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Asked: 2026-05-15T18:29:40+00:00

I’d like to know what ENDOFTEXT means in this Perl script: print <<ENDOFTEXT; HTTP/1.0

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I’d like to know what ENDOFTEXT means in this Perl script:

print <<ENDOFTEXT;
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Hello World!</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<H4>Hello World!</H4>
<P>You have reached <a href="$url">$url</a></P>
<P>Your IP Address is $ip</P>
<H5>Have a nice day!</H5>
</BODY>
</HTML>
ENDOFTEXT
exit(0);
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It is an operator, called a heredoc or here-document. Amusingly enough the reference in perldoc is not as easy to find as it should be. It is useful for being able to quote a large section of text without having to bother with escaping special variables.

    You can read the Here document article on wikipedia as well. The entry you are looking for is <<EOF under Quote-and-Quote-like-Operators from perldoc. I’m citing it here for ease of use:

    A line-oriented form of quoting is
    based on the shell "here-document"
    syntax. Following a << you specify a
    string to terminate the quoted
    material, and all lines following the
    current line down to the terminating
    string are the value of the item. The
    terminating string may be either an
    identifier (a word), or some quoted
    text. An unquoted identifier works
    like double quotes. There may not be a
    space between the << and the
    identifier, unless the identifier is
    explicitly quoted. (If you put a space
    it will be treated as a null
    identifier, which is valid, and
    matches the first empty line.)

    The
    terminating string must appear by
    itself (unquoted and with no
    surrounding whitespace) on the
    terminating line.

    If the terminating
    string is quoted, the type of quotes
    used determine the treatment of the
    text.

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