| 1 | =head1 NAME |
| 2 | |
| 3 | perlintro -- a brief introduction and overview of Perl |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 6 | |
| 7 | This document is intended to give you a quick overview of the Perl |
| 8 | programming language, along with pointers to further documentation. It |
| 9 | is intended as a "bootstrap" guide for those who are new to the |
| 10 | language, and provides just enough information for you to be able to |
| 11 | read other peoples' Perl and understand roughly what it's doing, or |
| 12 | write your own simple scripts. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | This introductory document does not aim to be complete. It does not |
| 15 | even aim to be entirely accurate. In some cases perfection has been |
| 16 | sacrificed in the goal of getting the general idea across. You are |
| 17 | I<strongly> advised to follow this introduction with more information |
| 18 | from the full Perl manual, the table of contents to which can be found |
| 19 | in L<perltoc>. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Throughout this document you'll see references to other parts of the |
| 22 | Perl documentation. You can read that documentation using the C<perldoc> |
| 23 | command or whatever method you're using to read this document. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | =head2 What is Perl? |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for |
| 28 | text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including |
| 29 | system administration, web development, network programming, GUI |
| 30 | development, and more. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, |
| 33 | complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). Its major |
| 34 | features are that it's easy to use, supports both procedural and |
| 35 | object-oriented (OO) programming, has powerful built-in support for text |
| 36 | processing, and has one of the world's most impressive collections of |
| 37 | third-party modules. |
| 38 | |
| 39 | Different definitions of Perl are given in L<perl>, L<perlfaq1> and |
| 40 | no doubt other places. From this we can determine that Perl is different |
| 41 | things to different people, but that lots of people think it's at least |
| 42 | worth writing about. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | =head2 Running Perl programs |
| 45 | |
| 46 | To run a Perl program from the Unix command line: |
| 47 | |
| 48 | perl progname.pl |
| 49 | |
| 50 | Alternatively, put this as the first line of your script: |
| 51 | |
| 52 | #!/usr/bin/env perl |
| 53 | |
| 54 | ... and run the script as C</path/to/script.pl>. Of course, it'll need |
| 55 | to be executable first, so C<chmod 755 script.pl> (under Unix). |
| 56 | |
| 57 | For more information, including instructions for other platforms such as |
| 58 | Windows and Mac OS, read L<perlrun>. |
| 59 | |
| 60 | =head2 Basic syntax overview |
| 61 | |
| 62 | A Perl script or program consists of one or more statements. These |
| 63 | statements are simply written in the script in a straightforward |
| 64 | fashion. There is no need to have a C<main()> function or anything of |
| 65 | that kind. |
| 66 | |
| 67 | Perl statements end in a semi-colon: |
| 68 | |
| 69 | print "Hello, world"; |
| 70 | |
| 71 | Comments start with a hash symbol and run to the end of the line |
| 72 | |
| 73 | # This is a comment |
| 74 | |
| 75 | Whitespace is irrelevant: |
| 76 | |
| 77 | print |
| 78 | "Hello, world" |
| 79 | ; |
| 80 | |
| 81 | ... except inside quoted strings: |
| 82 | |
| 83 | # this would print with a linebreak in the middle |
| 84 | print "Hello |
| 85 | world"; |
| 86 | |
| 87 | Double quotes or single quotes may be used around literal strings: |
| 88 | |
| 89 | print "Hello, world"; |
| 90 | print 'Hello, world'; |
| 91 | |
| 92 | However, only double quotes "interpolate" variables and special |
| 93 | characters such as newlines (C<\n>): |
| 94 | |
| 95 | print "Hello, $name\n"; # works fine |
| 96 | print 'Hello, $name\n'; # prints $name\n literally |
| 97 | |
| 98 | Numbers don't need quotes around them: |
| 99 | |
