A (relatively) easy-to-extend pre-commit hook for linting multiple languages in git.

pre-commit.pl

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use warnings;
use strict;

my ($fail) = 0;
my ($linters) = {
    php  => [qr/\.(php|inc)$/i, 'php -l',   '%s --'],
    perl => [qr/\.(pl|pm|t)$/i, 'perl -cw', '%s'],
};

foreach my $file (split("\n", `git diff --cached --name-only`)) {
    foreach my $lang (keys %$linters) {
        my ($pat, $linter, $linter_command) = @{ $linters->{$lang} };

        if ($file =~ $pat) {
            $linter_command = sprintf($linter_command, $linter);

            `git show :$file | $linter_command 2>&1 1>/dev/null`;
            if ($?) {
                print "Syntax error in $file, check with: $linter $file\n";
                $fail = 1;
            }
        }
    }
}

print "Refusing to commit\n" if $fail;
exit($fail);