Learning Perl, Second Edition

In this update of a bestseller, two leading Perl trainers teach you to use the most universal scripting language in the age of the World Wide Web. With a foreword by Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, this smooth, carefully paced book is the "official" guide for both formal (classroom) and informal learning. It is now current for Perl version 5.004. Learning Perl is a hands-on tutorial designed to get you writing useful Perl scripts as quickly as possible. Exercises (with complete solutions) accompany each chapter. A lengthy new chapter in this edition introduces you to CGI programming, while touching also on the use of library modules, references, and Perl's object-oriented constructs. Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files, and processes. It comes standard on most UNIX platforms and is available free of charge on all other important operating systems. Perl technical support is informally available -- often within minutes -- from a pool of experts who monitor a USENET newsgroup (comp.lang.perl.misc) with tens of thousands of readers. Contents include: A quick tutorial stroll through Perl basics Systematic, topic-by-topic coverage of Perl's broad capabilities Lots of brief code examples Programming exercises for each topic, with fully worked-out answers How to execute system commands from your Perl program How to manage DBM databases using Perl An introduction to CGI programming for the Web If you're just getting started with Perl, this is the book you want—whether you're a programmer, system administrator, or web hacker. Nicknamed "the Llama" by two generations of users, this bestseller closely follows the popular introductory Perl course taught by the authors since 1991. This 6th edition covers recent changes to the language up to version 5.14. Perl is suitable for almost any task on almost any platform, from short fixes to complete web applications. Learning Perl teaches you the basics and shows you how to write programs up to 128 lines long—roughly the size of 90% of the Perl programs in use today. Each chapter includes exercises to help you practice what you've just learned. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer. Topics include: Perl data and variable types Subroutines File operations Regular expressions String manipulation (including Unicode) Lists and sorting Process management Smart matching Use of third party modules Printing History November 1993 First Edition. April 1994 Minor corrections. August 1994 Minor corrections. July 1997 Second Edition. July 2001 Third Edition. July 2005 Fourth Edition. Introduction -- Scalar Data -- Arrays And List Data -- Control Structures -- Hashes -- Basic I/o -- Regular Expressions -- Functions -- Miscellaneous Control Structures -- Filehandles And File Tests -- Formats -- Directory Access -- File And Directory Manipulation -- Process Management -- Other Data Transformation -- System Database Access -- User Database Manipulation -- Converting Other Languages To Perl -- Cgi Programming. Randal L. Schwartz And Tom Christiansen. Unix Programming--cover. Includes Index. This topic-by-topic guide covers Perl's capabilities, including how to manage DBM databases, executing commands, and introduces CGI programming for the Web.