| 100 | print 42; |
| 101 | |
| 102 | You can use parentheses for functions' arguments or omit them |
| 103 | according to your personal taste. They are only required |
| 104 | occasionally to clarify issues of precedence. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | print("Hello, world\n"); |
| 107 | print "Hello, world\n"; |
| 108 | |
| 109 | More detailed information about Perl syntax can be found in L<perlsyn>. |
| 110 | |
| 111 | =head2 Perl variable types |
| 112 | |
| 113 | Perl has three main variable types: scalars, arrays, and hashes. |
| 114 | |
| 115 | =over 4 |
| 116 | |
| 117 | =item Scalars |
| 118 | |
| 119 | A scalar represents a single value: |
| 120 | |
| 121 | my $animal = "camel"; |
| 122 | my $answer = 42; |
| 123 | |
| 124 | Scalar values can be strings, integers or floating point numbers, and Perl |
| 125 | will automatically convert between them as required. There is no need |
| 126 | to pre-declare your variable types. |
| 127 | |
| 128 | Scalar values can be used in various ways: |
| 129 | |
| 130 | print $animal; |
| 131 | print "The animal is $animal\n"; |
| 132 | print "The square of $answer is ", $answer * $answer, "\n"; |
| 133 | |
| 134 | There are a number of "magic" scalars with names that look like |
| 135 | punctuation or line noise. These special variables are used for all |
| 136 | kinds of purposes, and are documented in L<perlvar>. The only one you |
| 137 | need to know about for now is C<$_> which is the "default variable". |
| 138 | It's used as the default argument to a number of functions in Perl, and |
| 139 | it's set implicitly by certain looping constructs. |
| 140 | |
| 141 | print; # prints contents of $_ by default |
| 142 | |
| 143 | =item Arrays |
| 144 | |
| 145 | An array represents a list of values: |
| 146 | |
| 147 | my @animals = ("camel", "llama", "owl"); |
| 148 | my @numbers = (23, 42, 69); |
| 149 | my @mixed = ("camel", 42, 1.23); |
| 150 | |
| 151 | Arrays are zero-indexed. Here's how you get at elements in an array: |
| 152 | |
| 153 | print $animals[0]; # prints "camel" |
| 154 | print $animals[1]; # prints "llama" |
| 155 | |
| 156 | The special variable C<$#array> tells you the index of the last element |
| 157 | of an array: |
| 158 | |
| 159 | print $mixed[$#mixed]; # last element, prints 1.23 |
| 160 | |
| 161 | You might be tempted to use C<$#array + 1> to tell you how many items there |
| 162 | are in an array. Don't bother. As it happens, using C<@array> where Perl |
| 163 | expects to find a scalar value ("in scalar context") will give you the number |
| 164 | of elements in the array: |
| 165 | |
| 166 | if (@animals < 5) { ... } |
| 167 | |
| 168 | The elements we're getting from the array start with a C<$> because |
| 169 | we're getting just a single value out of the array -- you ask for a scalar, |
| 170 | you get a scalar. |
| 171 | |
| 172 | To get multiple values from an array: |
| 173 | |
| 174 | @animals[0,1]; # gives ("camel", "llama"); |
| 175 | @animals[0..2]; # gives ("camel", "llama", "owl"); |
| 176 | @animals[1..$#animals]; # gives all except the first element |
| 177 | |
| 178 | This is called an "array slice". |
| 179 | |
| 180 | You can do various useful things to lists: |
| 181 | |
| 182 | my @sorted = sort @animals; |
| 183 | my @backwards = reverse @numbers; |
| 184 | |
| 185 | There are a couple of special arrays too, such as C<@ARGV> (the command |
| 186 | line arguments to your script) and C<@_> (the arguments passed to a |
| 187 | subroutine). These are documented in L<perlvar>. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | =item Hashes |
| 190 | |
| 191 | A hash represents a set of key/value pairs: |
| 192 | |
| 193 | my %fruit_color = ("apple", "red", "banana", "yellow"); |
| 194 | |
| 195 | You can use whitespace and the C<< => >> operator to lay them out more |
| 196 | nicely: |
| 197 | |
| 198 | my %fruit_color = ( |
| 199 | apple => "red", |
| 200 | banana => "yellow", |
| 201 | ); |
| 202 | |
| 203 | To get at hash elements: |
| 204 | |
| 205 | $fruit_color{"apple"}; # gives "red" |
| 206 | |
| 207 | You can get at lists of keys and values with C<keys()> and |
