Beginning Perl Lesson 1

Perl documentation

Online

Terminal window

In the terminal window, use the perldoc command to view the Perl documentation. Start with the command:

> perldoc perl

The documentation is divided into many sections. For Perl 5.8.7, these sections are:

Overview
Section	Description
perl	Perl overview
perlintro	Perl introduction for beginners
perltoc	Perl documentation table of contents

Tutorials
Section	Description
perlreftut	Perl references short introduction
perldsc	Perl data structures intro
perllol	Perl data structures: arrays of arrays
perlrequick	Perl regular expressions quick start
perlretut	Perl regular expressions tutorial
perlboot	Perl OO tutorial for beginners
perltoot	Perl OO tutorial, part 1
perltooc	Perl OO tutorial, part 2
perlbot	Perl OO tricks and examples
perlstyle	Perl style guide
perlcheat	Perl cheat sheet
perltrap	Perl traps for the unwary
perldebtut	Perl debugging tutorial
perlfaq	Perl frequently asked questions
perlfaq1	General Questions About Perl
perlfaq2	Obtaining and Learning about Perl
perlfaq3	Programming Tools
perlfaq4	Data Manipulation
perlfaq5	Files and Formats
perlfaq6	Regexes
perlfaq7	Perl Language Issues
perlfaq8	System Interaction
perlfaq9	Networking

Reference Manual
Section	Description
perlsyn	Perl syntax
perldata	Perl data structures
perlop	Perl operators and precedence
perlsub	Perl subroutines
perlfunc	Perl built-in functions
perlopentut	Perl open() tutorial
perlpacktut	Perl pack() and unpack() tutorial
perlpod	Perl plain old documentation
perlpodspec	Perl plain old documentation format specification
perlrun	Perl execution and options
perldiag	Perl diagnostic messages
perllexwarn	Perl warnings and their control
perldebug	Perl debugging
perlvar	Perl predefined variables
perlre	Perl regular expressions, the rest of the story
perlreref	Perl regular expressions quick reference
perlref	Perl references, the rest of the story
perlform	Perl formats
perlobj	Perl objects
perltie	Perl objects hidden behind simple variables
perldbmfilter	Perl DBM filters
perlipc	Perl interprocess communication
perlfork	Perl fork() information
perlnumber	Perl number semantics
perlthrtut	Perl threads tutorial
perlothrtut	Old Perl threads tutorial
perlport	Perl portability guide
perllocale	Perl locale support
perluniintro	Perl Unicode introduction
perlunicode	Perl Unicode support
perlebcdic	Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
perlsec	Perl security
perlmod	Perl modules: how they work
perlmodlib	Perl modules: how to write and use
perlmodstyle	Perl modules: how to write modules with style
perlmodinstall	Perl modules: how to install from CPAN
perlnewmod	Perl modules: preparing a new module for distribution
perlutil	utilities packaged with the Perl distribution
perlcompile	Perl compiler suite intro
perlfilter	Perl source filters

Internals and C Language Interface
Section	Description
perlembed	Perl ways to embed perl in your C or C++ application
perldebguts	Perl debugging guts and tips
perlxstut	Perl XS tutorial
perlxs	Perl XS application programming interface
perlclib	Internal replacements for standard C library functions
perlguts	Perl internal functions for those doing extensions
perlcall	Perl calling conventions from C
perlapi	Perl API listing (autogenerated)
perlintern	Perl internal functions (autogenerated)
perliol	C API for Perl’s implementation of IO in Layers
perlapio	Perl internal IO abstraction interface
perlhack	Perl hackers guide

Miscellaneous
Section	Description
perlbook	Perl book information
perltodo	Perl things to do
perldoc	Look up Perl documentation in Pod format
perlhist	Perl history records
perldelta	Perl changes since previous version
perlartistic	Perl Artistic License
perlgpl	GNU General Public License

Perl books

There are a lot of good books about Perl. Here is a list of books I recommend in the order that you should acquire them. The Perl novice should buy the first two books immediately.

Perl Books
Cover	Publisher’s information	Comments
	Learning Perl, 4th Edition by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy July 2005 ISBN 0-596-10105-8 O’Reilly Media, Inc.	I used the third edition book as a reference when I wrote this tutorial. This is a good book for the Perl novice.
	Perl Cookbook, 2nd Edition by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington August 2003 ISBN 0-596-00313-7 O’Reilly Media, Inc.	Your Perl problem has probably been solved before, and this is the first place to look for a solution. This is an essential resource.
	Programming Perl, 3rd Edition by Tom Christiansen, Larry Wall, and Jon Orwant July 2000 ISBN 0-596-00027-8 O’Reilly Media, Inc.	This is the ultimate authority on Perl. I find this book useful as a reference, but you won’t be able to learn how to code in Perl by reading this book. Some of the witty comments in previous editions have disappeared from the 3rd edition.
	Intermediate Perl by Randal L. Schwartz, brian d foy, and Tom Phoenix March 2006 ISBN 0-596-10206-2 OReilly Media, Inc.	Intermediate Perl is the new edition of what was formerly named Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules, by Randal L. Schwartz. This book picks up where Learning Perl, 4th Edition leaves off, covering `eval`, modules, references, complex data structures, subroutine references, filehandle references, objects, writing a distribution, and testing.
	CGI Programming with Perl, 2nd Edition by Shishir Gundavaram, Scott Guelich, and Gunther Birznieks July 2000 ISBN 1-56592-419-3 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.	This book is essential for anyone using Perl for CGI programming.
	Object Oriented Perl by Damian Conway August 1999 ISBN 1-884777-79-1 Manning	This is my favorite Perl book, and this book made it easy for me to switch to object oriented Perl, which I use exclusively these days. You will not need all the information in this book, but all of the information is useful. Chapter 2, a Perl refresher, clearly explains many Perl obscurities, and this chapter is worth the price of the entire book. This book is now out of print, but it’s available from the Manning Publications Co. web site as a PDF ebook.
	Programming the Perl DBI by Alligator Descartes and Tim Bunce February 2000 ISBN 1-56592-699-4 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.	This is the essential guide to using Perl to interact with databases, Excel spreadsheets, DBM files, etc. A weakness of the book is that there aren’t enough examples.
	Advanced Perl Programming, 2nd Edition by Simon Cozens June 2005 ISBN 0-596-00456-7 O’Reilly Media, Inc.	This book covers advanced Perl techniques in detail. It is appropriate for someone who has several years’ experience with Perl and is creating production-quality software. I mention it here as a book for you to keep in mind as you develop your Perl skills.