CHAPTER 1Introducing Perl
In this introductory chapter, we cover the background of Perl and what makes it a popular programming language. We also look at installing a standard Perl distribution, as well as building it from source. For those who already have Perl installed, these sections can be skipped, though if we want to use optional features like threading, it may still be advantageous to build Perl from a source distribution, a process which is less daunting than it might at first seem.
Once Perl is installed, we look at how to run Perl scripts, and what needs to be done to get the operating system to recognize Perl scripts. We spend some time with the Perl command line and special environment variables, and see how Perl can be used as ...
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