| 208 | C<values()>. |
| 209 | |
| 210 | my @fruits = keys %fruit_colors; |
| 211 | my @colors = values %fruit_colors; |
| 212 | |
| 213 | Hashes have no particular internal order, though you can sort the keys |
| 214 | and loop through them. |
| 215 | |
| 216 | Just like special scalars and arrays, there are also special hashes. |
| 217 | The most well known of these is C<%ENV> which contains environment |
| 218 | variables. Read all about it (and other special variables) in |
| 219 | L<perlvar>. |
| 220 | |
| 221 | =back |
| 222 | |
| 223 | Scalars, arrays and hashes are documented more fully in L<perldata>. |
| 224 | |
| 225 | More complex data types can be constructed using references, which allow |
| 226 | you to build lists and hashes within lists and hashes. |
| 227 | |
| 228 | A reference is a scalar value and can refer to any other Perl data |
| 229 | type. So by storing a reference as the value of an array or hash |
| 230 | element, you can easily create lists and hashes within lists and |
| 231 | hashes. The following example shows a 2 level hash of hash |
| 232 | structure using anonymous hash references. |
| 233 | |
| 234 | my $variables = { |
| 235 | scalar => { |
| 236 | description => "single item", |
| 237 | sigil => '$', |
| 238 | }, |
| 239 | array => { |
| 240 | description => "ordered list of items", |
| 241 | sigil => '@', |
| 242 | }, |
| 243 | hash => { |
| 244 | description => "key/value pairs", |
| 245 | sigil => '%', |
| 246 | }, |
| 247 | }; |
| 248 | |
| 249 | print "Scalars begin with a $variables->{'scalar'}->{'sigil'}\n"; |
| 250 | |
| 251 | Exhaustive information on the topic of references can be found in |
| 252 | L<perlreftut>, L<perllol>, L<perlref> and L<perldsc>. |
| 253 | |
| 254 | =head2 Variable scoping |
| 255 | |
| 256 | Throughout the previous section all the examples have used the syntax: |
| 257 | |
| 258 | my $var = "value"; |
| 259 | |
| 260 | The C<my> is actually not required; you could just use: |
| 261 | |
| 262 | $var = "value"; |
| 263 | |
| 264 | However, the above usage will create global variables throughout your |
| 265 | program, which is bad programming practice. C<my> creates lexically |
| 266 | scoped variables instead. The variables are scoped to the block |
| 267 | (i.e. a bunch of statements surrounded by curly-braces) in which they |
| 268 | are defined. |
| 269 | |
| 270 | my $a = "foo"; |
| 271 | if ($some_condition) { |
| 272 | my $b = "bar"; |
| 273 | print $a; # prints "foo" |
| 274 | print $b; # prints "bar" |
| 275 | } |
| 276 | print $a; # prints "foo" |
| 277 | print $b; # prints nothing; $b has fallen out of scope |
| 278 | |
| 279 | Using C<my> in combination with a C<use strict;> at the top of |
| 280 | your Perl scripts means that the interpreter will pick up certain common |
| 281 | programming errors. For instance, in the example above, the final |
| 282 | C<print $b> would cause a compile-time error and prevent you from |
| 283 | running the program. Using C<strict> is highly recommended. |
| 284 | |
| 285 | =head2 Conditional and looping constructs |
| 286 | |
| 287 | Perl has most of the usual conditional and looping constructs except for |
| 288 | case/switch (but if you really want it, there is a Switch module in Perl |
| 289 | 5.8 and newer, and on CPAN. See the section on modules, below, for more |
| 290 | information about modules and CPAN). |
| 291 | |
| 292 | The conditions can be any Perl expression. See the list of operators in |
| 293 | the next section for information on comparison and boolean logic operators, |
| 294 | which are commonly used in conditional statements. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | =over 4 |
| 297 | |
| 298 | =item if |
| 299 | |
| 300 | if ( condition ) { |
| 301 | ... |
| 302 | } elsif ( other condition ) { |
| 303 | ... |
| 304 | } else { |
| 305 | ... |
| 306 | } |
| 307 | |
| 308 | There's also a negated version of it: |
| 309 | |
| 310 | unless ( condition ) { |
| 311 | ... |
| 312 | } |
| 313 | |
| 314 | This is provided as a more readable version of C<if (!I<condition>)>. |
| 315 | |
| 316 | Note that the braces are required in Perl, even if you've only got one |
