Perl by Example - Softcover

Quigley, Ellie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0132381826 ISBN 13: 9780132381826

Publisher: Pearson P T R, 2007

Synopsis

“I picked up a copy of JavaScript by Example over the weekend and wanted to thank you for putting out a book that makes JavaScript easy to understand. I’ve been a developer for several years now and JS has always been the “monster under the bed,” so to speak. Your book has answered a lot of questions I’ve had about the inner workings of JS but was afraid to ask. Now all I need is a book that covers Ajax and Coldfusion. Thanks again for putting together an outstanding book.”

–Chris Gomez, Web services manager, Zunch Worldwide, Inc.

“I have been reading your UNIX ® Shells by Example book, and I must say, it is brilliant. Most other books do not cover all the shells, and when you have to constantly work in an organization that uses tcsh, bash, and korn, it can become very difficult. However, your book has been indispensable to me in learning the various shells and the differences between them...so I thought I’d email you, just to let you know what a great job you have done!”

–Farogh-Ahmed Usmani, B.Sc. (Honors), M.Sc., DIC, project consultant (Billing Solutions), Comverse

“I have been learning Perl for about two months now; I have a little shell scripting experience but that is it. I first started with Learning Perl by O’Reilly. Good book but lacking on the examples. I then went to Programming Perl by Larry Wall, a great book for intermediate to advanced, didn’t help me much beginning Perl. I then picked up Perl by Example, Third Edition–this book is a superb, well-written programming book. I have read many computer books and this definitely ranks in the top two, in my opinion. The examples are excellent. The author shows you the code, the output of each line, and then explains each line in every example.”

–Dan Patterson, software engineer, GuideWorks, LLC

“Ellie Quigley has written an outstanding introduction to Perl, which I used to learn the language from scratch. All one has to do is work through her examples, putz around with them, and before long, you’re relatively proficient at using the language. Even though I’ve graduated to using Programming Perl by Wall et al., I still find Quigley’s book a most useful reference.”

–Casey Machula, support systems analyst, Northern Arizona University, College of Health and Human Services

“When I look at my bookshelf, I see eleven books on Perl programming. Perl by Example, Third Edition, isn’t on the shelf; it sits on my desk, where I use it almost daily. When I bought my copy I had not programmed in several years and my programming was mostly in COBOL so I was a rank beginner at Perl. I had at that time purchased several popular books on Perl but nothing that really put it together for me. I am still no pro, but my book has many dog-eared pages and each one is a lesson I have learned and will certainly remember. “I still think it is the best Perl book on the market for anyone from a beginner to a seasoned programmer using Perl almost daily.”

–Bill Maples, network design tools and automations analyst, Fidelity National Information Services

“We are rewriting our intro to OS scripting course and selected your text for the course. It’s an exceptional book. The last time we considered it was a few years ago (second edition). The debugging and system administrator chapters at the end nailed it for us.”

–Jim Leone, Ph.D., professor and chair, Information Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology

“Quigley’s book acknowledges a major usage of PHP. To write some kind of front end user interface program that hooks to a back end MySQL database. Both are free and open source, and the combination has proved popular. Especially where the front end involves making an HTML web page with embedded PHP commands. “Not every example involves both PHP and MySQL. Though all examples have PHP. Many demonstrate how to use PHP inside an HTML file. Like writing user-defined functions, or nesting functions. Or making or using function libraries. The functions are a key idea in PHP, that take you beyond the elementary syntax. Functions also let you gainfully use code by other PHP programmers. Important if you are part of a coding group that has to divide up the programming effort in some manner.”

–Dr. Wes Boudville, CTO, Metaswarm Inc.

The World’s Easiest Perl Tutorial–Fully Updated!

Perl by Example, Fourth Edition, is the easiest, most hands-on way to learn Perl. Legendary Silicon Valley programming instructor Ellie Quigley has thoroughly updated her classic to deliver the skills and information today’s Perl users need most–including all-new coverage of MySQL database programming and a Perl QuickStart designed to get experienced users up and running fast.

Quigley illuminates every technique with focused, classroom-tested code examples, detailed line-by-line explanations, and real program output. This exceptionally clear, easy-to-understand book takes you from your first Perl script to database-driven applications. It’s the only Perl book you’ll ever need!

New in this edition:

• Perl programming QuickStart: makes first-time Perl programmers productive in just twenty pages

• All-new chapter on using the Perl DBI with the MySQL database–plus an easy SQL primer to quickly get you started programming any database

• New introductions to Perl in biology (bioinformatics) and to mod_perl, a Perl interpreter embedded in the Apache server, which allows you to create fast, dynamic content; manage the Apache server; authenticate users; and much more

Completely updated:

• Includes many new and completely rewritten code examples

• Contains fully revised CGI coverage for building dynamic Web sites with Perl

• Covers modern Perl 5.8 concepts and principles–and provides a great foundation for Perl 6

More than 30,000 sysadmins, power users, and developers have used previous editions of Perl by Example

to become expert Perl programmers. With Perl by Example, Fourth Edition, you can, too–even if you’re

completely new to Perl. After you’ve become an expert, you’ll turn to this book constantly as the best

source for reliable answers, solutions, and code.

