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

The Classic Guide to Solving Real-World Problems with Perl—Now Fully Updated for Today’s Best Idioms!For years, experienced programmers have relied on Effective Perl Programming to discover better ways to solve problems with Perl. Now, in this long-awaited second edition, three renowned Perl programmers bring together today’s best idioms, techniques, and examples: everything you need to write more powerful, fluent, expressive, and succinct code with Perl.Nearly twice the size of the first edition, Effective Perl Programming, Second Edition, offers everything from rules of thumb to avoid common pitfalls to the latest wisdom for using Perl modules. You won’t just learn the right ways to use Perl: You’ll learn why these approaches work so well.New coverage in this edition includesReorganized and expanded material spanning twelve years of Perl evolution Eight new chapters on CPAN, databases, distributions, files and filehandles, production Perl, testing, Unicode, and warnings Updates for Perl 5.12, the latest version of Perl Systematically updated examples reflecting today’s best idiomsYou’ll learn how to work with strings, numbers, lists, arrays, strictures, namespaces, regular expressions, subroutines, references, distributions, inline code, warnings, Perl::Tidy, data munging, Perl one-liners, and a whole lot more. Every technique is organized in the same Items format that helped make the first edition so convenient and popular.

Historically, programming hasn't been considered a critical skill for biologists. But now, with access to vast amounts of biological data contained in public databases, programming skills are increasingly in strong demand in biology research and development. Perl, with its highly developed capacities in string handling, text processing, networking, and rapid prototyping, has emerged as the programming language of choice for biological data analysis. Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics covers the core Perl language and many of its module extensions, presenting them in the context of biological data and problems of pressing interest to the biological community. This book, along with Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics, forms a basic course in Perl programming. This second volume finishes the basic Perl tutorial material (references, complex data structures, object-oriented programming, use of modules--all presented in a biological context) and presents some advanced topics of considerable interest in bioinformatics. The range of topics covered in Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics prepares the reader for enduring and emerging developments in critical areas of bioinformatics programming such as: Gene finding String alignment Methods of data storage and retrieval (SML and databases) Modeling of networks (graphs and Petri nets) Graphics (Tk) Parallelization Interfacing with other programming languages Statistics (PDL) Protein structure determination Biological models of computation (DNA Computers) Biologists and computer scientists who have conquered the basics of Perl and are ready to move even further in their mastery of this versatile language will appreciate the author's well-balanced approach to applying Perl's analytical abilities to the field of bioinformatics. Full of practical examples and real-world biological problem solving, this book is a must for any reader wanting to move beyond beginner level Perl in bioinformatics.

Part of the fun of programming in Perl lies in tackling tedious tasks with short, efficient, and reusable code. Often, the perfect tool is the one-liner, a small but powerful program that fits in one line of code and does one thing really well.In Perl One-Liners, author and impatient hacker Peteris Krumins takes you through more than 100 compelling one-liners that do all sorts of handy things, such as manipulate line spacing, tally column values in a table, and get a list of users on a system. This cookbook of useful, customizable, and fun scripts will even help hone your Perl coding skills, as Krumins dissects the code to give you a deeper understanding of the language.You'll find one-liners that: Encode, decode, and convert strings Generate random passwords Calculate sums, factorials, and the mathematical constants π and e Add or remove spaces Number lines in a file Print lines that match a specific pattern Check to see if a number is prime with a regular expression Convert IP address to decimal form Replace one string with another And many more! Save time and sharpen you coding skills as you learn to conquer those pesky tasks in a few precisely placed keystrokes with Perl One-Liners.

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 CPANJust 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.

Adopted as the undisputed Perl bible soon after the first edition appeared in 1991, Programming Perl is still the go-to guide for this highly practical language. Perl began life as a super-fueled text processing utility, but quickly evolved into a general purpose programming language that’s helped hundreds of thousands of programmers, system administrators, and enthusiasts, like you, get your job done.In this much-anticipated update to "the Camel," three renowned Perl authors cover the language up to its current version, Perl 5.14, with a preview of features in the upcoming 5.16. In a world where Unicode is increasingly essential for text processing, Perl offers the best and least painful support of any major language, smoothly integrating Unicode everywhere—including in Perl’s most popular feature: regular expressions.Important features covered by this update include: New keywords and syntax I/O layers and encodings New backslash escapes Unicode 6.0 Unicode grapheme clusters and properties Named captures in regexes Recursive and grammatical patterns Expanded coverage of CPAN Current best practices

