Perl ("Practical Extraction and Report Language" - although the acronym was devised long
after the name was chosen) is a programming language devised by Larry Wall and first released in
1987. Although a
general purpose programming language, Perl has become most popular for string/text
manipulation, for server-side web applications (often implemented using a web server's the CGI interface),
and system administration tasks.
The Perl language itself is distributed under both the
GPL and the
Artistic license, although
programs and libraries written in Perl are distributed under a wide variety of different licenses.
Product Description: Learning Perl, popularly known as "the Llama," is the book most programmers rely on to get started with Perl. The bestselling Perl tutorial since it was first published in 1993, this new fifth edition covers recent changes to the language up to Perl 5.10. This book reflects the combined experience of its authors, who have taught Perl at Stonehenge Consulting since 1991. Years of classroom testing and experience helped shape the book's pace and scope, and this edition is packed with exercises that let you practice the concepts while you follow the text. Topics include: Perl data & variable types Subroutines File operations Regular expressions String manipulation Lists & sorting Process management Smart matching Using third party modules Perl is the language for people who want to get work done. Originally targeted to sysadmins for heavy-duty text processing, Perl is now a full-featured programming language suitable for almost any task on almost any platform-from short fixes on the command line to web applications, bioinformatics, finance, and much more. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer.
Product Description: Perl is a powerful programming language that has grown in popularity since it first appeared in 1988. The first edition of this book, "Programming Perl," hit the shelves in 1990, and was quickly adopted as the undisputed bible of the language. Since then, Perl has grown with the times, and so has this book.
"Programming Perl" is not just a book about Perl. It is also a unique introduction to the language and its culture, as one might expect only from its authors. Larry Wall is the inventor of Perl, and provides a unique perspective on the evolution of Perl and its future direction. Tom Christiansen was one of the first champions of the language, and lives and breathes the complexities of Perl internals as few other mortals do. Jon Orwant is the editor of
"The Perl Journal," which has brought together the Perl community as a common forum for new developments in Perl.
Any Perl book can show the syntax of Perl's functions, but only this one is a comprehensive guide to all the nooks and crannies of the language. Any Perl book can explain typeglobs, pseudohashes, and closures, but only this one shows how they really work. Any Perl book can say that "my" is faster than "local," but only this one explains why. Any Perl book can have a title, but only this book is affectionately known by all Perl programmers as "The Camel."
This third edition of "Programming Perl" has been expanded to cover version 5.6 of this maturing language. New topics include threading, the compiler, Unicode, and other new features that have been added since the previous edition.
Product Description: Find a Perl programmer, and you'll find a copy of "Perl Cookbook" nearby. "Perl Cookbook" is a comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for anyone programming in Perl. The book contains hundreds of rigorously reviewed Perl "recipes" and thousands of examples ranging from brief one-liners to complete applications.
The second edition of "Perl Cookbook" has been fully updated for Perl 5.8, with extensive changes for Unicode support, I/O layers, mod_perl, and new technologies that have emerged since the previous edition of the book. Recipes have been updated to include the latest modules. New recipes have been added to every chapter of the book, and some chapters have almost doubled in size.
Covered topic areas include:
Manipulating strings, numbers, dates, arrays, and hashes
Pattern matching and text substitutions
References, data structures, objects, and classes
Signals and exceptions
Screen addressing, menus, and graphical applications
Managing other processes
Writing secure scripts
Client-server programming
Internet applications programming with mail, news, ftp, and telnet
CGI and mod_perl programming
Web programming
Since its first release in 1998, "Perl Cookbook" has earned its place in the libraries of serious Perl users of all levels of expertise by providing practical answers, code examples, and mini-tutorials addressing the challenges that programmers face. Now the second edition of this bestselling book is ready to earn its place among the ranks of favorite Perl books as well.
Whether you're a novice or veteran Perl programmer, you'll find "Perl Cookbook," 2nd Edition to be one of the most usefulbooks on Perl available. Its comfortable discussion style and accurate attention to detail cover just about any topic you'd want to know about. You can get by without having this book in your library, but once you've tried a few of the recipes, you won't want to.
Beginning Perl, Second Edition is a well-named text that starts exactly where it claims This book is a fine place to start.
— James Edward Gray II, Slashdot contributor
...there are great examples, and projects assigned after each chapter to help you really understand and remember how to code in Perl.
— Mark Spritzler, JavaRanch Bartender
This book is a well-conceived introduction to Perl in tutorial form... A Very Good Book. :) :) :) :) of 5.
— George Woolley of Oakland Perl Mongers
The Perl (this book) teaches is strong industry-standard Perl that is considered best practice.
