Among the many different approaches to "templating" with Perl—such as Embperl, Mason, HTML::Template, and hundreds of other lesser known systems—the Template Toolkit is widely recognized as one of the most versatile. Like other templating systems, the Template Toolkit allows programmers to embed Perl code and custom macros into HTML documents in order to create customized documents on the fly. But unlike the others, the Template Toolkit is as facile at producing HTML as it is at producing XML, PDF, or any other output format. And because it has its own simple templating language, templates can be written and edited by people who don't know Perl. In short, the Template Toolkit combines the best features of its competitors, with ease-of-use and flexibility, resulting in a technology that's fast, powerful and extensible, and ideally suited to the production and maintenance of web content and other dynamic document systems.
In Perl Template Toolkit you'll find detailed coverage of this increasingly popular technology. Written by core members of the technology's development team, the book guides you through the entire process of installing, configuring, using, and extending the Template Toolkit. It begins with a fast-paced but thorough tutorial on building web content with the Template Toolkit, and then walks you through generating and using data files, particularly with XML. It also provides detailed information on the Template Toolkit's modules, libraries, and tools in addition to a complete reference manual.
Topics in the book include:
Is there any sexier topic in software development than software testing? That is, besides game programming, 3D graphics, audio, high-performance clustering, cool websites, et cetera? Okay, so software testing is low on the list. And that's unfortunate, because good software testing can increase your productivity, improve your designs, raise your quality, ease your maintenance burdens, and help to satisfy your customers, coworkers, and managers.
Perl has a strong history of automated tests. A very early release of Perl 1.0 included a comprehensive test suite, and it's only improved from there. Learning how Perl's test tools work and how to put them together to solve all sorts of previously intractable problems can make you a better programmer in general. Besides, it's easy to use the Perl tools described to handle all sorts of testing problems that you may encounter, even in other languages.
Like all titles in O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series, this "all lab, no lecture" book skips the boring prose and focuses instead on a series of exercises that speak to you instead of at you.
Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook will help you dive right in and:
With today's increased workloads and short development cycles, unit tests are more vital to building robust, high-quality software than ever before. Once mastered, these lessons will help you ensure low-level code correctness, reduce software development cycle time, and ease maintenance burdens.
You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source software developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use this book. You just have to want to do your job a little bit better.
Most Perl programmers know about the Perl debugger—the nifty little built-in utility that you can use to fully debug any programs that you write. Inside the interactive debugger environment, you're prompted for commands that let you examine your source code, set breakpoints, dump out function call stacks, change values of variables, and much more. It's so convenient that some programmers run it just to test out Perl constructs as they create a program. But although it's on their radar, not many Perl programmers take the time to master the debugger. That's where the Perl Debugger Pocket Reference comes in.
This little book provides a quick and convenient path to mastery of the Perl debugger and its commands. Written by a core member of the Perl debugger development team, it's an ideal quick reference to debugger commands, as well as a detailed tutorial on how to get started. The Perl Debugger Pocket Reference provides complete coverage in a conveniently small package.
Maybe you write code so clean you never have to look at it twice. Or perhaps you'd rather focus your energies on writing clean code, rather than learning about the debugger. But if you need to learn about the Perl debugger in a hurry, the Perl Debugger Pocket Reference is the book you'll want to have close by. And you can always keep a copy on hand to share with programmers who need it more than you do.
O'Reilly's Pocket References have become a favorite among programmers everywhere. By providing a wealth of important details in a concise, well-organized format, these handy books deliver just what you need to complete the task at hand. When you've reached a sticking point in your work and need to get to a solution quickly, the new Perl Debugger Pocket Reference will get you back on the right track.
If you have a Perl programming question, you'll find the answer quickly in this handy, easy-to-use quick reference. The Perl Pocket Reference condenses and organizes stacks of documentation down to the most essential facts, so you can find what you need in a heartbeat.
Updated for Perl 5.14, the 5th edition provides a summary of Perl syntax rules and a complete list of operators, built-in functions, and other features. It's the perfect companion to O'Reilly's authoritative and in-depth Perl programming books, including Learning Perl, Programming Perl, and the Perl Cookbook..
The fourth edition of our popular Perl pocket reference now covers the latest release--Perl 5.8--with a summary of Perl syntax rules, a complete list of operators, built-in functions, and standard library modules. All with brief, easy-to-find descriptions.
In the days before personal computers, BASIC was the easy programming language to learn, and serious programmers learned FORTRAN or COBOL to do “real work.” Today, many people have discovered that Perl is both a great beginning programming language and one that enables them to write powerful programs with little effort.
If you’re interested in discovering how to program (or how others program), Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, is for you. If you already know something about programming (but not about Perl), this book is also for you. If you’re already an expert programmer, you’re still welcome to read this book; you can just skip the basic stuff (you never know what kind of new tips and tricks you’ll pick up).
This reference guide shows you how to use Perl under many different operating systems, such as UNIX, many flavors of Windows (Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP), and Macintosh OS 9 and OS X; in fact, Perl runs on many more operating systems than these.
Here's a sampling of what Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, has to offer:
The Perl programming language enables you to write fully working computer programs with just a few steps. It’s particularly good at common programming tasks, such as reading and writing text files, but it also excels at reducing the work that programmers have to do. Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, shows you how to do all of that and how to modify programs to your heart’s content. After all, one of the common phrases in the world of Perl programmers is, “There's more than one way to do it.”
