Perl: The Complete Reference [Paperback]

Martin Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Complete Reference | Publication Date: January 23, 2001

With millions of users worldwide, Perl is increasingly the language of choice for Web development. This title is updated to include coverage of Perl 5.6 - a major new release which is not covered by most competing books. Written by a Perl expert - Martin Brown is the author of the well-received first-edition, as well as "Perl: Programmer's Reference". It includes comprehensive coverage appropriate for developers of every level.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Most Comprehensive Perl Resource Available!

Learn all you need to know about Perl from this definitive, hands-on reference. Perl expert Martin Brown will walk you through everything--from the basics of writing your first script and understanding Perl’s syntax to the complexities of processing data, communicating with external databases, and communicating over the Web. Along the way, you’ll learn how to network, design user interfaces, and write scripts that work under UNIX, Windows, and MacOS. Also covers how to interface to an external C library and embed the Perl interpreter into your C programs. For building, developing, and fine-tuning robust Perl applications, you’ll want this thorough guide!

• Master Perl basics--understand the building blocks of expressions, statements and declarations
• Learn to create your code with subroutines, packages and modules
• Communicate with external files, databases and other machines over your network
• Convert your subroutines and modules into methods and objects
• Organize your data with Perl's complex structures and interfaces
• Create cross-platform compatible user interface solutions
• Work with XML, HTML, and generate Web scripts to solve your problems
• Maximize your scripts performance and debug your code before it's released

About the Author

Martin C. Brown is the author of Perl: The Complete Reference and Perl Annotated Archives. He has more than 15 years of multi-platform programming experience in Perl, Shellscript, Basic, Pascal, C/C++, Java, JavaScript, VBScript, and Awk.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1207 pages
• Publisher: Osborne/McGraw-Hill; 2 Sub edition (January 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072129506
• ISBN-13: 978-0072129502
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hacking PERL scripts? This book is for you., December 10, 1999

By 

Brian Donnelly (Tigard, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PERL (Paperback)

If you are not a heavily experienced PERL programmer and enjoy hacking other people's scripts, this is an excellent companion. This book makes it easy to look up just about any perl syntax you can dream up and it also gives examples of how the function is called. Not very usefull if you want to look up a function and you don't know what it is called, but if you want to understand whats going on behind the perl curtain I would recommend that you get this. Besides, it will look good on your shelf. Trust me.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Big Easy Perl Reference Guide, April 5, 2000

By 

Kevin Stone (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perl: The Complete Reference (Paperback)

After spending about 12 hours in Borders reading Perl reference books I finally decided on this one, and I do not regret my decision. This big book is by far the most thurough and easiest to follow Perl5 reference available. I have only one gripe about this book, and that I wish the Appendix contained Index page numbers. When I look something up in the Appendix I don't want to have to go to the Index to locate a page number for that item. But it's a minor inconvenience that I'm willing to live with. Otherwise this is a great book for anyone who already has a basic grasp of Perl syntax and needs a thurough yet easy-to-follow reference guide to help in more advanced programming.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference for the DIY type, March 27, 2000

By 

Wynand (South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perl: The Complete Reference (Paperback)

I found this book to be an excellent reference for the type of Perl hacker who mostly figures things out for himself but still might end up trawling through the man pages alot. To be able to quickly browse to a subject that you have in black and white helps alot. I found the areas covering DBI and CGI lacking although, granted, that is not the aim of this publication. Strictly not to read from cover to cover but rather, to quickly look up a consice, detailed explanation of something.