Learning Perl : Making Easy Things Easy and

Learning Perl is the quintessential tutorial for the Perl programming language. The third edition has not only been updated to Perl Version 5.6, but has also been rewritten from the ground up to reflect the needs of programmers learning Perl today. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer.

Tom Phoenix has been working in the field of education since 1982. After more than thirteen years of dissections, explosions, work with interesting animals, and high-voltage sparks during his work at a science museum, he started teaching Perl classes for Stonehenge Consulting Services, where he's worked since 1996. Since then, he has traveled to many interesting locations, so you might see him soon at a Perl Mongers' meeting. When he has time, he answers questions on Usenet's comp.lang.perl.misc and comp.lang.perl.moderated newsgroups, and contributes to the development and usefulness of Perl. Besides his work with Perl, Perl hackers, and related topics, Tom spends his time on amateur cryptography and speaking Esperanto. His home is in Portland, Oregon.

Preface

xi

Introduction

1

(18)

Questions and Answers

1

(3)

What Does ``Perl'' Stand For?

4

(4)

How Can I Get Perl?

8

(4)

How Do I Make a Perl Program?

12

(5)

A Whirlwind Tour of Perl

17

(2)

Exercises

18

(1)

Scalar Data

19

(21)

What Is Scalar Data?

19

(1)

Numbers

19

(3)

Strings

22

(4)

Perl's Built-in Warnings

26

(1)

Scalar Variables

27

(2)

Output with print

29

(5)

The if Control Structure

34

(1)

Getting User Input

35

(1)

The chomp Operator

36

(1)

The while Control Structure

37

(1)

The undef Value

37

(1)

The defined Function

38

(2)

Exercises

39

(1)

Lists and Arrays

40

(16)

Accessing Elements of an Array

41

(1)

Special Array Indices

42

(1)

List Literals

43

(2)

List Assignment

45

(2)

Interpolating Arrays into Strings

47

(1)

The foreach Control Structure

48

(1)

Perl's Favorite Default: $

49

(2)

Scalar and List Context

51

(3)

<STDIN> in List Context

54

(2)

Exercises

55

(1)

Subroutines

56

(17)

System and User Functions

56

(1)

Defining a Subroutine

57

(1)

Invoking a Subroutine

57

(1)

Return Values

58

(2)

Arguments

60

(2)

Private Variables in Subroutines

62

(1)

The local Operator

63

(1)

Variable-length Parameter Lists

64

(3)

Notes on Lexical (my) Variables

67

(1)

The use Strict Pragma

68

(1)

The return Operator

69

(4)

Exercises

71

(2)

Hashes

73

(13)

What Is a Hash?

73

(3)

Hash Element Access

76

(4)

Hash Functions

80

(3)

Typical Use of a Hash

83

(3)

Exercises

84

(2)

I/O Basics

86

(12)

Input from Standard Input

86

(2)

Input from the Diamond Operator

88

(2)

The Invocation Arguments

90

(1)

Output to Standard Output

91

(3)

Formatted Output with printf

94

(4)

Exercises

96

(2)

Concepts of Regular Expressions

98

(7)

What Are Regular Expressions?

98

(2)

Using Simple Patterns

100

(2)

A Pattern Test Program

102

(3)

Exercises

103

(2)

More About Regular Expressions

105

(10)

Character Classes

105

(2)

General Quantifiers

107

(1)

Anchors

108

(1)

Memory Parentheses

109

(2)

Precedence

111

(4)

Exercises

113

(2)

Using Regular Expressions

115

(13)

Matches with M//

115

(1)

Option Modifiers

116

(1)

The Binding Operator, =∼

117

(1)

Interpolating into Patterns

118

(1)

The Match Variables

119

(3)

Substitutions with s///

122

(3)

The split Operator

125

(1)

The join Function

126

(2)

Exercises

127

(1)

More Control Structures

128

(20)

The unless Control Structure

128

(1)

The until Control Structure

129

(1)

Expression Modifiers

130

(1)

The Naked Block Control Structure

131

(1)

The elsif Clause

132

(1)

Autoincrement and Autodecrement

133

(2)

The for Control Structure

135

(3)

Loop Controls

138

(4)

Logical Operators

142

(6)

Exercises

147

(1)

Filehandles and File Tests

148

(20)

What Is a Filehandle?

148

(2)

Opening a Filehandle

150

(2)

Fatal Errors with die

152

(3)

Using Filehandles

155

(2)

Reopening a Standard Filehandle

157

(1)

File Tests

157

(11)

Exercises

167

(1)

Directory Operations

168

(6)

Moving Around the Directory Tree

168

(1)

Globbing

169

(1)

An Alternate Syntax for Globbing

170

(1)

Directory Handles

171

(2)

Recursive Directory Listing

173

(1)

Exercises

173

(1)

Manipulating Files and Directories

174

(18)

Removing Files

174

(2)

Renaming Files

176

(1)

Links and Files

177

(5)

Making and Removing Directories

182

(2)

Modifying Permissions

184

(1)

Changing Ownership

184

(1)

Changing Timestamps

185

(1)

Using Simple Modules

185

(7)

Exercises

190

(2)

Process Management

192

(16)

The system Function

192

(3)

The exec Function

195

(1)

The Environment Variables

196

(1)

Using Backquotes to Capture Output

197

(4)

Processes as Filehandles

201

(2)

Getting Down and Dirty with Fork

203

(1)

Sending and Receiving Signals

204

(4)

Exercises

206

(2)

Strings and Sorting

208

(13)

Finding a Substring with index

208

(1)

Manipulating a Substring with Substr

209

(2)

Formatting Data with sprintf

211

(2)

Advanced Sorting

213

(8)

Exercises

219

(2)

Simple Databases

221

(12)

DBM Files and DBM Hashes

221

(3)

Manipulating Data with pack and unpack

224

(1)

Fixed-length Random-access Databases

225

(3)

Variable-length (Text) Databases

228

(5)

Exercises

232

(1)

Some Advanced Perl Techniques

233

(16)

Trapping Errors with eval

233

(3)

Picking Items from a List with grep

236

(1)

Transforming Items from a List with map

237

(1)

Unquoted Hash Keys

238

(1)

More Powerful Regular Expressions

239

(3)

Slices

242

(7)

Exercises

247

(2)

A. Exercise Answers

249

(32)

B. Beyond the Liama

281

(22)

Index

303

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Learning Perl : Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials