If you're just getting started with Perl, this is the book you want—whether you're a programmer, system administrator, or web hacker. Nicknamed "the Llama" by two generations of users, this best seller closely follows the popular introductory Perl course taught by the authors since 1991. This eighth edition covers recent changes to the language up to version 5.34. Perl is suitable for almost any task on almost any platform, from short fixes to complete web applications. Learning Perl teaches you the basics and shows you how to write simple, single-file programs—roughly 90% of the Perl programs in use today. And each chapter includes exercises to help you practice what you've just learned. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer. Topics include: Perl data and variable types Subroutines File operations Regular expressions String manipulation (including Unicode) Lists and sorting Process management Use of third-party modules

This book picks up right where "Learning Perl" leaves off. With "Intermediate Perl," you'll graduate from short scripts to much larger programs, using features that make Perl a general-purpose language. This gentle but thorough guide introduces you to modules, complex data structures, and object-oriented programming.

Each chapter is small enough to be read in just an hour or two, ending with exercises to help you practice what you've learned. If you're familiar with the material in "Learning Perl" and have the ambition to go further, Intermediate Perl will teach you most of the core Perl language concepts you need for writing robust programs on any platform.

Topics include: Packages and namespaces References and scoping, including regular expression references Manipulating complex data structures Object-oriented programming Writing and using modules Testing Perl code Contributing to CPAN

Just like "Learning Perl," material in this book closely follows the popular introductory Perl course the authors have taught since 1991. This second edition covers recent changes to the language up to version 5.14.