preface
1. Introduction
Questions and Answers
Is This the Right Book for You?
Why Are There So Many Footnotes?
What About the Exercises and Their Answers?
What Do Those Numbers Mean at the Start''of the Exercise?
What If I''m a Perl Course Instructor?
What Does "Perl" Stand For?
Why Did Larry Create Perl?
Why Didn''t Larry Just Use Some Other Language?
Is Perl Easy or Hard?
How Did Perl Get to Be So Popular?
What''s Happening with Perl Now?
What''s Perl Really Good For?
What Is Perl Not Good For?
How Can I Get Perl?
What Is CPAN?
How Can I Get Support for Perl?
Are There Any Other Kinds of Support?
What If I Find a Bug in Perl?
How Do I Make a Perl Program?
A Simple Program
What''s Inside That Program?
How Do I Compile My Perl Program?
A Whirlwind Tour of Perl
Exercises
2. Scalar Data
3. Lists and Arrays
4. Subroutines
5. Input and Output
6. Hashes
7. In The World of Regular Expressions
8. Matching With Regular Expressions
9. Processing Text With Regular Expressions
10. More Control Structures
11. Peri Modules
12. File Tests
13. Directory Operations
14. Strings and Sorting
15. Smart Matching and Given-when
16. Process Management
17. Some Advanced Peri Techniques
index