Appendix C. Using Perl Scripts
This appendix contains four sections:
A Perl/CGI Overview
Getting Perl
The Shopping Bag Script—bag.pl
The CyberGreeting Script—greet.pl
The first section contains a little background on Perl and mentions some of its advantages. The next section tells you where to download Perl, giving you several choices depending on your operating system. The last two sections explain how the Perl scripts in Chapter 8, and Chapter 10, work.
A Perl/CGI Overview
The acronym stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language. It was originally designed for text and file manipulation, but also does well for managing system tasks and creating dynamic content for the Web. Perl has its roots in programming languages, such as C, sed, awk, and sh.
What’s So Good About Perl?
Perl is popular for a number of reasons. As far as languages go, Perl is pretty easy to learn. It is extremely powerful. It is used in just about every kind of programming scenario imaginable. Here are some of the many ways Perl is used:
For dynamic web page content
In CGI scripts for countless web apps
To access databases
For building search engines and web robots
For password protection and other encryption
For system administration, site logging, and scheduled tasks
For networking tasks and other scripting
For chat servers and message boards
Perl is quickly finding its way into many other arenas. You can use Perl:
To extend Java, C, VisualBasic, Delphi, and other code
In XML (Extensible Markup Language) applications ...