Find a Perl programmer, and you'll find a copy of Perl Cookbook nearby. Perl Cookbook is a comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for anyone programming in Perl. The book contains hundreds of rigorously reviewed Perl "recipes" and thousands of examples ranging from brief one-liners to complete applications. The second edition of Perl Cookbook has been fully updated for Perl 5.8, with extensive changes for Unicode support, I/O layers, mod_perl, and new technologies that have emerged since the previous edition of the book. Recipes have been updated to include the latest modules. New recipes have been added to every chapter of the book, and some chapters have almost doubled in size. Covered topic areas include: Manipulating strings, numbers, dates, arrays, and hashes Pattern matching and text substitutions References, data structures, objects, and classes Signals and exceptions Screen addressing, menus, and graphical applications Managing other processes Writing secure scripts Client-server programming Internet applications programming with mail, news, ftp, and telnet CGI and mod_perl programming Web programming Since its first release in 1998, Perl Cookbook has earned its place in the libraries of serious Perl users of all levels of expertise by providing practical answers, code examples, and mini-tutorials addressing the challenges that programmers face. Now the second edition of this bestselling book is ready to earn its place among the ranks of favorite Perl books as well. Whether you're a novice or veteran Perl programmer, you'll find Perl Cookbook, 2nd Edition to be one of the most useful books on Perl available. Its comfortable discussion style and accurate attention to detail cover just about any topic you'd want to know about. You can get by without having this book in your library, but once you've tried a few of the recipes, you won't want to.

After providing an introduction to the Perl programming language, this helpful guide teaches computer networking using Perl. Topics discussed include ethernet network analysis, programming standard Internet protocols, and exploring mobile agent programming.* Each chapter provides a general discussion of the technologies under consideration, the support for programming the technologies as provided by Perl, and implementations of working examples* Covers Mobile Agent Technology, which is set to become one of the "next big things" on the Internet* Further information is supplied, including a listing of Web and print resources, programming exercises, and tips to expand the reader's understanding of the material

Take the next step toward Perl mastery with advanced concepts that make coding easier, maintenance simpler, and execution faster. Mastering Perl isn't a collection of clever tricks, but a way of thinking about Perl programming for solving debugging, configuration, and many other real-world problems you’ll encounter as a working programmer.The third in O’Reilly’s series of landmark Perl tutorials (after Learning Perl and Intermediate Perl), this fully upated edition pulls everything together and helps you bend Perl to your will. Explore advanced regular expressions features Avoid common problems when writing secure programs Profile and benchmark Perl programs to see where they need work Wrangle Perl code to make it more presentable and readable Understand how Perl keeps track of package variables Define subroutines on the fly Jury-rig modules to fix code without editing the original source Use bit operations and bit vectors to store large data efficiently Learn how to detect errors that Perl doesn’t report Dive into logging, data persistence, and the magic of tied variables

(Pearson Education) A text focusing on the methods and alternatives for designed TCP/IP-based client/server systems and advanced techniques for specialized applications with Perl. A guide examining a collection of the best third party modules in the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network Softcover. DLC: Perl (Computer program language).

Most Perl programmers were originally trained as C and Unix programmers, so the Perl programs that they write bear a strong resemblance to C programs. However, Perl incorporates many features that have their roots in other languages such as Lisp. These advanced features are not well understood and are rarely used by most Perl programmers, but they are very powerful. They can automate tasks in everyday programming that are difficult to solve in any other way. One of the most powerful of these techniques is writing functions that manufacture or modify other functions. For example, instead of writing ten similar functions, a programmer can write a general pattern or framework that can then create the functions as needed according to the pattern. For several years Mark Jason Dominus has worked to apply functional programming techniques to Perl. Now Mark brings these flexible programming methods that he has successfully taught in numerous tutorials and training sessions to a wider audience.* Introduces powerful programming methods—new to most Perl programmers—that were previously the domain of computer scientists* Gradually builds up confidence by describing techniques of progressive sophistication* Shows how to improve everyday programs and includes numerous engaging code examples to illustrate the methods

