hidden perl

sorry if this is in the wrong newsgroup.  am not a perl programmer, so am
not sure under what heading to put this under.  simply put:

my company has a software (written in perl) that it runs on our internal
servers (linux).  we would
like to be able to have 3rd party companies run it, not off of our servers,
but on their own internals network.  but obviously we don't want them to
be able to see our source code.

can i ask what solutions there are?

are there compilers?  reliable ones?  am sure we are not the first to
encounter this scenario, so am sure there is a solution.

many thanks ahead, as always.

sergio

I don't know if you can do that. You may have to just make things difficult
for them. You know remove all comment; rewrite so variables are $a, $b, $c;
and take out as many carriage returns and spaces as it will let you. In C
you can do whole programs on one line. a lot of work to make that legible.
A small perl routine could do this for you.

"daniel caplan" <NOJUNK@EMAILPLEASE.COM> wrote in message
news:1076643472.878181@nntp.acecape.com...
> sorry if this is in the wrong newsgroup.  am not a perl programmer, so am
> not sure under what heading to put this under.  simply put:
>
> my company has a software (written in perl) that it runs on our internal
> servers (linux).  we would
> like to be able to have 3rd party companies run it, not off of our
servers,
> but on their own internals network.  but obviously we don't want them to
> be able to see our source code.
>
> can i ask what solutions there are?
>
> are there compilers?  reliable ones?  am sure we are not the first to
> encounter this scenario, so am sure there is a solution.
>
> many thanks ahead, as always.
>
> sergio
>
>
>

In article <1076643472.878181@nntp.acecape.com>, daniel caplan wrote:
>sorry if this is in the wrong newsgroup.  am not a perl programmer, so am
>not sure under what heading to put this under.  simply put:
>
>my company has a software (written in perl) that it runs on our internal
>servers (linux).  we would
>like to be able to have 3rd party companies run it, not off of our servers,
>but on their own internals network.  but obviously we don't want them to
>be able to see our source code.
>
>can i ask what solutions there are?
>
>are there compilers?  reliable ones?  am sure we are not the first to
>encounter this scenario, so am sure there is a solution.

www.indigostar.com - Look at perl2exe.  A few caveats:

1) If you want to compile, you must have either all the modules necessary
on your system that you're compiling for, or you must have modules present
on the target system that are compatable (ie., probably made under the same
perl version, etc.).  This is usually something you run into more with
cross-compiling one platform to another with the Enterprise version,
really, as they'll be bundled if you include them.

2) It creates a binary that not even 'strings' will be able to give hints
about the code for.  However, all the libraries it packs in are extracted
into a temporary directory at runtime, then loaded into memory, and then
removed from disk at exit.  If you have multiple users at once, first
person out screws up the process for everyone when they remove the
libraries.  In this case, you should compile with -tiny, but I believe
that's only available in the non-Lite versions.  Check the docs on their
site.

3) The unpack/load slows things -slightly- but not enough to worry about
hugely, and that's even on a P166.

4) FindBin requires a workaround, but works fine with that workaround.

Overall, it's the solution I would recommend.  Forget about perlcc, as it's
just plain not ready for prime-time.  Not even close.  In fact, it's just
plain broken in so many ways.

--
Vorxion - Member of The Vortexa Elite

"daniel caplan" <NOJUNK@EMAILPLEASE.COM> wrote in message
news:1076643472.878181@nntp.acecape.com...
> sorry if this is in the wrong newsgroup.  am not a perl programmer, so am
> not sure under what heading to put this under.  simply put:

This newsgroup is for hiring Perl freelancers, so it depends on whether you
are prepared to pay for advice as to whether this is the most appropriate
ng.

>
> my company has a software (written in perl) that it runs on our internal
> servers (linux).  we would
> like to be able to have 3rd party companies run it, not off of our
servers,
> but on their own internals network.  but obviously we don't want them to
> be able to see our source code.
>
> can i ask what solutions there are?
>
> are there compilers?  reliable ones?  am sure we are not the first to
> encounter this scenario, so am sure there is a solution.

Two common solutions.

1.  Use PAR to compile your code.
2.  Use one of the Acme modules.  My favourites are Acme::Bleach and
Acme::Eyedrops.