Open Source Web Development with LAMP: Using Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, and PHP

4.3. Perl Syntax Rules

First, the basic Perl syntax rules. Hang in there; although there are a plethora of hello, world’s here, the somewhat unnerving friendliness and patience engendered by repeating this mantra will serve you well later when things get more involved.

4.3.1. A First Perl Program—hello, world

As always, the best way to learn is by doing. For example, here is the ever popular print hello, world program:

#! /usr/bin/perl -w 
# file: hello.pl 

print "hello, world!\n"; 

The first line is a shell directive (also known as the hash/bang or shebang). This line informs the shell that this script uses /usr/bin/perl. Your distribution might have it in a different place, /usr/local/bin/perl, for example. ^[3] The -w switch causes Perl to ...