9781590593912

About the Author

Acknowledgments

xvii

Introduction

xix

CHAPTER 1 First Steps in Perl

(12)

Programming Languages

(1)

Our First Perl Program

(6)

Program Structure

(3)

Escape Sequences

(1)

Whitespace

(1)

Number Systems

(2)

The Perl Debugger

(1)

Summary

(1)

Exercises

(2)

CHAPTER 2 Scalars

(38)

Types of Data

(8)

Numbers

(3)

Strings

(3)

Here-Documents

(1)

Converting Between Numbers and Strings

(1)

Operators

(16)

Numeric Operators

(9)

String Operators

(4)

Operators to Be Seen Later

(1)

Operator Precedence

(1)

Variables

(7)

Scoping

(3)

Variable Names

(1)

Variable Interpolation

(4)

Currency Converter

(2)

Two Miscellaneous Functions

(2)

The exit() Function

(1)

The die() Function

(1)

Summary

(1)

Exercises

(1)

CHAPTER 3 Control Flow Constructs

(26)

The if Statement

(11)

Operators Revisited

(5)

Multiple Choice: if...else

(3)

The unless Statement

(1)

Expression Modifiers

(1)

Using Short-Circuited Evaluation

(1)

Looping Constructs

(1)

The while Loop

(8)

while ([STDIN]) 65

Infinite Loops

(1)

Looping Until

(1)

The for Loop

(1)

The foreach Loop

(1)

do..while and do..until

(2)

Loop Control Constructs

(5)

Breaking Out

(1)

Going On to the Next

(1)

Reexecuting the Loop

(1)

Loop Labels

(2)

goto

(1)

Summary

(1)

Exercises

(1)

CHAPTER 4 Lists and Arrays

(34)

Lists

(10)

Simple Lists

(1)

Less Simple Lists

(2)

Creating Lists Easily with qw//

(3)

Accessing List Values

(4)

Arrays

(22)

Assigning Arrays

(3)

Scalar vs. List Context

(1)

Adding to an Array

(1)

Accessing an Array

(18)

Summary

109

(1)

Exercises

110

(1)

CHAPTER 5 Hashes

111

(16)

Creating a Hash

111

(4)

Working with Hash Values

113

(2)

Hash in List Context

115

(1)

Hash in Scalar Context

116

(1)

Hash Functions

117

(4)

The keys() Function

117

(1)

The values() Function

118

(1)

The each() Function

119

(1)

The delete() Function

120

(1)

The exists() Function

120

(1)

Hash Examples

121

(4)

Creating Readable Variables

121

(1)

"Reversing" Information

121

(1)

Counting Things

122

(3)

Summary

125

(1)

Exercises

125

(2)

CHAPTER 6 Subroutines/Functions

127

(22)

Understanding Subroutines

128

(5)

Defining a Subroutine

128

(1)

Invoking a Subroutine

129

(1)

Order of Declaration and Invoking Functions

130

(3)

Passing Arguments into Functions

133

(4)

Return Values

134

(3)

Understanding Scope

137

(4)

Global Variables

137

(1)

Introduction to Packages

138

(2)

Lexical Variables (aka Local Variables)

140

(1)

Some Important Notes on Passing Arguments

141

(6)

Function Arguments Passed by Reference

141

(2)

Lists Are One Dimensional

143

(2)

Default Argument Values

145

(1)

Named Parameters

145

(2)

Summary

147

(1)

Exercises

147

(2)

CHAPTER 7 Regular Expressions

149

(28)

What Are They?

150

(18)

Patterns

150

(18)

Working with Regexes

168

(7)

Substitution

168

(2)

Changing Delimiters

170

(1)

Modifiers

171

(1)

The split()Function

172

(1)

The join() Function

173

(1)

Common Blunders

174

(1)

Summary

175

(1)

Exercises

175

(2)

CHAPTER 8 Files and Data

177

(28)

Filehandles

177

(6)

The open() Function

177

(1)

The close() Function

178

(2)

Three Ways to Open a File

180

(1)

Reading in Scalar Context

181

(2)

Reading with the Diamond

183

(7)

@ARGV: The Command Line Arguments

186

(2)

@ARGV and [] 187

$ARGV

188

(1)

Reading in List Context

188

(2)

Writing to Files

190

(4)

Buffering

193

(1)

Opening Pipes

194

(5)

Piping In from a Process

194

(2)

Piping Out to Processes

196

(2)

Bidirectional Pipes

198

(1)

File Tests

199

(5)

Summary

204

(1)

Exercises

204

(1)

CHAPTER 9 String Processing

205

(8)

Character Position

205

(1)

String Functions

206

(5)

The Iength() Function

206

(1)

TheindexO Function

206

(2)

The rindex() Function

208

(1)

The substr() Function

208

(2)

Transliteration

210

(1)

Summary

211

(1)

Exercises

211

(2)

CHAPTER 10 Interfacing to the Operating System

213

(16)

The %ENV Hash

213

(2)

Working with Files and Directories

215

(8)

File Globbing

215

(3)

Reading Directories

218

(1)

Functions to Work with Files and Directories

219

(4)

Executing External Programs

223

(3)

The system() Function

223

(2)

Backquotes

225

(1)

There's More

226

(1)

Summary

227

(1)

Exercises

227

(2)

CHAPTER 11 References

229

(24)

What Is a Reference?

