Introduction To Perl

                    CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO PERL


   What Is Perl?

     - Practical Extraction and Report Language

     - Developed by Larry Wall

     - Compiled/interpreted language
 
     - Combines features of C, sed, awk and shell

     - Useful for manipulating text, files and processes

     - Useful for many system administration tasks and CGI programs
     

   Versions Of Perl

     - Latest official version: 5.005

     - Perl 4.036 still in use

     - These notes discuss Perl 4 


   Features Of Perl 4

     - Fast execution of scripts

     - Integer and floating point arithmetic

     - Associative arrays

     - Powerful regular expression handling

     - Portable across many different platforms

     - Built-in system calls and shell utilities

     - It's free!!


   Perl 5 Enhancements

     - Object-oriented paradigm

     - Enhanced regular expressions

     - Embeddable in C or C++ programs

     - POSIX compliant

     - Dynamic module loading

     - Automatic variables


   Perl References

     - Programming Perl, Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly,
         1992
         (AKA The Camel Book)

     - Learning Perl, Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly, 1993
         (AKA The Llama Book)

     - Teach Yourself Perl In 21 Days, David Till, Sams, 1995

     - Perl By Example, Ellie Quigley, Prentice Hall, 1995

     - Perl newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
                        comp.lang.perl.moderated
                        comp.lang.perl.announce

     - The Perl man page 

     - The Perl FAQ