Is there a Perl shell?

    
   Not really.  Perl is a programming language, not a command
   interpreter.  There is a very simple one called "perlsh"
   included in the Perl source distribution.  It just does this:

        $/ = '';        # set paragraph mode
        $SHlinesep = "\n";
        while ($SHcmd = <>) {
            $/ = $SHlinesep;
            eval $SHcmd; print $@ || "\n";
            $SHlinesep = $/; $/ = '';
        }

   Not very interesting, eh?  

   Daniel Smith <dansmith@autodesk.com> is working on an interactive Perl
   shell called SoftList.  It's currently at version 3.0beta.  SoftList
   3.0 has tcsh-like command line editing, can let you define a file of
   aliases so that you can run chunks of perl or UNIX commands, and so
   on.  You can send mail to him for further information and availability.