Perl is a powerful programming language that has grown in popularity since it first appeared in 1988. The first edition of this book, Programming Perl, hit the shelves in 1990, and was quickly adopted as the undisputed bible of the language. Since then, Perl has grown with the times, and so has this book.Programming Perl is not just a book about Perl. It is also a unique introduction to the language and its culture, as one might expect only from its authors. Larry Wall is the inventor of Perl, and provides a unique perspective on the evolution of Perl and its future direction. Tom Christiansen was one of the first champions of the language, and lives and breathes the complexities of Perl internals as few other mortals do. Jon Orwant is the editor ofThe Perl Journal, which has brought together the Perl community as a common forum for new developments in Perl.Any Perl book can show the syntax of Perl's functions, but only this one is a comprehensive guide to all the nooks and crannies of the language. Any Perl book can explain typeglobs, pseudohashes, and closures, but only this one shows how they really work. Any Perl book can say that my is faster than local, but only this one explains why. Any Perl book can have a title, but only this book is affectionately known by all Perl programmers as "The Camel."This third edition of Programming Perl has been expanded to cover version 5.6 of this maturing language. New topics include threading, the compiler, Unicode, and other new features that have been added since the previous edition.

Perl is an immensely popular scripting language that combines the best features of C, key UNIX utilities and a powerful use of regular expressions. It has a wide range of uses beyond simple text processing and is commonly used for web programming - creating and parsing CGI forms, validating HTML syntax and hyperlinks - as well as e-mail and Usenet news filtering. Perl is increasingly the system administrator's scripting language of choice and is used for file and directory manipulation, database access and a whole range of daily system operator chores.

Many programmers code by instinct, relying on convenient habits or a "style" they picked up early on. They aren't conscious of all the choices they make, like how they format their source, the names they use for variables, or the kinds of loops they use. They're focused entirely on problems they're solving, solutions they're creating, and algorithms they're implementing. So they write code in the way that seems natural, that happens intuitively, and that feels good.But if you're serious about your profession, intuition isn't enough. Perl Best Practices author Damian Conway explains that rules, conventions, standards, and practices not only help programmers communicate and coordinate with one another, they also provide a reliable framework for thinking about problems, and a common language for expressing solutions. This is especially critical in Perl, because the language is designed to offer many ways to accomplish the same task, and consequently it supports many incompatible dialects.With a good dose of Aussie humor, Dr. Conway (familiar to many in the Perl community) offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.They're designed to work together to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise, but Dr. Conway doesn't pretend that this is the one true universal and unequivocal set of best practices. Instead, Perl Best Practices offers coherent and widely applicable suggestions based on real-world experience of how code is actually written, rather than on someone's ivory-tower theories on how software ought to be created.Most of all, Perl Best Practices offers guidelines that actually work, and that many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the way.Praise for Perl Best Practices from Perl community members:"As a manager of a large Perl project, I'd ensure that every member of my team has a copy of Perl Best Practices on their desk, and use it as the basis for an in-house style guide." -- Randal Schwartz"There are no more excuses for writing bad Perl programs. All levels of Perl programmer will be more productive after reading this book." -- Peter Scott"Perl Best Practices will be the next big important book in the evolution of Perl. The ideas and practices Damian lays down will help bring Perl out from under the embarrassing heading of "scripting languages". Many of us have known Perl is a real programming language, worthy of all the tasks normally delegated to Java and C++. With Perl Best Practices, Damian shows specifically how and why, so everyone else can see, too." -- Andy Lester"Damian's done what many thought impossible: show how to build large, maintainable Perl applications, while still letting Perl be the powerful, expressive language that programmers have loved for years." -- Bill Odom"Finally, a means to bring lasting order to the process and product of real Perl development teams." -- Andrew Sundstrom "Perl Best Practices provides a valuable education in how to write robust, maintainable Perl, and is a definitive citation source when coaching other programmers." -- Bennett Todd "I've been teaching Perl for years, and find the same question keeps being asked: Where can I find a reference for writing reusable, maintainable Perl code? Finally I have a decent answer." -- Paul Fenwick "At last a well researched, well thought-out, comprehensive guide to Perl style. Instead of each of us developing our own, we can learn good practices from one of Perl's most prolific and experienced authors. I recommend this book to anyone who prefers getting on with the job rather than going