About the CD-ROM:

The CD-ROM includes all code and files for this book’s hundreds of example scripts.

About this title

From the Publisher:

This tutorial/reference is the ideal guide for UNIX professionals who want to (or must) learn Perl as quickly as possible. Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) -- a public domain interpreted language used for manipulating text, files, and processes -- combines the best features of many of the UNIX utilities, including grep, awk, sed, tr, shells, and the C programming language. Due to its unique features, Perl has gained popularity recently, and is quickly becoming the preferred programming language of systems administrators.

From the Inside Flap:

About the Author
Ellie Quigley is president of Learning Enterprises, LE, a small training/consulting company specializing in teaching UNIX related subjects and writing customized classes for on-site training. The original version of Perl by Example was designed as a Perl Programming class for the University of California, Extension, Santa Cruz, complete with training guide and exercises. Due to the success of the class, this book evolved. She has also authored UNIX Shells by Example, published by Prentice Hall last year. Any comments or questions can be forwarded to Ellie Quigley at Learning Enterprises by e-mail: shellieq@netcom.
Acknowledgments
I would like to send a special appreciation to Mark Houser, a system administration instructor for Remedy Corporation. Mark, with an MS in computer science, enjoys "extending his systems beyond the ordinary" with tools like Perl. He has always been there to answer questions, and he donated his taintperl database application in Appendix B. Mark's email address is mark.houser@EBay.Sun.COM.
I also owe a great deal to Deac Lancaster, a true scholar, co-worker, and good friend. While working for Sun Education, Deac spent many an evening after a long teaching day to guide me patiently through the workings of sockets, message queues, and semaphores. He loaned me his demo C programs, and together we re-wrote them in Perl for this book. Deac is now teaching at Remedy Corporation. Thanks, Deac! John Nouveaux, from Nouveaux Consulting, Santa Rosa, California, has also contributed a number of his Perl programs for the Appendix B in this book. John, an expert network programmer and system administrator, is a consultant and a dynamic teacher, specializing in connectivity issues using tcp/ip and the Internet.
Thanks also to Steve Hanson for his system administration work and to George Williams for compiling the CD-ROM and setting up the Web server.
Richard Evans, from Sun Microsystems, volunteered his time to test the examples in this book and offered helpful suggestions on how to improve them. Thank you, Richard.
Of course, appreciation to my editors, Mark Taub and Patti Guerrieri, for teaching me about the book business and patiently awaiting overdue chapters and correction pages. And to Roberta Harvey, from RAH Consulting, for her technical review and valuable criticism.
Thanks to Perl pioneers Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, authors of the following books: Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz and Perl Programming by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz.
And last, but not least, a huge thanks to all of my students out there who helped me learn Perl and kept it fun.
Preface
A picture is worth a thousand words, and so is a good example. Perl by Example is organized to teach you Perl from scratch with examples of complete succinct programs. Each line of a script sample is numbered, and important lines are highlighted. The output of the program is then displayed with numbers corresponding to the script numbers. Following the output is a separate explanation for each of the numbered lines. The examples are small and to the point for the topic at hand. Since the backbone of this book was used as a student guide to Perl, the topics are modularized. Each module builds on the previous one with a minimum of forward referencing and a logical progression from one topic to the next.
Perl by Example is not just a beginner's guide, but a complete guide to Perl. It covers many aspects of what Perl can do, from regular expression handling, to formatting reports, to interprocess communication. It will teach you about Perl and, in the process, a lot about UNIX. Although some UNIX knowledge will greatly accelerate your learning path, it is not assumed that you are a guru. Anyone reading, writing, or just maintaining Perl programs can greatly profit from this text. Topics such as networking, system calls, IPC, and CGI are designed to save the time it takes to figure out how the functions work, what libraries are needed, and the correct syntax, etc. Now, in this second edition, Perl5 objects and references have been added, and since Perl is the standard for writing CGI scripts for the Internet, there is a chapter to get you started writing your own dynamic Web pages.
Perl has a rich variety of functions for handling strings, arrays, the system interface, networking, and more. In order to understand how these functions work, background information concerning the how's, why's, and what for's is provided before demonstrating sample programs that function. This eliminates constantly wading through manual pages and other UNIX books to understand what is going on, what the arguments mean, and what the function actually does.
The Appendices contain a complete list of functions and definitions, command line switches, debugging options, special variables, Perl translators and sample scripts, including a fully functional, annotated Perl program using taintperl and interfacing with a database application.
I have been teaching now for the past 30 years and am committed to understanding how people learn. Having taught Perl now for over a year, I find that many new Perlers get frustrated when trying to teach themselves how to program in Perl. I, too, experienced frustration when first tackling Perl. So I wrote a book to help myself learn and to help my students, and now to help you. In my book you will not only learn Perl, you will also save yourself a great deal of time.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson P T R
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0132381826
• ISBN 13: 9780132381826
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 971