Perl Archive Toolkit is a cross-platform packaging and deployment tool for computer applications

Application software

Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 and libraries written in the Perl programming language. Its name is inspired by Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

's JAR (file format)

JAR (file format)

In software, JAR is an archive file format typically used to aggregate many Java class files and associated metadata and resources into one file to distribute application software or libraries on the Java platform.JAR files are built on the ZIP file format and have the .jar file extension...

 technology. It was originally developed by Audrey Tang

Audrey Tang

Audrey Tang is a Taiwanese free software programmer, who has been described as one of the "ten greats of Taiwanese computing."-Biography:...

 and is now maintained via the PAR development mailing list with help from numerous contributorshttp://search.cpan.org/dist/PAR/AUTHORS.

Apart from creating, manipulating, loading, and installing binary PAR archives, the PAR module can be used to create standalone executables from complex applications using its PAR::Packer extension. Like many other Perl modules, PAR is primarily distributed via the CPAN

CPAN

CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, is an archive of nearly 100,000 modules of software written in Perl, as well as documentation for it. It has a presence on the World Wide Web at and is mirrored worldwide at more than 200 locations...

 where numerous extensions have been published. These include:

• PAR::WebStart, a Perl implementation of Java Web Start
  Java Web Start
  In computing, Java Web Start is a framework developed by Sun Microsystems that allows users to start application software for the Java Platform directly from the Internet using a web browser....
  
   that allows users to start application software
  Application software
  Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
  
   directly from the Internet
  Internet
  The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
  
   using a web browser
  Web browser
  A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
  
  .
• PAR::Repository, a package management system
  Package management system
  In software, a package management system, also called package manager, is a collection of software tools to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner...
  
   for Perl applications and modules in PAR archives.
• MasonX::Resolver::PAR, an extension to the Mason
  Mason (Perl)
  HTML::Mason, or Mason for short, is a web application framework written in Perl. It is distributed on CPAN.Its features make it a suitable backend for high load sites serving dynamic content, such as online newspapers or database driven e-commerce sites. The author claims that several popular web...
  
  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.