Want to learn how to program and think like a computer scientist? This practical guide gets you started on your programming journey with the help of Perl 6, the younger sister of the popular Perl programming language. Ideal for beginners, this hands-on book includes over 100 exercises with multiple solutions, and more than 1,000 code examples so you can quickly practice what you learn. Experienced programmers―especially those who know Perl 5―will also benefit.Divided into two parts, Think Perl 6 starts with basic concepts that every programmer needs to know, and then focuses on different programming paradigms and some more advanced programming techniques. With two semesters’ worth of lessons, this book is the perfect teaching tool for computer science beginners in colleges and universities. Learn basic concepts including variables, expressions, statements, functions, conditionals, recursion, and loops Understand commonly used basic data structures and the most useful algorithms Dive into object-oriented programming, and learn how to construct your own types and methods to extend the language Use grammars and regular expressions to analyze textual content Explore how functional programming can help you make your code simpler and more expressive

With more than a million dedicated programmers, Perl has proven to be the best computing language for the latest trends in computing and business. While other languages have stagnated, Perl remains fresh, thanks to its community-based development model, which encourages the sharing of information among users. This tradition of knowledge-sharing allows developers to find answers to almost any Perl question they can dream up.And you can find many of those answers right here in Perl Hacks. Like all books in O'Reilly's Hacks Series, Perl Hacks appeals to a variety of programmers, whether you're an experienced developer or a dabbler who simply enjoys exploring technology. Each hack is a short lesson--some are practical exercises that teach you essential skills, while others merely illustrate some of the fun things that Perl can do. Most hacks have two parts: a direct answer to the immediate problem you need to solve right now and a deeper, subtler technique that you can adapt to other situations. Learn how to add CPAN shortcuts to the Firefox web browser, read files backwards, write graphical games in Perl, and much more.For your convenience, Perl Hacks is divided by topic--not according to any sense of relative difficulty--so you can skip around and stop at any hack you like. Chapters include:Productivity Hacks User Interaction Data Munging Working with Modules Object Hacks DebuggingWhether you're a newcomer or an expert, you'll find great value in Perl Hacks, the only Perl guide that offers something useful and fun for everyone.

In its first five years of existence, The Perl Journal ran 247 articles by over 120 authors. Every serious Perl programmer subscribed to it, and every notable Perl guru jumped at the opportunity to write for it. TPJ explained critical topics such as regular expressions, databases, and object-oriented programming, and demonstrated Perl's utility for fields as diverse as astronomy, biology, economics, AI, and games. The magazine gave birth to both the Obfuscated Perl Contest and the Perl Poetry contest, and remains a proud and timeless achievement of Perl during one of its most exciting periods of development. Computer Science and Perl Programming is the first volume of The Best of the Perl Journal, compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of The Perl Journal, Jon Orwant. In this series, we've taken the very best (and still relevant) articles published in TPJ over its 5 years of publication and immortalized them into three volumes. This volume has 70 articles devoted to hard-core computer science, advanced programming techniques, and the underlying mechanics of Perl. Here's a sample of what you'll find inside: Jeffrey Friedl on Understanding Regexes Mark Jason Dominus on optimizing your Perl programs with Memoization Damian Conway on Parsing Tim Meadowcroft on integrating Perl with Microsoft Office Larry Wall on the culture of Perl Written by 41 of the most prominent and prolific members of the closely-knit Perl community, this anthology does what no other book can, giving unique insight into the real-life applications and powerful techniques made possible by Perl. Other books tell you how to use Perl, but this book goes far beyond that: it shows you not only how to use Perl, but what you could use Perl *for*. This is more than just The Best of the Perl Journal -- in many ways, this is the best of Perl.