— Jack Herrington, Editor, Code Generation Network
Originally created as a powerful text processing tool, Perl has since evolved into a multi-purpose, multi-platform language capable of implementing a variety of tasks such as system administration, CGI and network programming, XML processing, and more. Beginning Perl, Second Edition provides valuable insight into Perls role regarding all of these tasks and more.
Commencing with a comprehensive overview of language basics, you'll learn all about important concepts such as Perl's data types and control flow constructs. This material sets the stage for a discussion of more complex topics, such as writing custom functions, using regular expressions, and file input and output. Next, we move on to the advanced topics of object oriented programming, modules, CGI programming, and database administration with Perls powerful database interface module, DBI. The examples and code provided offer you all of the information you need to start writing your own powerful scripts to solve the problems listed above, and many more.
Whether you are a complete novice or an experienced programmer, Beginning Perl, Second Edition offers an ideal guide to learning Perl.
Product Description: Long a secret weapon of the hedge-fund elite, the DeMark indicators are now used by more than 35,000 traders. This book provides an easy-to-follow system for using the indicators to identify market turns as they happen. Author Jason Perl gives a concise introduction to thirty-nine of the indicators, and then shows how to combine the indicators and time frames to achieve a higher probabilty of trading success. Thomas R. DeMark, the creator of the DeMark indicators and one of the most well-respected practitioners of technical analysis, wrote the foreword to this book.
Product Description: Perl is a versatile, powerful programming language used in a variety of disciplines, ranging from system administration to web programming to database manipulation. One slogan of Perl is that it makes easy things easy and hard things possible. "Intermediate Perl" is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones.
Originally released in 2003 as "Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules" and revised and updated for Perl 5.8, this book offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl. Written by the authors of the best-selling "Learning Perl," it picks up where that book left off. Topics include:
Packages and namespaces
References and scoping
Manipulating complex data structures
Object-oriented programming
Writing and using modules
Testing Perl code
Contributing to CPAN
Following the successful format of "Learning Perl," we designed each chapter in the book to be small enough to be read in just an hour or two, ending with a series of exercises to help you practice what you've learned. To use the book, you just need to be familiar with the material in "Learning Perl" and have ambition to go further.
Perl is a different language to different people. It is a quick scripting tool for some, and a fully-featured object-oriented language for others. It is used for everything from performing quick global replacements on text files, to crunching huge, complex sets of scientific data that take weeks to process. Perl is what you make of it. But regardless of what you use Perl for, this book helps you do it more effectively, efficiently, and elegantly.
"Intermediate Perl" is about learning to use Perl as aprogramming language, and not just a scripting language. This is the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer.
Product Description: The Perl Pocket Reference is an invaluable reference for those who find themselves frequently searching for a quick answer to a question or reminder of a syntax rule. This handy, well-organized quick reference condenses stacks of Perl documentation down to the most essential at-your-fingertips facts. For ease-of-use, convenience, and price, this little reference is the first place Perl programmers look when they need an answer quickly. The Perl Pocket Referenc provides a complete overview of the Perl programming language, all packed into a convenient, carry-around booklet. It is updated for Perl 5.8, and covers a summary of Perl syntax rules, a complete list of operators, built-in functions, and standard library modules, all with brief descriptions. Also included are the newest Perl features, such as enhanced regular expressions, multithreading, the Perl compiler, and Unicode support. The Perl Pocket Reference, 4th Edition, is the perfect companion to the authoritative books on Perl published by O'Reilly & Associates: Programming Perl, Learning Perl, and the Perl Cookbook. This pocket reference will never make it to the bookshelf--dog-eared and well worn, it will remain within arms reach of the keyboard or tucked in a back pocket, where it will be referred to on a daily basis.
Product Description: Many programmers code by instinct, relying on convenient habits or a "style" they picked up early on. They aren't conscious of all the choices they make, like how they format their source, the names they use for variables, or the kinds of loops they use. They're focused entirely on problems they're solving, solutions they're creating, and algorithms they're implementing. So they write code in the way that seems natural, that happens intuitively, and that feels good.
But if you're serious about your profession, intuition isn't enough. Perl Best Practices author Damian Conway explains that rules, conventions, standards, and practices not only help programmers communicate and coordinate with one another, they also provide a reliable framework for thinking about problems, and a common language for expressing solutions. This is especially critical in Perl, because the language is designed to offer many ways to accomplish the same task, and consequently it supports many incompatible dialects.
With a good dose of Aussie humor, Dr. Conway (familiar to many in the Perl community) offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.
