Perl Archive Toolkit (PAR) is a cross-platform packaging and deployment tool for computer

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

and

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

written in the

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

. Its name is inspired by

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

's JAR (file format) technology. It was originally developed by

Audrey Tang Audrey Tang ( zh, t=唐鳳, p=Táng Fèng; born 18 April 1981) is a Taiwanese free software programmer and the inaugural Minister of Digital Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan), who has been described as one of the "ten greatest Taiwanese ...

and is now maintained via th
PAR development mailing list
with help from numerous contributo

Apart from creating, manipulating, loading, and installing binary ''PAR archives'', the PAR module can be used to create standalone executables from complex applications using it
PAR::Packer
extension. Like many other

Perl modules A Perl module is a discrete component of software for the Perl programming language. Technically, it is a particular set of Convention (norm), conventions for using #Perl packages and namespaces, Perl's package mechanism that has become universally ...

, PAR is primarily distributed via the

CPAN The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a repository of over 250,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 39,000 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 12,000 contributors. ''CPAN'' can denote eith ...

where numerous extensions have been published. These include:
PAR::WebStart
a Perl implementation of

Java Web Start In computing, Java Web Start (also known as JavaWS, javaws or JAWS) is a deprecated framework developed by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) that allows users to start application software for the Java Platform directly from the Internet using a web ...

that allows users to start

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

directly from the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

using a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

.
PAR::Repository
a

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

for Perl applications and modules in PAR archives.
MasonX::Resolver::PAR
an extension to the Mason web application framework for loading components from PAR archives.
Apache::PAR
a Perl extension for including PAR files in a mod_perl (1.x or 2.x) environment.

External links

Perl Archiving Toolkit
Perl software {{soft-eng-stub