So you've learned Perl, but you're getting frustrated. Perhaps you've taken on a larger project than the ones you're used to. Or you want to add a user interface or a networking component. Or you need to do more complicated error trapping.Whether your knowledge of Perl is casual or deep, this book will make you a more accomplished programmer. Here you can learn the complex techniques for production-ready Perl programs. This book explains methods for manipulating data and objects that may have looked like magic before. Furthermore, it sets Perl in the context of a larger environment, giving you the background you need for dealing with networks, databases, and GUIs. The discussion of internals helps you program more efficiently and embed Perl within C or C within Perl.Major topics covered include: Practical use of packages and classes (object-oriented programming) Complex data structures Persistence (e.g., using a database) Networking Graphical interfaces, using the Tk toolkit Interaction with C language functions Embedding and extending the Perl interpreter In addition, the book patiently explains all sorts of language details you've always wanted to know more about, such as the use of references, trapping errors through the eval operator, non-blocking I/O, when closures are helpful, and using ties to trigger actions when data is accessed. You will emerge from this book a better hacker, and a proud master of Perl.

Write good regexes and parsers with the Perl 6 programming language. You’ll see how regexes are used for searching, parsing, and validation: in particular the grammar extension makes them uniquely suitable for parsing, the main focus of this book. Written by Perl 6 expert Moritz Lenz, a core contributor of Rakudo, Parsing with Perl 6 Regexes and Grammars starts from the very basics of regular expressions, and then explores how they integrate with regular Perl 6 code. Then follows a deeper exploration of how regexes work under the hood and a discussion of common techniques for constructing regexes and exploring the data under scrutiny. Later material goes beyond relatively simple formats to reusable named regexes and grammars, which permit code reuse in grammars, and shows how to write parsers for more involved data formats. Error reporting and case studies wrap up the topic.While regexes allow you to search for patterns in text and validate input, Perl 6 regexes advance that concept: you’ll see how they are easier to read, yet much more powerful, than the traditional "Perl-compatible regular expression". With improved reusability and backtracking control, you will be able to write complete parsers with the help of this book.What You'll Learn Discover the building blocks of Perl 6 regexesHandle regex mechanics and master useful regex techniquesExtract data and work with patterns among these use casesReuse named regexes and other grammars as components or templatesWrite full parsers, including advanced error reporting and data extractionLearn how to parse nested scopes and indention-based formatsWho This Book Is ForThose with at least some prior experience with Perl programming, but who may be new to Perl 6 aswell as searching and parsing.

With a worldwide community of users and more than a million dedicated programmers, Perl has proven to be the most effective language for the latest trends in computing and business.Every programmer must keep up with the latest tools and techniques. This updated version of Advanced Perl Programming from O'Reilly gives you the essential knowledge of the modern Perl programmer. Whatever your current level of Perl expertise, this book will help you push your skills to the next level and become a more accomplished programmer.O'Reilly's most high-level Perl tutorial to date, Advanced Perl Programming, Second Edition teaches you all the complex techniques for production-ready Perl programs. This completely updated guide clearly explains concepts such as introspection, overriding built-ins, extending Perl's object-oriented model, and testing your code for greater stability.Other topics include: Complex data structures Parsing Templating toolkits Working with natural language data Unicode Interaction with C and other languages In addition, this guide demystifies once complex topics like object-relational mapping and event-based development-arming you with everything you need to completely upgrade your skills.Praise for the Second Edition:"Sometimes the biggest hurdle to problem solving isn't the subject itself but rather the sheer number of modules Perl provides. Advanced Perl Programming walks you through Perl's TMTOWTDI ("There's More Than One Way To Do It") forest, explaining and comparing the best modules for each task so you can intelligently apply them in a variety of situations." --Rocco Caputo, lead developer of POE"It has been said that sufficiently advanced Perl code is indistinguishable from magic. This book of spells goes a long way to unlocking those secrets. It has the power to transform the most humble programmer into a Perl wizard." --Andy Wardley"The information here isn't theoretical. It presents tools and techniques for solving real problems cleanly and elegantly." --Curtis 'Ovid' Poe" Advanced Perl Programming collects hard-earned knowledge from some of the best programmers in the Perl community, and explains it in a way that even novices can apply immediately." --chromatic, Editor of Perl.com

