perlthrtut - tutorial on threads in Perl
NOTE: this tutorial describes the new Perl threading flavour introduced in Perl 5.6.0 called interpreter threads, or ithreads for short. There is another older perl threading flavour called the 5.005 model, unsurprisingly for 5.005 versions of Perl.
You can see which (or neither) threading flavour you have by running perl -V and look at the Platform section. If you have useithreads=define you have ithreads, if you have use5005threads=define you have 5.005 threads. If you have neither, you don't have any thread support built in. If you have both, you are in trouble.
perl -V
Platform
useithreads=define
use5005threads=define
This document is unfortunately rather sparse as of 2001-Sep-17.
In the meanwhile, you can read up on threading basics (while keeping in mind the above caveat about the changing threading flavours) in perlothrtut
"What Is A Thread Anyway?" in perlothrtut
"Threaded Program Models" in perlothrtut
"Native threads" in perlothrtut
"What kind of threads are perl threads?" in perlothrtut
"Threadsafe Modules" in perlothrtut
When perlothrut reaches "Thread Basics" in perlothrtut is when you should slow down and remember to mentally read threads when perlothrtut says Thread. The Thread was the old 5.005-style threading module, the threads is the new ithreads style threading module.
perlothrut
threads
perlothrtut
Thread
For more information please see threads and threads::shared.
To install if, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm if
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install if
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.