229

(1)

Anonymity

230

(1)

The Life Cycle of a Reference

230

(12)

Reference Creation

230

(7)

Reference Modification

237

(4)

Reference Counting and Destruction

241

(1)

Using References for Complex Data Structures

242

(8)

Matrices

242

(1)

Autovivification

243

(4)

Trees

247

(3)

Summary

250

(1)

Exercises

251

(2)

CHAPTER 12 Object-Oriented Per!

253

(34)

Improving Your Vocabulary

253

(5)

Objects

253

(1)

Attributes

254

(1)

Methods

254

(1)

Classes

255

(1)

Polymorphism

256

(1)

Encapsulation

256

(1)

Inheritance

256

(1)

Constructors

257

(1)

Destructors

258

(1)

An Example

258

(3)

Including Other Files with use

261

(3)

261

(1)

require

262

(1)

use

263

(1)

Changing @INC

263

(1)

Rolling Your Own Classes

264

(19)

Bless You, My Reference

265

(2)

Storing Attributes

267

(1)

The Constructor

268

(3)

Creating Methods

271

(12)

Do You Need 00?

283

(1)

Are Your Subroutines Tasks?

283

(1)

Do You Need Persistence?

284

(1)

Do You Need Sessions?

284

(1)

Do You Need Speed?

284

(1)

Do You Want the User to Be Unaware of the Object?

284

(1)

Are You Still Unsure?

284

(1)

Summary

284

(1)

Exercises

285

(2)

CHAPTER 13 Modules

287

(28)

Why Do We Need Them?

287

(1)

Package Hierarchies

288

(1)

Exporters

288

(2)

Online Documentation

290

(1)

Creating a Non-00 Module

290

(5)

The Perl Standard Modules

295

(10)

Data::Dumper

295

(2)

File::Find

297

(1)

Getopt::Std

298

(2)

Getopt::Long

300

(1)

File::Spec

301

(1)

Benchmark

302

(2)

Win32

304

(1)

CPAN

305

(8)

Installing Modules with PPM

307

(1)

Installing a Module Manually

308

(1)

The CPAN Module

308

(3)

Bundles

311

(1)

Submitting Your Own Module to CPAN

312

(1)

Summary

313

(2)

CHAPTER 14 Introduction to CGI

315

(32)

We Need a Webserver

316

(1)

Creating a CGI Directory

316

(1)

Writing CGI Programs

316

(6)

"hello, world!" in CGI

317

(2)

The CGI Environment

319

(1)

Generating HTML

320

(2)

Introducing CGI.pm

322

(7)

Conventional Style of Calling Methods

328

(1)

CGI.pm Methods

329

(1)

Methods That Generate More Than One Tag

329

(1)

Methods That Generate One Tag

330

(1)

Processing Form Data

330

(5)

The param() Method

332

(1)

Dynamic CGI Program

333

(2)

Let's Play Chess l

335

(9)

Improvements We Can Make

344

(1)

What We Did Not Talk About

344

(1)

Summary

345

(1)

Exercises

346

(1)

CHAPTER 15 Perl and DBI

347

(38)

Introduction to Relational Databases

347

(3)

The Relational of Relational Database

348

(2)

We Need an SQL Server-MySQL

350

(15)

Installing MySQL

350

(1)

Testing the MySQL Server

351

(1)

Creating a Database

352

(2)

Creating a Non-root User with the GRANT Command

354

(1)

The INSERT Command

355

(3)

The SELECT Command

358

(6)

Table Joins

364

(1)

Introduction to DBI

365

(10)

Installing DBI and the DBD::mysgl

365

(1)

Connecting to the MySQL Database

366

(1)

Executing an SQL Query with DBI

367

(2)

A More Complex Example

369

(3)

Use Placeholders

372

(2)

DBI and Table Joins

374

(1)

Perl + DBI + CGI = Fun!

375

(7)

What We Didn't Talk About

382

(1)

Summary

383

(1)

Exercises

383

(2)

APPENDIX Exercise Solutions

385

(22)

INDEX

407

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Beginning Perl

159059391X

Summary

Table of Contents

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