Many programmers would love to use Perl for projects that involve heavy lifting, but miss the many traditional algorithms that textbooks teach for other languages. Computer scientists have identified many techniques that a wide range of programs need, such as: Fuzzy pattern matching for text (identify misspellings!) Finding correlations in data Game-playing algorithms Predicting phenomena such as Web traffic Polynomial and spline fitting Using algorithms explained in this book, you too can carry out traditional programming tasks in a high-powered, efficient, easy-to-maintain manner with Perl. This book assumes a basic understanding of Perl syntax and functions, but not necessarily any background in computer science. The authors explain in a readable fashion the reasons for using various classic programming techniques, the kind of applications that use them, and -- most important -- how to code these algorithms in Perl. If you are an amateur programmer, this book will fill you in on the essential algorithms you need to solve problems like an expert. If you have already learned algorithms in other languages, you will be surprised at how much different (and often easier) it is to implement them in Perl. And yes, the book even has the obligatory fractal display program. There have been dozens of books on programming algorithms, some of them excellent, but never before has there been one that uses Perl. The authors include the editor of The Perl Journal and master librarian of CPAN; all are contributors to CPAN and have archived much of the code in this book there. "This book was so exciting I lost sleep reading it." Tom Christiansen

A Perl expert can solve a problem in a few lines of well-tested code. Now you can unlock these powers for yourself. Modern Perl teaches you how Perl really works. It's the only book that explains Perl thoroughly, from its philosophical roots to the pragmatic decisions that help you solve real problems--and keep them solved. You'll understand how the language fits together and discover the secrets used by the global Perl community. This beloved guide is now completely updated for Perl 5.22.When you have to solve a problem now, reach for Perl. When you have to solve a problem right, reach for Modern Perl. Discover how to scale your skills from one-liners to asynchronous Unicode-aware web services and everything in between.Modern Perl will take you from novice to proficient Perl hacker. You'll see which features of modern Perl will make you more productive, and which features of this well-loved language are best left in the past. Along the way, you'll take advantage of Perl to write well-tested, clear, maintainable code that evolves with you. Learn how the language works, how to take advantage of the CPAN's immense trove of time-tested solutions, and how to write clear, concise, powerful code that runs everywhere. Specific coverage explains how to use Moose, how to write testable code, and how to deploy and maintain real-world Perl applications.This new edition covers the new features of Perl 5.20 and Perl 5.22, including all the new operators, standard library changes, bug and security fixes, and productivity enhancements. It gives you what you need to use the most up-to-date Perl most effectively, all day, every day.What You Need:Perl 5.16 or newer (Perl 5.20 or 5.22 preferred). Installation/upgrade instructions included.

With its highly developed capacity to detect patterns in data, Perl has become one of the most popular languages for biological data analysis. But if you're a biologist with little or no programming experience, starting out in Perl can be a challenge. Many biologists have a difficult time learning how to apply the language to bioinformatics. The most popular Perl programming books are often too theoretical and too focused on computer science for a non-programming biologist who needs to solve very specific problems. Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics is designed to get you quickly over the Perl language barrier by approaching programming as an important new laboratory skill, revealing Perl programs and techniques that are immediately useful in the lab. Each chapter focuses on solving a particular bioinformatics problem or class of problems, starting with the simplest and increasing in complexity as the book progresses. Each chapter includes programming exercises and teaches bioinformatics by showing and modifying programs that deal with various kinds of practical biological problems. By the end of the book you'll have a solid understanding of Perl basics, a collection of programs for such tasks as parsing BLAST and GenBank, and the skills to take on more advanced bioinformatics programming. Some of the later chapters focus in greater detail on specific bioinformatics topics. This book is suitable for use as a classroom textbook, for self-study, and as a reference. The book covers: Programming basics and working with DNA sequences and strings Debugging your code Simulating gene mutations using random number generators Regular expressions and finding motifs in data Arrays, hashes, and relational databases Regular expressions and restriction maps Using Perl to parse PDB records, annotations in GenBank, and BLAST output

