diff --git a/src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files b/src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e10466a390
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+
+# src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
+
+# shell function to find all perl files in the source tree
+
+find_perl_files () {
+    {
+		# take all .pl and .pm files
+		find . -type f -name '*.p[lm]' -print
+		# take executable files that file(1) thinks are perl files
+		find . -type f -perm -100 -exec file {} \; -print |
+		egrep -i ':.*perl[0-9]*\>' |
+		cut -d: -f1
+	} | sort -u
+}
diff --git a/src/tools/perlcheck/pgperlsyncheck b/src/tools/perlcheck/pgperlsyncheck
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..74f1584b8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/tools/perlcheck/pgperlsyncheck
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# script to detect compile time errors and warnings in all perl files
+
+INCLUDES="-I src/tools/msvc -I src/tools/msvc/dummylib -I src/backend/catalog"
+INCLUDES="-I src/test/perl -I src/backend/utils/mb/Unicode $INCLUDES"
+INCLUDES="-I src/bin/pg_rewind -I src/test/ssl $INCLUDES"
+
+set -e
+
+. src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
+
+# for zsh
+setopt shwordsplit 2>/dev/null || true
+
+find_perl_files | xargs -L 1 perl $INCLUDES -cw 2>&1 | grep -v OK
diff --git a/src/tools/pgindent/pgperltidy b/src/tools/pgindent/pgperltidy
index 5d9aa7c64c..5e704119eb 100755
--- a/src/tools/pgindent/pgperltidy
+++ b/src/tools/pgindent/pgperltidy
@@ -7,14 +7,6 @@ set -e
 # set this to override default perltidy program:
 PERLTIDY=${PERLTIDY:-perltidy}
 
-# locate all Perl files in the tree
-(
-	# take all .pl and .pm files
-	find . -type f -a \( -name '*.pl' -o -name '*.pm' \)
-	# take executable files that file(1) thinks are perl files
-	find . -type f -perm -100 -exec file {} \; |
-	egrep -i ':.*perl[0-9]*\>' |
-	cut -d: -f1
-) |
-sort -u |
-xargs $PERLTIDY --profile=src/tools/pgindent/perltidyrc
+. src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
+
+find_perl_files | xargs $PERLTIDY --profile=src/tools/pgindent/perltidyrc
diff --git a/src/tools/pgperlcritic/pgperlcritic b/src/tools/pgperlcritic/pgperlcritic
index 28264b1a24..5e7edbf99f 100755
--- a/src/tools/pgperlcritic/pgperlcritic
+++ b/src/tools/pgperlcritic/pgperlcritic
@@ -12,17 +12,9 @@ set -e
 # set this to override default perlcritic program:
 PERLCRITIC=${PERLCRITIC:-perlcritic}
 
-# locate all Perl files in the tree
-{
-	# take all .pl and .pm files
-	find . -type f -name '*.p[lm]' -print
-	# take executable files that file(1) thinks are perl files
-	find . -type f -perm -100 -exec file {} \; -print |
-	egrep -i ':.*perl[0-9]*\>' |
-	cut -d: -f1
-} |
-sort -u |
-xargs $PERLCRITIC \
+. src/tools/perlcheck/find_perl_files
+
+find_perl_files | xargs $PERLCRITIC \
 	  --quiet \
 	  --program-extensions .pl \
 	  --profile=src/tools/pgperlcritic/perlcriticrc