Effective Perl Programming Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl

by Hall, Joseph N.; McAdams, Joshua A.; foy, brian d

• ISBN13: 9780321496942
• ISBN10: 0321496949
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-19
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

The highly-anticipated update to this classic book - now fully reflects today's most powerful idioms and adds nine new chapters!--Packed with carefully-explained examples that show how to write Perl code like the experts do -- and why.-New chapters on CPAN, databases, debugging, distributions, external processes, files, production Perl, testing, and Unicode.-Follows Scott Meyers' best-selling Effective C++ format .-An indispensable resource for every experienced Perl programmer.Effective Perl Programming, Second Edition is the highly-anticipated update to our  best-selling guide to the Perl idioms used by experienced programmers. It not only reveals the 'right' ways to solve common problems with Perl: it explains why these approaches are so successful. Three expert authors share solutions, techniques, pointers, rules of thumb, and pitfalls to avoid: everything experienced Perl programmers need to write more powerful, fluent, expressive, and succinct code. This extensively updated and revised edition retains the 'numbered items' format of the First Edition - a format proven in Scott Meyers' best-selling Effective C++ and many successful books since. However, it is nearly twice the size of its predecessor. The additions include:-- Nine entirely new chapters on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), Databases, Debugging, Distributions, External Processes, Files and Filehandles, Production Perl, Testing, and Unicode.-Systematically updated examples that reflect today's best idioms.-More coverage of applications and user interface techniques.-New exercises and solutions that provide more hands-on practice, and add value in training environments. 

