Perl Developer

Perl was designed to be a sed and awk killer, the intention was to design a text processing language that would do away with these two tools. Perl excels in text processing but is also applicable to a lot of different problem spaces. Perl was the dominant language on the web and still is when a fast solution is sought, Perl also makes for a good administration tool, building administrative scripts and quickly automating tasks.

Perl is a high level dynamic level, it is not as high level as Python, there is the ability to have scalars and references. Object orientation is bolted onto Perl, and Perl tends to run better as a procedural language. Perl Version 6 may address the Object Oriented features of Perl in a more direct fashion.

Perl was invented by Larry Wall in 1987 when he was working as a system administrator in NASA. Larry was a linguist by education and the combination of this discipline and hands on computer work has made for a very elegant programming language with many nuances.

Perl development is characterised by short development life cycles, implementing Perl code tends to be quick, primarily because the language allows for many shorthand techniques and Perl boasts probably the largest library of community modules on CPAN.

Perl Uses

Perl shines in the field of text manipulation where regular expressions are required. Perl can also handle nearly any reporting requirements, it is known as a glue language to fit parts of a system together, so Perl has many connectors to databases and the ability to be extended and embedded.

Perl is a general purpose programming language, it has been superseded by Python for general programming work though. Perl has more noise than Python or can be overly terse, there is a middle ground but that is nearly equivalent to Python anyhow. Still, Perl does make for a good general purpose language just in Silver place.

Perl is a firm favourite with many system and network administrators, primarily because the Perl basic language contains the commands necessary to manipulate files and automate administrative tasks in a very succinct fashion. AutoMake and AutoConf, used by most Unix developers, are developed in Perl and that is testament to Perl's ties with the administration of systems; installation and configuration of programs being one of the central tasks of system administration.

Perl is a great language to use for web development, Perl is nearly the de facto standard for CCI (Common Gateway Interface), and FastCGI. mod-perl in Apache is also commonly used for web sites and a very mature module.

Perl Example Code

#!/usr/bin/perl -T
#-----------------------------------------------------------
#                _        _
#  _ __  ___ _ _| |  _ __| |
# | '_ \/ -_) '_| |_| '_ \ |
# | .__/\___|_| |_(_) .__/_|
# |_|               |_|
#
#-----------------------------------------------------------
# File      : perl.pl
# Author    : Richard Lewis
# Project   : /mnt/webbeastie/proj/poisedsolutions/lib/code/
# Syntax    : perl
# Date      : Sun 12 Jul 2009
# Copyright : Richard Lewis 2009
#-----------------------------------------------------------
# perl.pl - example perl code
#-----------------------------------------------------------

use strict;
#-----------------------------------------------------------

sub main {
    # Perl Example Code

    $ARGV[ 0 ] = './perl_example.txt'
        if not defined $ARGV[ 0 ];

    display_arguments();

    create_file( $ARGV[ 0 ] );

    display_file( $ARGV[ 0 ] );
}
#-----------------------------------------------------------

sub display_arguments {
    # Display Command Line Arguments

    printf ( "Program    : %s\n", $0 );

    my $count;
    for ( $count = 0; $count < scalar( @ARGV ); ++$count ) {

        printf ( "Argument %2d: %s\n", 
            $count,  $ARGV[ $count ] );
    }
    print "\n";
}
#-----------------------------------------------------------

sub create_file {
    # create a file with some text

    my( $file_name ) = @_;

    open( FH, ">$file_name" )
        or die "Error: Unable to open $file_name\n";

    print FH <<END_TEXT;
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and womem merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

The Bard - As You Like It
END_TEXT

    close( FH );
}
#-----------------------------------------------------------

sub display_file {
    # display file

    my ( $file_name ) = @_;

    open( FH, "<$file_name" )
        or die "Error: Unable to open $file_name\n";

    my $prose = '';

    while ( <FH> ) {
        print;
        $prose .= $_;
    }
    print "\n";

    close( FH );
    #-------------------------------------------------------

    # capitalise each word

    $prose =~ s/\b([a-zA-Z0-9_']*)/\u$1/g;

    print $prose;
    print "\n";
}
#-----------------------------------------------------------

main();

1;
#-----------------------------------------------------------

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Perl Resources

Perl Resources

• Perl Links
• Perl Books