This complete guide to the Perl programming language ranges widely through the Perl programmer's universe, gathering together in a convenient form a wealth of information about Perl itself and its application to CGI scripts, XML processing, network programming, database interaction, and graphical user interfaces. The book is an ideal reference for experienced Perl programmers and beginners alike. With more than a million dedicated programmers, Perl is proving to be the best language for the latest trends in computing and business, including network programming and the ability to create and manage web sites. It's a language that every Unix system administrator and serious web developer needs to know. In the past few years, Perl has found its way into complex web applications of multinational banks, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and hundreds of large corporations. In this second edition, Perl in a Nutshell has been expanded to include coverage of Perl 5.8, with information on Unicode processing in Perl, new functions and modules that have been added to the core language, and up-to-date details on running Perl on the Win32 platform. The book also covers Perl modules for recent technologies such as XML and SOAP. Here are just some of the topics contained in this book: Basic Perl reference Quick reference to built-in functions and standard modules CGI.pm and mod_perl XML::* modules DBI, the database-independent API for Perl Sockets programming LWP, the library for Web programming in Perl Network programming with the Net modules Perl/Tk, the Tk extension to Perl for graphical interfaces Modules for interfacing with Win32 systems As part of the successful "in a Nutshell" book series from O'Reilly & Associates, Perl in a Nutshell is for readers who want a single reference for all their needs. "In a nutshell, Perl is designed to make the easy jobs easy, without making the hard jobs impossible." -- Larry Wall, creator of Perl

Perl/Tk is the marriage of the Tk graphical toolkit with Perl, the powerful programming language used primarily for system administration, web programming, and database manipulation. With Perl/Tk, you can build Perl programs with an attractive, intuitive GUI interface with all the power of Perl behind it. Mastering Perl/Tk is the "bible" of Perl/Tk: It's not only a great book for getting started, but the best reference for learning the techniques of experienced Perl/Tk programmers. The first half of the book contains the basics on how to use Perl/Tk, and then branches out into advanced applications with a series of extensive program examples. The result is a book accessible for novices, and invaluable for experienced programmers ready to learn the next step in the elegant and effective use of Perl/Tk. The book includes: An introduction to each of the basic Perl/Tk widgets and geometry managers A dissection of the MainLoop, including how to use callbacks and bindings effectively Coverage of the Tix widgets, an extended set of widgets that are a part of the standard Perl/Tk distribution Working with images in Perl/Tk, including bitmaps, pixmaps, photos, and how to compose a compound image type How to create custom mega-widgets in Perl/Tk, both composite and derived Handling interprocess communication with Perl/Tk, both with standard Unix utilities (pipes and sockets) and with the send command designed for direct communication between Tk applications Developing your own Tk widget in the C language Examples of web applications written with Perl/Tk and the LWP library The book also includes appendices on installing Perl/Tk, a complete quick-reference for each standard widget, and listings of all the extended examples in the book. Nancy Walsh is the author of Learning Perl/Tk, and Steve Lidie wrote the Perl/Tk Pocket Reference as well as a series of Perl/Tk articles in The Perl Journal. Together, they have written Mastering Perl/Tk to be the definitive guide to Perl/Tk.

In its first five years of existence, The Perl Journal (TPJ) became the voice of the Perl community. Every serious Perl programmer subscribed to it, and every notable Perl guru jumped at the opportunity to write for it. TPJ explained critical Perl topics and demonstrated Perl's utility for fields as diverse as astronomy, biology, economics, AI, and games. Back issues were hoarded, or swapped like trading cards. No longer in print format, The Perl Journal remains a proud and timeless achievement of Perl during one of its most exciting periods of development.Web, Graphics & Perl/Tk is the second volume of The Best of the Perl Journal, compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of The Perl Journal, Jon Orwant. In this series, we've taken the very best (and still relevant) articles published in TPJ over its five years of publication and immortalized them into three volumes.The forty articles included in this volume are simply some of the best Perl articles ever written on the subjects of graphics, the Web, and Perl/Tk, by some of the best Perl authors and coders.Much of Perl's success is due to its capabilities for developing web sites; the Web section covers popular topics such as CGI programs, mod_perl, spidering, HTML parsing, security, and content management. The Graphics section is a grab bag of techniques, ranging from simple graph generation to ray tracing and real-time video digitizing. The Perl/Tk section shows you how to use the popular Perl/Tk toolkit for developing graphical applications that work on both Unix/Linux and Windows without a single change.Written by twenty-three of the most prominent and prolific members of the closely-knit Perl community, including Lincoln Stein, Mark-Jason Dominus, Alligator Descartes, and Dan Brian, this anthology does what no other book can, giving unique insight into the real-life applications and powerful techniques made possible by Perl.

