You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl blead. This is the main development branch of Perl. (git commit 815d0d1337a0f328fa38b1a08c31a0c1a8253a1b)
$EFFECTIVE_USER_ID
$EUID
$>

The effective uid of this process. For example:

$< = $>;            # set real to effective uid
($<,$>) = ($>,$<);  # swap real and effective uids

You can change both the effective uid and the real uid at the same time by using POSIX::setuid(). Changes to $> require a check to $! to detect any possible errors after an attempted change.

$< and $> can be swapped only on machines supporting setreuid().

Mnemonic: it's the uid you went to, if you're running setuid.