Programming Language

Perl

Perl (programminglanguage)
Full NamePerl
Short NamePerl
DescriptionHigh-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language
CompanyLarry Wall
WebYes
MobileYes
EnterpriseYes
EmbeddedNo

What is Perl?

Perl is a high-level programming language that was originally developed in the late 1980s for use in text processing and system administration tasks. It is commonly used for web development, network programming, and automation.

What are some features of Perl?

Perl includes features such as regular expressions, dynamic typing, and automatic memory management. It also includes support for object-oriented programming, functional programming, and procedural programming.

How is Perl used in web development?

Perl is commonly used in web development for server-side scripting and the creation of CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts. It can be used to generate dynamic HTML pages, interact with databases and other web services, and perform other server-side tasks.

What are some popular Perl frameworks and libraries?

Some popular Perl frameworks and libraries for web development include Catalyst, Dancer, and Mojolicious.

Is Perl still relevant today?

Perl is still widely used today, particularly in areas such as system administration, network programming, and bioinformatics. However, its popularity for web development has decreased in recent years as other languages such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript have become more popular.

What is CPAN?

CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) is a repository of Perl modules and libraries that can be used to extend the functionality of Perl. It includes thousands of modules for a wide range of tasks, including web development, database access, and text processing.

Can Perl be used for object-oriented programming?

Yes, Perl includes support for object-oriented programming, including classes, objects, inheritance, and polymorphism. However, its object-oriented features are not as well-developed as those of some other programming languages, such as Java or C++.

Snippet from Wikipedia: Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".

Perl was developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. Perl originally was not capitalized and the name was changed to being capitalized by the time Perl 4 was released. The latest release is Perl 5, first released in 1994. From 2000 to October 2019 a sixth version of Perl was in development; the sixth version's name was changed to Raku. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams which liberally borrow ideas from each other.

Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, sh, AWK, and sed. It provides text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools. Perl is a highly expressive programming language: source code for a given algorithm can be short and highly compressible.

Perl gained widespread popularity in the mid-1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its powerful regular expression and string parsing abilities. In addition to CGI, Perl 5 is used for system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications, such as for graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It has been nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages" because of its flexibility and power. In 1998, it was also referred to as the "duct tape that holds the Internet together", in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance.

GitHub Topics

Perl runs on over 100 platforms ranging from portables to mainframes. It can be used for almost all facets of programming, from rapid prototyping and large-scale development projects.

say "Hello, world!";

Source: Wikibooks

## ToDo ##

  • FIXME
  • Regular expressions
  • Scalars
  • Arrays
  • Hashes
  • Subroutines
  • Control structures
  • Input/output operations
  • File handling
  • References
  • Packages
  • Modules
  • CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)
  • Object-oriented programming (OOP)
  • Moose (OOP system for Perl)
  • CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
  • DBI (Database Interface)
  • Testing frameworks (e.g., Test::More, Test::Unit)
  • Perl 5 and Perl 6 (Raku)
  • Regular expressions
  • Unicode support

See also: Programming Languages

  • dev/perl.txt
  • Last modified: 2023/05/01 17:26
  • by Henrik Yllemo