Beginning Perl, Second Edition

Immensely popular Perl combines the best features of C, key UNIX utilities, and powerful regular expressions. Perl is commonly used for web programming, as well as email and Usenet news filtering. Fast becoming the system administrator s scripting language of choice, Perl is also useful for file and directory manipulation, database access, and a broad range of daily system operator chores.

This second edition emphasizes the cross-platform nature of Perl. Throughout the book, author James Lee promotes Perl as a legible, sensible programming language and dispels the myth that Perl is confusing and obscure. Perfect for the beginning Perl user looking to gain a quick and masterful grasp on the language, this concise and focused book begins with the basics and moves on to more advanced features of Perl, including references, modules, and object-oriented programming.

James Lee is a hacker and open-source advocate based in Illinois. He holds a master's degree from Northwestern University, and he can often be seen rooting for the Wildcats during football season. As founder of Onsight, Lee has worked as a programmer, trainer, manager, writer, and open-source advocate. Lee coauthored the recently published Hacking Linux Exposed, Second Edition, as well as Open Source Web Development with LAMP. He enjoys hacking Perl and has written many articles on Perl for Linux Journal. Lee also enjoys developing software for the Web, reading, traveling and, most of all, playing with his kids&emdash;who are too young to know why dad's favorite animals are penguins and camels.