SAMS Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours THIRD EDITION

Table of contents

1. Copyright
2. About the Author
3. Acknowledgments
4. We Want to Hear from You!
5. Reader Services
6. Introduction
7. Perl Fundamentals
   1. Getting Started with Perl
      1. Installing Perl
      2. Documentation
      3. Your First Program
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   2. Perl's Building Blocks: Numbers and Strings
      1. Literals
      2. Scalar Variables
      3. Expressions and Operators
      4. More Operators
      5. Exercise: Interest Calculator
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
   3. Controlling the Program's Flow
      1. Blocks
      2. The if Statement
      3. Looping
      4. Other Flow Control Tools
      5. Exercise: Finding Primes
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
   4. Stacking Building Blocks: Lists and Arrays
      1. Putting Things into Lists and Arrays
      2. Getting Elements Out of an Array
      3. Manipulating Arrays
      4. Exercise: Playing a Little Game
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   5. Working with Files
      1. Opening Files
      2. Reading
      3. Writing
      4. Free Files, Testing Files, and Binary Data
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   6. Pattern Matching
      1. Simple Patterns
      2. The Metacharacters
      3. Substitution
      4. Exercise: Cleaning Up Input Data
      5. Pattern Matching Odds and Ends
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
   7. Hashes
      1. Filling Your Hash
      2. Getting Data Out of a Hash
      3. Lists and Hashes
      4. Hash Odds and Ends
      5. Useful Things to Do with a Hash
      6. Exercise: Creating a Simple Customer Database with Perl
      7. Summary
      8. Q&A
      9. Workshop
   8. Functions
      1. Creating and Calling Subroutines
      2. Scope
      3. Exercise: Statistics
      4. Function Footnotes
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
8. Advanced Features
   1. More Functions and Operators
      1. Searching Scalars
      2. Transliteration, Not Substitution
      3. A Better Way to print
      4. Exercise: A Formatted Report
      5. New Ways with Arrays
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
   2. Files and Directories
      1. Getting a Directory Listing
      2. Exercise: The Unix grep
      3. Directories
      4. Unix Stuff
      5. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About THAT File
      6. Exercise: Renaming Files En Masse
      7. Summary
      8. Q&A
      9. Workshop
   3. System Interaction
      1. The system() Function
      2. Capturing Output
      3. Pipes
      4. First Lesson in Portability
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   4. Using Perl's Command-Line Tools
      1. What Is the Debugger?
      2. Exercise: Finding the Bug
      3. Other Command-Line Stuff
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   5. References and Structures
      1. Reference Basics
      2. Recipes for Structures
      3. Exercise: Another Game, Maze
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   6. Using Modules
      1. A Gentle Introduction
      2. A Quick Tour
      3. Full List of Standard Modules
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   7. Finding Permanence
      1. DBM Files
      2. Exercise: A Free-Form Memo Pad
      3. Text Files as Databases
      4. Random File Access
      5. Locking
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
   8. The Perl Community
      1. What's Perl All About, Anyway?
      2. The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)
      3. Your Next Steps
      4. Other Resources
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
9. Applying Perl
   1. Writing Modules
      1. Building a Module
      2. Scoping Revisited
      3. Another statement: our
      4. Example: A Module to Handle Common File Information Requests
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   2. Object Primer
      1. Classes, Properties, and Methods
      2. Example: Implementation of Car in Perl
      3. Example: File Information Class
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   3. Data Processing
      1. How to Look at Data
      2. Dealing with Table Data
      3. XML Data
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   4. Perl as a Glue Language
      1. Weather Station
      2. Presenting Data as PDF
      3. Reading and Writing Excel Spreadsheets
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   5. Introduction to CGI
      1. Browsing the Web
      2. Don't Skip This Section
      3. Your First CGI Program
      4. What to Do When Your CGI Program Doesn't Work
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   6. Basic Forms
      1. How Forms Work
      2. Passing Information to Your CGI Program
      3. Web Security 101
      4. A Guestbook
      5. Summary
      6. Q&A
      7. Workshop
   7. Complex Forms
      1. The Stateless Web
      2. Hidden Fields
      3. A Multipage Survey
      4. Summary
      5. Q&A
      6. Workshop
   8. Manipulating HTTP and Cookies
      1. The HTTP Conversation
      2. More Details on Calling CGI Programs
      3. Cookies
      4. Long Term Cookies
      5. Problems with Cookies
      6. Summary
      7. Q&A
      8. Workshop
10. Appendixes
    1. Installing Modules
       1. Picking the Right Module
       2. Installing the Modules Under…
       3. What to Do When You're Not Allowed to Install Modules
11. Index