Take a look at PPI - Parse, Analyze and Manipulate Perl (without perl) module: https://metacpan.org/pod/PPI https://metacpan.org/pod/PPI Infact it says: "only

Take a look at PPI - Parse, Analyze and Manipulate Perl (without perl) module: https://metacpan.org/pod/PPI https://metacpan.org/pod/PPI Infact it says: "only Perl can parse Perl". On the other hand JavaScript has esprima that is written in JavaScript, and also other languages like Python can parse themselfs. As a Perl programmer, I don't know if it is a pro or a cons. For example Perl::Critic cannot parse some costructs, cause they are too complicated. What I usually do, as in many other contexts, I try to understand what is the subset of features I need to use.