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 back and fixing errors caused by syntax and poor style issues." — Jacinta Richardson
"If you care about programming in any language read this book. Even if you don't intend to follow all of the practices, thinking through your style will improve it." — Steven Lembark
"The Perl community's best author is back with another outstanding book. There has never been a comprehensive reference on high quality Perl coding and style until Perl Best Practices. This book fills a large gap in every Perl bookshelf." — Uri Guttman
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:
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
This part algorithm-textbook, part how-to-manual is loaded with valuable information for programmers. It falls somewhere between advanced Perl concepts and the classic computer science text on algorithms; it provides a detailed practical analysis, not a rigorous exposition of algorithmic theory. For this advanced guide, you should understand Perl and programming basics.
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:
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.
Described as the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer, this book is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones. It is written by the bestselling authors of "Learning Pearl" and offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl.
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:
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:
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.
This recommended compendium provides problem resolution techniques and coding options for 19 different topics. From common and easy to obscure and difficult, this cookbook of Perl recipes contains practical wisdom for UNIX and Windows 95 environments. You should note, this is NOT a Perl tutorial, it assumes you have a Perl background.
Supercharge your Perl knowledge with advanced concepts to make coding easier, maintenance simpler, and execution faster. It’s possible with this thoroughly updated edition of Mastering Perl, the third in O’Reilly’s series of landmark Perl tutorials.
This book isn’t a collection of clever tricks, but a way of thinking about Perl programming so you can solve real-life problems of debugging, maintenance, configuration, and other tasks you encounter as a working programmer. If you’re familiar with Programming Perl, this book provides insights into several advanced topics.
Many neophyte programmers now begin their careers by learning the metalanguage, Perl. But the books currently available on Perl assume their readers already understand the basics of writing and designing programs--when in fact they do not. The tutorial teaches programming right along with the particulars of Perl syntax, as well as good style and structure and maintainability of the code.
This book reflects the combined experience of its authors who have taught Perl at Stonehenge Consulting since 1991. Years of classroom testing and experience helped shape the book's pace and scope, and the exercises at the end of each chapter let you practice the concepts while you follow along with the text. Topics in this fifth edition include: Perl data and variable types, Subroutines, File operations, Regular expressions, String manipulation, Lists and sorting, Process management, Smart matching, Third-party modules.
Perl is the language for people who want to get work done. Originally targeted to sysadmins for heavy-duty text processing, Perl is now a full-featured programming language suitable for almost any task on almost any platform-from short fixes on the command line to web applications, bioinformatics, finance, and much more. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but Learning Perl will turn you into a Perl programmer.
About the Author:
Randal Schwartz started Stonehenge Consulting Services in 1985 and built it into the premier Perl training shop. He's written numerous books and magazine columns on Perl over the past two decades
About the Author:
Tom Phoenix is a Perl trainer at Stonehenge Consulting and a frequent contributor to the Perl beginner's list
The most popular introductory Perl language tutorial has been revised to include CGI scripting and updated to Perl 5.004. Introduces the Perl environment then focuses on the syntax and structure of the language itself. Explains scalar data concepts, lists, arrays and control structures. Clarifies hashes, shows how to use functions, regular expressions and pass arguments. This is also a guide through file handles, file tests, formats and fieldholders. Covers topics on file and directory manipulation, process management, data transformation and database access. Concludes with a good introduction to CGI scripting in preparation for advanced Perl topics. Text is well organized and topics are clearly explained. Exercises, questions and solutions are in the publication, along with supplementary material online.
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:
The definitive Perl 5 reference and user's guide, from the creator of Perl. An extensive overview is followed by details of syntax, terms, operators, pattern matching, formats, variables, and functions. Discusses references and nested data structures, packages, modules, object classes, social engineering (cooperation with other processes and languages), and, of course, the Standard Perl Library. For programmers unsure of their scripting prowess, we suggest two good companion volumes for this reference: Perl 5 Interactive Course by Orwant and Perl 5 How-To by Glover et al. The first is a comprehensive Perl tutorial, complete with your ezone mentor on the Web. The second is a practical guide, complete with problem solving scripting examples and excellent debugging and diagnostic procedures for this Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (aka Perl).
Graphics programmers aren't the only ones who need to be proficient with graphics. Web and applications programmers know that a dull web page can be quickly transformed into one that's interesting and lively with the use of well-planned graphics. And fortunately, you don't need the skills of a fulltime graphics programmer to use graphics effectively. From access counters and log report graphs to scientific plots and on-the-fly animated GIFs, graphics scripting is within the grasp of most web programmers. Using open source software, like Perl, you have the power to dynamically generate graphics based on user input and activity, easily manipulate graphics content, and optimize graphics for compression and quality.
Geared toward Perl users and webmasters, Perl Graphics Programming focuses on open-source scripting programs that manipulate graphics files for use on the Web. The book demystifies the manipulation of graphics formats for newcomers to the Web with a practical, resource-like approach. With this book you'll learn to:
Perl programmers naturally turn to Perl to tackle whatever challenge they have at hand, and graphics programming is no exception. Perl Graphics Programming provides all the tools you need to begin programming and designing graphics for the Web immediately. This book will change how you think about generating and manipulating graphics for the Web.
This insightful volume focuses on scripting programmers to manipulate graphics for the Web. The book documents new ways to use Perl modules for generating graphics.
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:
Whether 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.
Like all of the books in O'Reilly's "Hacks" series, this text contains short lessons and practical, task-based exercises that teach essential skills for Perl, the ultimate versatile scripting language.
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