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Perl is many different things to many different people. The most
fundamental aspect of Perl is that it's a high-level programming
language written originally by Larry Wall and now supported and
developed by a cast of thousands. The Perl language semantics are
largely based on the C programming language, inheriting many of the
best features of sed, awk, the Unix shell, and at least a dozen other
tools and languages.
Although it is a bad idea to pigeonhole any language and attribute it
to a specific list of tasks, Perl is particularly strong at process,
file, and text manipulation. This makes it especially useful for
system utilities, software tools, systems management tasks, database
access, graphical programming, networking, and world web
programming. These strengths make it particularly attractive to CGI
script authors, systems administrators, mathematicians, journalists,
and just about anybody who needs to write applications and utilities
very quickly.
Perl has its roots firmly planted in the Unix environment, but it has
since become a cross-platform development tool. Perl runs on IBM
mainframes; AS/400s; Windows NT, 95, and 98; OS/2; Novell Netware;
Cray supercomputers; Digital's VMS; Tandem Guardian; HP MPE/ix; MacOS;
and all flavors of Unix, including Linux. In addition, Perl has been
ported to dozens of smaller operating systems, including BeOS, Acorn's
RISCOS, and even machines such as the Amiga.
Perl Programmers Reference is designed to sit on your desktop and
provide you with quick access to information on the core elements of
the Perl language. It consists of a number of sections that provide a
concise description of the Perl language up to and including
v5.005. Perl Programmer's Reference is designed as a quick tool, not a
complete guide, and as such you will need to know Perl, or have access
to another Perl book to make use of the information supplied in this
manual.
In this book you'll find the following information:
Part 1, Perl Fundamentals includes data structures, references, control structures, built-in operators and variables, regular expressions, and information on the Perl format system.
Part 2, Function Reference incorporates details on all the built in functions that come with Perl.
Part 3, Standard Perl Library includes detailed information on all the modules supplied as standard with the Perl 5 distribution.
Part 4, Sample Scripts contains scripts that will work right off the page that do everything from processing text, through to a simple web server, and even a system foron to scripts for downloading and uploading entire websites.
Part 5, Execution Environment details how to use Perl on the command line, and how its behavior can be controlled from the environment.
Part 6, Compiler and Debugger incorporates information on how best to use the Perl compiler for producing stand-alone Perl applications, and the Perl debugger for tracing and resolving errors.
Appendix, Resource Reference covers websites, mailing lists, and books that should help you in your Perl development process.
If you want more detailed and in depth information on Perl, then you might to consider the sister publications, Perl: The Complete Reference and Perl Annotated Archives. The former gets into every corner of Perl and describes it in detail, whilst the latter gives further in-depth and annotated examples of real-world Perl scripts.
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