The Perl Journal (TPJ) did something most print journals aspire to, but few succeed. Within a remarkable short time, TPJ acquired a cult-following and became the voice of the Perl community. Every serious Perl programmer subscribed to it, and every notable Perl guru jumped at the opportunity to write for it. Back issues were swapped like trading cards. No longer in print format, TPJ remains the quintessential spirit of Perl--a publication for and by Perl programmers who see fun and beauty in an admittedly quirky little language. Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture is the third volume of The Best of the Perl Journal, compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of The Perl Journal, Jon Orwant. In this series, we've taken the very best (and still relevant) articles published in TPJ over its 5 years of publication and immortalized them into three volumes. The 47 articles included in this volume are simply some of the best Perl articles ever written on the subjects of games, diversions, and the unique culture of this close-knit community, by some of the best Perl authors and coders. Games, Diversions & Perl Culture focuses on entertaining topics that make Perl users such fanatics about the language. You'll find all of the playful features TPJ offered over the years, including the Obfuscated Perl Contests, Perl Quiz Shows, humor articles, and renowned one-line recipes. The book also contains a panoply of quirky applications of Perl, including genetic algorithms, home automation, music programming, and an entire section on natural language processing. This anthology is an unmatched compendium of Perl lore.

No-nonsense and practical, yet with wit and charm. A joy to read.""-Dan Sanderson, Software Developer, Amazon.com""Shows style, not just facts-valuable.""-Brian Downs, former Training Director, Lucent Technologies""Brilliant, never tedious-highly recommended!""-Jon Allen, Maintainer of perldoc.perl.org""You could have chosen no better primer than this book.""-Damian Conway, from the ForewordPerl is a complex language that can be difficult to master. Perl advocates boast that ""There's More Than One Way To Do It,"" but do you really want to learn several ways of saying the same thing to a computer?To make Perl more accessible, Dr. Tim Maher has over the years designed and taught an essential subset of the language that is smaller, yet practical and powerful. With this engaging book you can now benefit from ""Minimal Perl,"" even if all you know about Unix is grep.You will learn how to write simple Perl commands-many just one-liners-that go far beyond the limitations of Unix utilities, and those of Linux, MacOS/X, etc. And you'll acquire the more advanced Perl skills used in scripts by capitalizing on your knowledge of related Shell resources. Sprinkled throughout are many Unix-specific Perl tips.This book is especially suitable for system administrators, webmasters, and software developers.

Most Perl programmers have been frustrated at one time or another because the system just wouldn't do what they wanted it to do. There was that one simple and obvious utility that was missing that would make life so much easier: A tool to get a stock quote, show off a photograph collection, or even display a collection of favorite comics. Wicked Cool Perl Scripts is about writing those utilities quickly and easily. A collection of handy utilities that solves difficult problems, Wicked Cool Perl Scripts is a great resource for the savvy Perl programmer.

Programming on the Web today can involve any of several technologies, but the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) has held its ground as the most mature method--and one of the most powerful ones--of providing dynamic web content. CGI is a generic interface for calling external programs to crunch numbers, query databases, generate customized graphics, or perform any other server-side task. There was a time when CGI was the only game in town for server-side programming; today, although we have ASP, PHP, Java servlets, and ColdFusion (among others), CGI continues to be the most ubiquitous server-side technology on the Web. CGI programs can be written in any programming language, but Perl is by far the most popular language for CGI. Initially developed over a decade ago for text processing, Perl has evolved into a powerful object-oriented language, while retaining its simplicity of use. CGI programmers appreciate Perl's text manipulation features and its CGI.pm module, which gives a well-integrated object-oriented interface to practically all CGI-related tasks. While other languages might be more elegant or more efficient, Perl is still considered the primary language for CGI. CGI Programming with Perl, Second Edition, offers a comprehensive explanation of using CGI to serve dynamic web content. Based on the best-selling CGI Programming on the World Wide Web, this edition has been completely rewritten to demonstrate current techniques available with the CGI.pm module and the latest versions of Perl. The book starts at the beginning, by explaining how CGI works, and then moves swiftly into the subtle details of developing CGI programs. Topics include: Incorporating JavaScript for form validation Controlling browser caching Making CGI scripts secure in Perl Working with databases Creating simple search engines Maintaining state between multiple sessions Generating graphics dynamically Improving performance of your CGI scripts