They're designed to work together to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise, but Dr. Conway doesn't pretend that this is the one true universal and unequivocal set of best practices. Instead, Perl Best Practices offers coherent and widely applicable suggestions based on real-world experience of how code is actually written, rather than on someone's ivory-tower theories on how software ought to be created.
Most of all, Perl Best Practices offers guidelines that actually work, and that many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the way.
Praise for Perl Best Practices from Perl community members:
"As a manager of a large Perl project, I'd ensure that every member of my team has a copy of Perl Best Practices on their desk, and use it as the basis for an in-house style guide." -- Randal Schwartz
"There are no more excuses for writing bad Perl programs. All levels of Perl programmer will be more productive after reading this book." -- Peter Scott
"Perl Best Practices will be the next big important book in the evolution of Perl. The ideas and practices Damian lays down will help bring Perl out from under the embarrassing heading of "scripting languages". Many of us have known Perl is a real programming language, worthy of all the tasks normally delegated to Java and C++. With Perl Best Practices, Damian shows specifically how and why, so everyone else can see, too." -- Andy Lester
"Damian's done what many thought impossible: show how to build large, maintainable Perl applications, while still letting Perl be the powerful, expressive language that programmers have loved for years." -- Bill Odom
"Finally, a means to bring lasting order to the process and product of real Perl development teams." -- Andrew Sundstrom
"Perl Best Practices provides a valuable education in how to write robust, maintainable Perl, and is a definitive citation source when coaching other programmers." -- Bennett Todd "I've been teaching Perl for years, and find the same question keeps being asked: Where can I find a reference for writing reusable, maintainable Perl code? Finally I have a decent answer." -- Paul Fenwick "At last a well researched, well thought-out, comprehensive guide to Perl style. Instead of each of us developing our own, we can learn good practices from one of Perl's most prolific and experienced authors. I recommend this book to anyone who prefers getting on with the job rather than going back and fixing errors caused by syntax and poor style issues." -- Jacinta Richardson "If you care about programming in any language read this book. Even if you don't intend to follow all of the practices, thinking through your style will improve it." -- Steven Lembark "The Perl community's best author is back with another outstanding book. There has never been a comprehensive reference on high quality Perl coding and style until Perl Best Practices. This book fills a large gap in every Perl bookshelf." -- Uri Guttman
Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days covers the basics of Perl in the first few chapters, and then moves on to practical issues of Perl and in-depth discussions of more advanced topics. Later chapters also delve into software engineering topics, with discussions of modular code and object-oriented programming. CGI is covered in one chapter, but it is not the focus on the book. The book relies heavily on longer working examples and code, as opposed to small snippets and code fragments, and each chapter includes two to three smaller complete examples and one major one that illustrates most of the concepts for that chapter and builds on the chapters before it. Written by Laura Lemay, this is her third major book after Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in 21 Days and Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days.
Product Description: In the days before personal computers, BASIC was the easy programming language to learn, and serious programmers learned FORTRAN or COBOL to do “real work.” Today, many people have discovered that Perl is both a great beginning programming language and one that enables them to write powerful programs with little effort.
If you’re interested in discovering how to program (or how others program), Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, is for you. If you already know something about programming (but not about Perl), this book is also for you. If you’re already an expert programmer, you’re still welcome to read this book; you can just skip the basic stuff (you never know what kind of new tips and tricks you’ll pick up).
This reference guide shows you how to use Perl under many different operating systems, such as UNIX, many flavors of Windows (Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP), and Macintosh OS 9 and OS X; in fact, Perl runs on many more operating systems than these.
Here's a sampling of what Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, has to offer:
Installing Perl on various platforms
Nailing down the basics of building Perl programs
Working with text and numbers
Constructing lists and working with them
Creating conditionals and loops
Delving into more advanced features such as operators and functions
Reading and writing files and directories
Using subroutines for modularity
Demystifying Web server programs
Creating your own Internet clients
The Perl programming language enables you to write fully working computer programs with just a few steps. It’s particularly good at common programming tasks, such as reading and writing text files, but it also excels at reducing the work that programmers have to do. Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, shows you how to do all of that and how to modify programs to your heart’s content. After all, one of the common phrases in the world of Perl programmers is, “There's more than one way to do it.”
News stories are provided by third parties, used with permission,
and copyright of their various respective owners.
Answers 2000 Limited has not necessarily reviewed,
and does not necessarily endorse or
agree with any content of, or views expressed in, all such items.
Answers 2000 Limited has not
necessarily reviewed,
and does not necessarily endorse or
agree with any content of, or views expressed in, comments posted by users.
