Beginning Perl

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: What is Perl?

Perl Today

Getting Perl

The Perl Community

Using perldoc

Using a Terminal Window

Creating Hello, World!

Summary

Chapter 2: Understanding the CPAN

CPAN and METACPAN

CPAN Clients

Summary

Chapter 3: Variables

What is Programming?

A Few Things to Note Before Getting Started

Scalars

Arrays

Hashes

Slices

Context

Scope

Strict, Warnings, and Diagnostics

Perl’s Built-in Variables

Summary

Chapter 4: Working With Data

Using Scalars

Array and List Functions

Built-in Hash Functions

Scoping Keywords

Summary

Chapter 5: Control Flow

Using the if Statement

for/foreach loops

Using while/until Loops

Statement Modifiers

given/when

Summary

Chapter 6: References

References 101

Working with References

Summary

Chapter 7: Subroutines

Subroutine Syntax

Returning Data

FAIL!

Subroutine References

Prototypes

Recursion

Things to Watch For

Summary

Chapter 8: Regular Expressions

Basic Matching

Advanced Matching

Common Regular Expression Issues

Summary

Chapter 9: Files and Directories

Basic File Handling

Directories

Unicode

Useful Modules

Summary

Chapter 10: Sort, Map, and Grep

Basic Sorting

map and grep

Putting It All Together

Summary

Chapter 11: Packages and Modules

Namespaces and Packages

Subroutines in Other Packages

BEGIN, UNITCHECK, CHECK, INIT, and END

Plain Old Documentation (POD)

Creating and Installing Modules

Summary

Chapter 12: Object Oriented Perl

What Are Objects? The Ævar the Personal Shopper

Three Rules of Perl OO

Objects – Another View

A Brief Recap

Gotchas