A hands-on tutorial featuring exercises and complete solutions, covering basics rather than advanced issues. Contents include Perl basics, the language's broad capabilities, brief code examples, system commands, and how to manage DBM databases using Perl. This second edition contains a new chapter on CGI programming.

Many recent books about Perl skimp on the Perl language per se and treat the Perl language as a mere appendage to CGI scripting. That is an egregious error: Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) is a fantastic language for processing text, generating reports, and managing files and processes. Written by the perlson who created Perl (Larry Wall), this book covers the essential features of the language extremely well -- even lucidly. Plus, it is filled with Larry Wall's wired sense of humor (tempered, one senses, by Randal Schwartz). If you're a beginning programmer and want to become a real Perl programmer, and not some copy-cat hack, get this book plus a more programmatic treatment, such as Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days.