Perl in a Nutshell

A Desktop Quick Reference

Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, Nathan Patwardhan

Publisher: O'Reilly, 1999, 654 pages

ISBN: 1-56592-286-7

Keywords: Perl

Last modified: April 14, 2022, 6:18 p.m.

Synopsis

Per in a Nutshell is a comprehensive reference guide to the Perl programming language. This book covers all the core features of the language. It ranges widely through the Perl programmer's universe, gathering together in convenient form a wealth of information about Perl itself and its application to CGI scripts, network programming, database interaction, and graphical user interfaces. It also gives detailed coverage about using Perl within a Win32 environment.

This assembles more information about the language in one place than any other reference work. Here are just some of the topics in the book:

Basic Perl language reference
Quick reference to built-in functions and standard modules
Perl and CGI: CGI.pm, mod_perl
DBI, the database-independent API for Perl
Sockets programming in Perl
LWP, the library for World Wide Web programming in Perl
Network programming with the Net modules
Perl/Tk, the Tk extension to Perl for graphical interfaces
Modules for interfacing with Win32 systems

Part I: Getting Started

Introduction to Perl

What's Perl Good For?
Perl Development
Which Platforms Support Perl?
Perl Resources

Installing Perl

The CPAN Architecture
How Is CPAN Organised?
Installing Perl
Getting and Installing Modules
Documentation

Part II: Language Basics

The Perl Interpreter

Command Processing
Command-Line Options
Environment Variables
The Perl Compiler
Threads

The Perl Language

Program Structure
Data Types and variables
Statements
Special Variables
Operators
Regular Expressions
Subroutines
References and Complex Data Structures
Filehandles
Formats
Pod

Function reference

Perl Functions by Category
Perl Functions in Alphabetical Order

Debugging

The Perl Debugger
Debugger Commands
Using the Debugger
Customizing the Debugger
The Perl Profiler
The perlbug Program

Part III: Modules

Packages, Modules, and Objects

Namespaces and Packages
Modules
Object-Oriented Perl
Object Syntax

Standard Modules

AnyDBM_File
attrs
AutoLoader
AutoSplit
autouse
B
B::Asmdata
B::Assembler
B::Bblock
B::Bytecode
B::C
B::CC
B::Debug
B::Deparse
B::Disassembler
B::Lint
B::Showlex
B::Stackobj
B::Terse
B::Xref
base
Benchmark
blib
Carp
CGI
CGI::Apache
CGI::Carp
CGI::Cookie
CGI::Fast
CGI::Push
CGI::Switch
CGI::Struct
Class:Struct
Config
constantr
CPAN
CPAN::FirstTime
CPAN::Nox
Cwd
Data::Dumper
DB_File
Devel::SelfStubber
diagnostics
DirHandle
DynaLoader
English
Env
Errno
Exporter
ExtUtils::Command
ExtUtils::Embed
Extutils::Install
ExtUtils::Installed
ExtUtils::Liblist
ExtUtils::MakeMaker
ExtUtils::Manifest
ExtUtils::Miniperl
ExtUtils::Mkbootstrap
ExtUtils::MM_OS2
ExtUtils::MM_Unix
ExtUtils::MM_VMS
ExtUtils::MM_Win32
ExtUtils::Packlist
ExtUtils::testlib
Fatal
Fcntl
fields
File::Basename
File::CheckTree
File::Compare
File::Copy
File::DosGlob
File::Find
File::Path
File::Spec
File::Spec::Mac
File::Spec::OS2
File::Spec::Unix
File::Spec::VMS
File::Spec::Win32
File::stat
FileCache
FileHandle
FindBin
GDBM_File
Getopt::Long
Getopt::Std
I18N::Collate
integer
IO
IO::File
IO::Handle
IO::Pipe
IO::Seekable
IO::Select
IO::Socket
IPC::Msg
IPC::Open2
IPC::Open3
IPC::Semaphore
IPC::SysV
less
lib
locale
Math::BigFloat
Math::BigInt
Math::Complex
Math::Trig
NDBM_File
Net::hostent
Net::netent
Net::Ping
Net::protoent
Net::servent
O
ODBM_File
Opcode
ops
overload
Pod::Functions
Pod::Html
Pod::Text
POSIX
re
Safe
SDBM_File
Search::Dict
SelectSaver
SelfLoader
Shell
sigtrap
Socket
strict
subs
Symbol
Sys::Hostname
Sys::Syslog
Term::Cap
Term::Complete
Term::ReadLine
Test
Test::Harness
Text::Abbrev
Text::ParseWords
Text::Soundex
Text::Tabs
Text::Wrap
Thread
Thread::Queue
Thread::Semaphore
Thread::Signal
Thread::Specific
Tie::Array, Tie::StdArray
Tie::Handle
Tie::Hash, Tie::StdHash
Tie::RefHash
Tie::Scalar, Tie::StdScalar
Tie::SubstrHash
Time::gmtime
Time::Local
Time::localtime
Time::tm
UNIVERSAL
User::grent
User::pwent
vars
vmsish

Part IV: CGI

CGI Overview

A Typical CGI Interaction
URL Encoding
Extra Path Information
CGI Environment Variables

The CGI.pm Module

HTML Tag Generation
Importing Method Groups
Maintaining State
Named Parameters
Using JavaScript Features
Debugging
CGI.pm Reference

Web Server Programming with mod_perl

Design of mod_perl
Installing mod_perl
mod_perl Handlers
Running CGI Scripts with mod_perl
Server-Side Includes with mod_perl
<Perl> Sections
Apache:: Modules

Part V: Databases

Databases and Perl

DBM Databases and DBM Hashes
Design of DBI
DBI Methods
DBI Environment Variables

Part VI: Network Programming

Sockets

Built-in Socket Functions
The IO::Socket Module

Email Connectivity

The Net Module
The Mail Module

Usenet News

The NNTP protocol
Net::NNTP
The News::Newsrc Module

FTP

The FTP Protocol
Net::FTP
FTP Configuration with Net::Netrc

The LWP Library

LWP Overview
The LWP Modules
The HTTP Modules
The HTML Modules
The URI Module

Part VII: Perl/Tk

Perl/Tk

Widgets
Geometry Managers
Common Widget Configuration Options
The Button Widget
The Checkbutton Widget
The Radiobutton Widget
The Label Widget
The Entry Widget
The Scrollbar Widget
The Listbox Widget
The Text Widget
The Canvas Widget
The Scale Widget
The Menubutton Widget
The Menu Widget
The Optionmenu Widget
The Frame Widget
The Toplevel Widget

Part VIII; Win32

Win32 Modules and Extensions

Win32::Clipboard
Win32::Console
Win32::ChangeNotification
Win32::Eventlog
Win32::File
Win32::FileSecurity
Win32::Internet
Win32::IPC
Win32::Mutex
Win32::NetAdmin
Win32::NetResource
Win32::Process
Win32::Registry
Win32::Semaphore
Win32::Service
Win32::Shortcut
Win32 Extensions
OLE Automation

PerlScript

Client-Side PerlScript
Server-Side PerlScript

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