Using zef

Please note that this section describes a tool that is specific to the Rakudo Star distribution. At the time of writing, Rakudo is the only production-ready Perl 6 compiler available on the market. If you happen to use other compilers, please check their documentation on how to install modules.

The Rakudo Star distribution comes with a handy module management tool called zef. Notice that it has been part of the distribution since Rakudo Star version 2017.01. Earlier releases include another tool, panda, which has now become obsolete.

zef is a command-line tool written in Perl 6. After installing Rakudo Star, its executable file will be in the Rakudo/share/perl6/site/bin directory. The Rakudo installer also fixes the PATH environment variable so that it contains a correct path to the directories with executable files of the distribution.

This tool uses the ecosystem of Perl 6 modules, which is still under active development. To learn more about it, visit the modules.perl6.org page...