| 317 | line in the block. However, there is a clever way of making your one-line |
| 318 | conditional blocks more English like: |
| 319 | |
| 320 | # the traditional way |
| 321 | if ($zippy) { |
| 322 | print "Yow!"; |
| 323 | } |
| 324 | |
| 325 | # the Perlish post-condition way |
| 326 | print "Yow!" if $zippy; |
| 327 | print "We have no bananas" unless $bananas; |
| 328 | |
| 329 | =item while |
| 330 | |
| 331 | while ( condition ) { |
| 332 | ... |
| 333 | } |
| 334 | |
| 335 | There's also a negated version, for the same reason we have C<unless>: |
| 336 | |
| 337 | until ( condition ) { |
| 338 | ... |
| 339 | } |
| 340 | |
| 341 | You can also use C<while> in a post-condition: |
| 342 | |
| 343 | print "LA LA LA\n" while 1; # loops forever |
| 344 | |
| 345 | =item for |
| 346 | |
| 347 | Exactly like C: |
| 348 | |
| 349 | for ($i=0; $i <= $max; $i++) { |
| 350 | ... |
| 351 | } |
| 352 | |
| 353 | The C style for loop is rarely needed in Perl since Perl provides |
| 354 | the more friendly list scanning C<foreach> loop. |
| 355 | |
| 356 | =item foreach |
| 357 | |
| 358 | foreach (@array) { |
| 359 | print "This element is $_\n"; |
| 360 | } |
| 361 | |
| 362 | # you don't have to use the default $_ either... |
| 363 | foreach my $key (keys %hash) { |
| 364 | print "The value of $key is $hash{$key}\n"; |
| 365 | } |
| 366 | |
| 367 | =back |
| 368 | |
| 369 | For more detail on looping constructs (and some that weren't mentioned in |
| 370 | this overview) see L<perlsyn>. |
| 371 | |
| 372 | =head2 Builtin operators and functions |
| 373 | |
| 374 | Perl comes with a wide selection of builtin functions. Some of the ones |
| 375 | we've already seen include C<print>, C<sort> and C<reverse>. A list of |
| 376 | them is given at the start of L<perlfunc> and you can easily read |
| 377 | about any given function by using C<perldoc -f I<functionname>>. |
| 378 | |
| 379 | Perl operators are documented in full in L<perlop>, but here are a few |
| 380 | of the most common ones: |
| 381 | |
| 382 | =over 4 |
| 383 | |
| 384 | =item Arithmetic |
| 385 | |
| 386 | + addition |
| 387 | - subtraction |
| 388 | * multiplication |
| 389 | / division |
| 390 | |
| 391 | =item Numeric comparison |
| 392 | |
| 393 | == equality |
| 394 | != inequality |
| 395 | < less than |
| 396 | > greater than |
| 397 | <= less than or equal |
| 398 | >= greater than or equal |
| 399 | |
| 400 | =item String comparison |
| 401 | |
| 402 | eq equality |
| 403 | ne inequality |
| 404 | lt less than |
| 405 | gt greater than |
| 406 | le less than or equal |
| 407 | ge greater than or equal |
| 408 | |
| 409 | (Why do we have separate numeric and string comparisons? Because we don't |
| 410 | have special variable types, and Perl needs to know whether to sort |
| 411 | numerically (where 99 is less than 100) or alphabetically (where 100 comes |
| 412 | before 99). |
| 413 | |
| 414 | =item Boolean logic |
| 415 | |
| 416 | && and |
| 417 | || or |
| 418 | ! not |
| 419 | |
| 420 | (C<and>, C<or> and C<not> aren't just in the above table as descriptions |
| 421 | of the operators -- they're also supported as operators in their own |
| 422 | right. They're more readable than the C-style operators, but have |
| 423 | different precedence to C<&&> and friends. Check L<perlop> for more |
| 424 | detail.) |
| 425 | |
| 426 | =item Miscellaneous |
| 427 | |
| 428 | = assignment |
| 429 | . string concatenation |
| 430 | x string multiplication |
| 431 | .. range operator (creates a list of numbers) |
| 432 | |
| 433 | =back |
| 434 | |
| 435 | Many operators can be combined with a C<=> as follows: |
| 436 | |
| 437 | $a += 1; # same as $a = $a + 1 |
| 438 | $a -= 1; # same as $a = $a - 1 |
| 439 | $a .= "\n"; # same as $a = $a . "\n"; |
| 440 | |
| 441 | =head2 Files and I/O |
| 442 | |
| 443 | You can open a file for input or output using the C<open()> function. |
| 444 | It's documented in extravagant detail in L<perlfunc> and L<perlopentut>, |
| 445 | but in short: |
| 446 | |
| 447 | open(INFILE, "input.txt") or die "Can't open input.txt: $!"; |
