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.”

The sixth edition of this bestselling Perl tutorial includes recent changes to the language. Years of classroom testing and experience helped shape the book's pace and scope, and this edition is packed with exercises that let readers practice the concepts while they follow the text.

These are the best and most timeless articles printed in "The Perl Journal." Topics include networking, software development, coding style, internals, and others.

Everything beginners need to start programming with Perl Perl is the ever-popular, flexible, open source programming language that has been called the programmers’ Swiss army knife. This book introduces Perl to both new programmers and experienced ones who are looking to learn a new language. In the tradition of the popular Wrox Beginning guides, it presents step-by-step guidance in getting started, a host of try-it-out exercises, real-world examples, and everything necessary for a Perl novice to start programming with confidence. Introduces Perl to both new programmers and experienced ones who want to learn a new language Provides a host of real-world applications for today's environments so readers can get started immediately Covers the new features of Perl but fully applicable to previous editions Beginning Perl provides the information and instruction you need to confidently get started with Perl. For Instructors: Classroom and training support material are available for this book.

One of the first books to focus solely on the benefits of using "XML and Per"l together, this is full of practical, real-world examples readers can really use--ranging from fundamental to advanced. "XML and Per"l is a hands-on approach to the benefits of using Perl for all XML projects.

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 useful books 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.

Covers Perl 5.6 from the basic syntax to advanced Internet programming.