Author Biography

Joseph N. Hall has programmed for a living since 1984, taught his first computer class at age fourteen, and has worked with Perl since 1993. Joshua A. McAdams, a programmer at Google, is the voice of Perlcast. He has hosted two Perl conferences, conducts meetings for Chicago Perl Mongers, has spoken about Perl at events worldwide, and is a CPAN author. brian d foy is coauthor of Learning Perl, Fifth edition (O'Reilly Media, 2008), and intermediate Perl (O'Reilly Media,2006), and author of Mastering Perl (O'Reilly Media,2007). He established the first Perl user group, the New York Perl Mongers; publishes The Perl Review; maintains parts of the core Perl documentation; and has more than ten Years of Perl training experience.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
About the Authors	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
The Basics of Perl	p. 9
Find the documentation for Perl and its modules	p. 9
Enable new Perl features when you need them	p. 12
Enable strictures to promote better coding	p. 14
Understand what sigils are telling you	p. 17
Know your variable namespaces	p. 19
Know the difference between string and numeric comparisons	p. 21
Know which values are false and test them accordingly	p. 23
Understand conversions between strings and numbers	p. 27
Know the difference between lists and arrays	p. 31
Don't assign undef when you want an empty array	p. 34
Avoid a slice when you want an element	p. 37
Understand context and how it affects operations	p. 41
Use arrays or hashes to group data	p. 45
Handle big numbers with bignum	p. 47
Idiomatic Perl	p. 51
Use $-for elegance and brevity	p. 53
Know Perl's other default arguments	p. 56
Know common shorthand and syntax quirks	p. 60
Avoid excessive punctuation	p. 66
Format lists for easy maintenance	p. 68
Use foreach, map, and grep as appropriate	p. 70
Know the different ways to quote strings	p. 73
Learn the myriad ways of sorting	p. 77
Make work easier with smart matching	p. 84
Use given-when to make a switch statement	p. 86
Use do {} to create inline subroutines	p. 90
Use List: :Util and List: :MoreUtils for easy list manipulation	p. 92
Use autodie to simplify error handling	p. 96
Regular Expressions	p. 99
Know the precedence of regular expression operators	p. 99
Use regular expression captures	p. 103
Use more precise whitespace character classes	p. 110
Use named captures to label matches	p. 114
Use noncapturing parentheses when you need only grouping	p. 116
Watch out for the match variables	p. 117
Avoid greed when parsimony is best	p. 119
Use zero-width assertions to match positions in a string	p. 121
Avoid using regular expressions for simple string operations	p. 125
Make regular expressions readable	p. 129
Avoid unnecessary backtracking	p. 132
Compile regexes only once	p. 137
Pre-compile regular expressions	p. 138
Benchmark your regular expressions	p. 139
Don't reinvent the regex	p. 142
Subroutines	p. 145
Understand the difference between my and local	p. 145
Avoid using @-directly unless you have to	p. 154
Use wantarray to write subroutines returning lists	p. 157
Pass references instead of copies	p. 160
Use hashes to pass named parameters	p. 164
Use prototypes to get special argument parsing	p. 168
Create closures to lock in data	p. 171
Create new subroutines with subroutines	p. 176
Files and Filehandles	p. 179
Don't ignore the file test operators	p. 179
Always use the three-argument open	p. 182
Consider different ways of reading from a stream	p. 183
Open filehandles to and from strings	p. 186
Make flexible output	p. 189
Use File: :Spec or Path: :Class to work with paths	p. 192
Leave most of the data on disk to save memory	p. 195
References	p. 201
Understand references and reference syntax	p. 201
Compare reference types to prototypes	p. 209
Create arrays of arrays with references	p. 211
Don't confuse anonymous arrays with list literals	p. 214
Build C-style structs with anonymous hashes	p. 216
Be careful with circular data structures	p. 218
Use map and grep to manipulate complex data structures	p. 221
CPAN	p. 227
Install CPAN modules without admin privileges	p. 228
Carry a CPAN with you	p. 231
Mitigate the risk of public code	p. 235
Research modules before you install them	p. 239
Ensure that Perl can find your modules	p. 242
Contribute to CPAN	p. 246
Know the commonly used modules	p. 250
Unicode	p. 253
Use Unicode in your source code	p. 254
Tell Perl which encoding to use	p. 257
Specify Unicode characters by code point or name	p. 258
Convert octet strings to character strings	p. 261
Match Unicode characters and properties	p. 265
Work with graphemes instead of characters	p. 269
Be careful with Unicode in your databases	p. 272
Distributions	p. 275
Use Module: :Build as your distribution builder	p. 275
Don't start distributions by hand	p. 278
Choose a good module name	p. 283
Embed your documentation with Pod	p. 287
Limit your distributions to the right platforms	p. 292
Check your Pod	p. 295
Inline code for other languages	p. 298
Use XS for low-level interfaces and speed	p. 301
Testing	p. 307
Use prove for flexible test runs	p. 308
Run tests only when they make sense	p. 311
Use dependency injection to avoid special test logic	p. 314
Don't require more than you need to use in your methods	p. 317
Write programs as modulinos for easy testing	p. 320
Mock objects and interfaces to focus tests	p. 324
Use SQLite to create test databases	p. 330
UseTest: :Class for more structured testing	p. 332
Start testing at the beginning of your project	p. 335
Measure your test coverage	p. 342
Use CPAN Testers as your QA team	p. 346
Set up a continuous build system	p. 348
Warnings	p. 357
Enable warnings to let Perl spot suspicious code	p. 358
Use lexical warnings to selectively turn on or off complaints	p. 361
Use die to generate exceptions	p. 364
Use Carp to get stack traces	p. 366
Handle exceptions properly	p. 370
Track dangerous data with taint checking	p. 372
Start with taint warnings for legacy code	p. 375
Databases	p. 377
Prepare your SQL statements to reuse work and save time	p. 377
Use SQL placeholders for automatic value quoting	p. 382
Bind return columns for faster access to data	p. 384
Reuse database connections	p. 386
Miscellany	p. 391
Compile and install your own Perls	p. 391
Use Perl: :Tidy to beautify code	p. 394
Use Perl Critic	p. 398
Use Log: :Log4perl to record your program's state	p. 403
Know when arrays are modified in a loop	p. 410
Don't use regular expressions for com ma-separated values	p. 412
Use unpack to process columnar data	p. 414
Use pack and unpack for data munging	p. 416
Access the symbol table with typeglobs	p. 423
Initialize with BEGIN; finish with END	p. 425
Use Perl one-liners to create mini programs	p. 428
Perl Resources	p. 435
Map from First to Second Edition	p. 439
Books	p. 435
Websites	p. 436
Blogs and Podcasts	p. 437
Getting Help	p. 437
Index	p. 445
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