| 448 | open(OUTFILE, ">output.txt") or die "Can't open output.txt: $!"; |
| 449 | open(LOGFILE, ">>my.log") or die "Can't open logfile: $!"; |
| 450 | |
| 451 | You can read from an open filehandle using the C<< <> >> operator. In |
| 452 | scalar context it reads a single line from the filehandle, and in list |
| 453 | context it reads the whole file in, assigning each line to an element of |
| 454 | the list: |
| 455 | |
| 456 | my $line = <INFILE>; |
| 457 | my @lines = <INFILE>; |
| 458 | |
| 459 | Reading in the whole file at one time is called slurping. It can |
| 460 | be useful but it may be a memory hog. Most text file processing |
| 461 | can be done a line at a time with Perl's looping constructs. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | The C<< <> >> operator is most often seen in a C<while> loop: |
| 464 | |
| 465 | while (<INFILE>) { # assigns each line in turn to $_ |
| 466 | print "Just read in this line: $_"; |
| 467 | } |
| 468 | |
| 469 | We've already seen how to print to standard output using C<print()>. |
| 470 | However, C<print()> can also take an optional first argument specifying |
| 471 | which filehandle to print to: |
| 472 | |
| 473 | print STDERR "This is your final warning.\n"; |
| 474 | print OUTFILE $record; |
| 475 | print LOGFILE $logmessage; |
| 476 | |
| 477 | When you're done with your filehandles, you should C<close()> them |
| 478 | (though to be honest, Perl will clean up after you if you forget): |
| 479 | |
| 480 | close INFILE; |
| 481 | |
| 482 | =head2 Regular expressions |
| 483 | |
| 484 | Perl's regular expression support is both broad and deep, and is the |
| 485 | subject of lengthy documentation in L<perlrequick>, L<perlretut>, and |
| 486 | elsewhere. However, in short: |
| 487 | |
| 488 | =over 4 |
| 489 | |
| 490 | =item Simple matching |
| 491 | |
| 492 | if (/foo/) { ... } # true if $_ contains "foo" |
| 493 | if ($a =~ /foo/) { ... } # true if $a contains "foo" |
| 494 | |
| 495 | The C<//> matching operator is documented in L<perlop>. It operates on |
| 496 | C<$_> by default, or can be bound to another variable using the C<=~> |
| 497 | binding operator (also documented in L<perlop>). |
| 498 | |
| 499 | =item Simple substitution |
| 500 | |
| 501 | s/foo/bar/; # replaces foo with bar in $_ |
| 502 | $a =~ s/foo/bar/; # replaces foo with bar in $a |
| 503 | $a =~ s/foo/bar/g; # replaces ALL INSTANCES of foo with bar in $a |
| 504 | |
| 505 | The C<s///> substitution operator is documented in L<perlop>. |
| 506 | |
| 507 | =item More complex regular expressions |
| 508 | |
| 509 | You don't just have to match on fixed strings. In fact, you can match |
| 510 | on just about anything you could dream of by using more complex regular |
| 511 | expressions. These are documented at great length in L<perlre>, but for |
| 512 | the meantime, here's a quick cheat sheet: |
| 513 | |
| 514 | . a single character |
| 515 | \s a whitespace character (space, tab, newline) |
| 516 | \S non-whitespace character |
| 517 | \d a digit (0-9) |
| 518 | \D a non-digit |
| 519 | \w a word character (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _) |
| 520 | \W a non-word character |
| 521 | [aeiou] matches a single character in the given set |
| 522 | [^aeiou] matches a single character outside the given set |
| 523 | (foo|bar|baz) matches any of the alternatives specified |
| 524 | |
| 525 | ^ start of string |
| 526 | $ end of string |
| 527 | |
| 528 | Quantifiers can be used to specify how many of the previous thing you |
| 529 | want to match on, where "thing" means either a literal character, one |
| 530 | of the metacharacters listed above, or a group of characters or |
| 531 | metacharacters in parentheses. |
| 532 | |
| 533 | * zero or more of the previous thing |
| 534 | + one or more of the previous thing |
| 535 | ? zero or one of the previous thing |
| 536 | {3} matches exactly 3 of the previous thing |
| 537 | {3,6} matches between 3 and 6 of the previous thing |
| 538 | {3,} matches 3 or more of the previous thing |
| 539 | |
| 540 | Some brief examples: |
| 541 | |
| 542 | /^\d+/ string starts with one or more digits |
