Beginning Perl Programming

Get started with Perl 5 and learn the important core concepts of Perl programming, such as variables, flow control, expressions, and I/O. Additionally, this book covers pattern matching and shows that Perl is extremely flexible and powerful, and that it isn’t afraid of the cloud. After reading and using this book, you’ll be able to start writing your own powerful scripts to solve many web and programming problems.

This is a book for those of us who believed that we didn’t need to learn Perl, and now we know it is more ubiquitous than ever. You’ll see that Perl has evolved into a multipurpose, multiplatform language present absolutely everywhere: heavy-duty web applications, the cloud, systems administration, natural language processing, and financial engineering. This book provides valuable insight into Perl’s role regarding all of these tasks and more giving you a great start in your Perl programming adventure.

What You Will Learn

• Perform operations on scalar values
• Use scalar, array, and associative array variables
• Work with flow control statements such as if, unless, while, until, for, and foreach
• Read and write directly to files with file handles
• Use conditional expressions such as numeric and string comparison, regular expressions, file testing, and Perl statements
• Format output with format statements
• Search for and replace sub-strings within a string using regular expressions
• Master Perl utilities such as split, join, index and more
• Control the file system and processes from within a Perl script
• Build functions for tasks including handling the scope of variables
• Import existing modules into your Perl script

Who This Book Is For

Those who are new to Perl.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Origin of Perl

Chapter 2: Scalar Variables

Chapter 3: Array Variables

Chapter 4: Associative Array Variables

Chapter 5: Flow Control

Chapter 6: Conditional Expressions

Chapter 7: Basic Input and Output

Chapter 8: Advanced Input and Output

Chapter 9: Pattern Matching

Chapter 10: Perl Utilities

Chapter 11: Filesystem and Process Control

Chapter 12: Functions

Chapter 13: Using Modules

Chapter 14: Debugging Perl

About the Author

At the impressionable age of 14, William “Bo” Rothwell crossed paths with a TRS-80 Micro Computer System (affectionately known as a “Trash 80”). Soon after the adults responsible for Bo made the mistake of leaving him alone with the TSR-80. He immediately dismantled it and held his first computer class, showing his friends what made this “computer thing” work. Since this experience, Bo’s passion for understanding how computers work and sharing this knowledge with others has resulting in a rewarding career in IT training. His experience includes Linux, Unix, DevOps tools, and programming languages such as Perl, Python, Tcl, and BASH.