in your system's path.
    If you don't mind invoking Perli as perli.pl, you're all set.
    Otherwise, create a batch file named perli.cmd in the same folder with the following content: @%~dpn.pl %*; this enables invocation as just perli.