| 543 | /^$/ nothing in the string (start and end are adjacent) |
| 544 | /(\d\s){3}/ a three digits, each followed by a whitespace |
| 545 | character (eg "3 4 5 ") |
| 546 | /(a.)+/ matches a string in which every odd-numbered letter |
| 547 | is a (eg "abacadaf") |
| 548 | |
| 549 | # This loop reads from STDIN, and prints non-blank lines: |
| 550 | while (<>) { |
| 551 | next if /^$/; |
| 552 | print; |
| 553 | } |
| 554 | |
| 555 | =item Parentheses for capturing |
| 556 | |
| 557 | As well as grouping, parentheses serve a second purpose. They can be |
| 558 | used to capture the results of parts of the regexp match for later use. |
| 559 | The results end up in C<$1>, C<$2> and so on. |
| 560 | |
| 561 | # a cheap and nasty way to break an email address up into parts |
| 562 | |
| 563 | if ($email =~ /([^@]+)@(.+)/) { |
| 564 | print "Username is $1\n"; |
| 565 | print "Hostname is $2\n"; |
| 566 | } |
| 567 | |
| 568 | =item Other regexp features |
| 569 | |
| 570 | Perl regexps also support backreferences, lookaheads, and all kinds of |
| 571 | other complex details. Read all about them in L<perlrequick>, |
| 572 | L<perlretut>, and L<perlre>. |
| 573 | |
| 574 | =back |
| 575 | |
| 576 | =head2 Writing subroutines |
| 577 | |
| 578 | Writing subroutines is easy: |
| 579 | |
| 580 | sub log { |
| 581 | my $logmessage = shift; |
| 582 | print LOGFILE $logmessage; |
| 583 | } |
| 584 | |
| 585 | What's that C<shift>? Well, the arguments to a subroutine are available |
| 586 | to us as a special array called C<@_> (see L<perlvar> for more on that). |
| 587 | The default argument to the C<shift> function just happens to be C<@_>. |
| 588 | So C<my $logmessage = shift;> shifts the first item off the list of |
| 589 | arguments and assigns it to C<$logmessage>. |
| 590 | |
| 591 | We can manipulate C<@_> in other ways too: |
| 592 | |
| 593 | my ($logmessage, $priority) = @_; # common |
| 594 | my $logmessage = $_[0]; # uncommon, and ugly |
| 595 | |
| 596 | Subroutines can also return values: |
| 597 | |
| 598 | sub square { |
| 599 | my $num = shift; |
| 600 | my $result = $num * $num; |
| 601 | return $result; |
| 602 | } |
| 603 | |
| 604 | For more information on writing subroutines, see L<perlsub>. |
| 605 | |
| 606 | =head2 OO Perl |
| 607 | |
| 608 | OO Perl is relatively simple and is implemented using references which |
| 609 | know what sort of object they are based on Perl's concept of packages. |
| 610 | However, OO Perl is largely beyond the scope of this document. |
| 611 | Read L<perlboot>, L<perltoot>, L<perltooc> and L<perlobj>. |
| 612 | |
| 613 | As a beginning Perl programmer, your most common use of OO Perl will be |
| 614 | in using third-party modules, which are documented below. |
| 615 | |
| 616 | =head2 Using Perl modules |
| 617 | |
| 618 | Perl modules provide a range of features to help you avoid reinventing |
| 619 | the wheel, and can be downloaded from CPAN ( http://www.cpan.org/ ). A |
| 620 | number of popular modules are included with the Perl distribution |
| 621 | itself. |
| 622 | |
| 623 | Categories of modules range from text manipulation to network protocols |
| 624 | to database integration to graphics. A categorized list of modules is |
| 625 | also available from CPAN. |
| 626 | |
| 627 | To learn how to install modules you download from CPAN, read |
| 628 | L<perlmodinstall> |
| 629 | |
| 630 | To learn how to use a particular module, use C<perldoc I<Module::Name>>. |
| 631 | Typically you will want to C<use I<Module::Name>>, which will then give |
| 632 | you access to exported functions or an OO interface to the module. |
| 633 | |
| 634 | L<perlfaq> contains questions and answers related to many common |
| 635 | tasks, and often provides suggestions for good CPAN modules to use. |
| 636 | |
| 637 | L<perlmod> describes Perl modules in general. L<perlmodlib> lists the |
| 638 | modules which came with your Perl installation. |
| 639 | |
| 640 | If you feel the urge to write Perl modules, L<perlnewmod> will give you |
| 641 | good advice. |
| 642 | |
| 643 | =head1 AUTHOR |
| 644 | |
| 645 | Kirrily "Skud" Robert <skud@cpan.org> |