How can I hide Perl code?

I've written some Perl programs and am planning on distributing them. They're part of a large binary distribution (mostly compiled C/C++). If possible, I'd prefer to give up as little as possible (I'm responsible for delivering working software, not delivering clever algorithms). What is my best bet for hiding the Perl code so that if someone really wants to see the source, they'd have to put 开发者_如何学Goa bit more effort than in than simply opening the file in an editor?

You could encrypt your code and then at run time decrypt it and send it to perl stdin. (of course the decryptor would not be encrypted).

I got some minify/compile answers to my question How can I compile my Perl script so to reduce startup time?

Acme::Bleach

Filter::Crypto (potentially via PAR::Filter::Crypto) is clearly the most advanced open source tool for this job (barring perlcc which doesn't work well for many things, YMMV).

If all you want is hide the code from casual tinkerers, that's more than sufficient. Hiding it from determined and/or capable people is practically impossible.

It won't make it harder to just open the files but an obfuscator can make it more difficult to understand and modify your code. Have a look here or here for a start.