Perl For Dummies

by Paul Hoffman

Overview

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."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764537509
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	03/21/2003
Series:	For Dummies Books
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Paul Hoffman has written and contributed to numerous Internet standards. He's a 20-year Internet veteran and the author of more than a dozen computer books.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting Started with Perl 5

Chapter 1: Perl’s Place in the Programming World 7

Chapter 2: Running Perl on Your Computer 17

Chapter 3: Diving into the Guts of Perl 35

Chapter 4: A Perl Program Tour, Times Two 51

Part II: The Basic Perl Programming Ingredients 69

Chapter 5: Terrific Text 71

Chapter 6: Nifty Numbers 91

Chapter 7: Learning to Love Lists and Hashes 103

Chapter 8: Creating Cool Conditionals and Lovely Loops 133

Chapter 9: Doing Advanced Stuff with Operators and Functions 151

Part III: The Nuts and Bolts of Perl 169

Chapter 10: The Files Go In, The Files Go Out 171

Chapter 11: Beyond File and Directory Basics 189

Chapter 12: Stringing Along: Pattern Matching and Regular Expressions 201

Chapter 13: Looking Like a Pro: Subroutines, Imported Code, and Graceful Exits 223

Part IV: Advanced Perl Demystified 239

Chapter 14: Perl and CGI: Web Server Programs Demystified 241

Chapter 15: Perl Gets Cozy with the Web, E-Mail, and the Rest of the Internet 263

Chapter 16: Using Perl as a Gateway to XML and Web Services 277

Chapter 17: Dancing with Databases 295

Chapter 18: Controlling Your Computer from Perl 299

Chapter 19: Object-Oriented Perl 305

Part V: The Part of Tens 315

Chapter 20: Ten Guidelines for Programming with Style 317

Chapter 21: Ten Really Short, Really Useful Perl Programs 325

Part VI: Appendix 331

Appendix: The Great Perl Reference 333

Index 361