Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Perl
Perl stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language and is a programming
language that borrows features from many other programming languages. Perl
was designed to be a practical language to extract information from text files
and generate reports from that information. One stated design goal is to make
easy tasks easy and difficult tasks possible. Its versatility permits versions of
many programming paradigms: procedural, functional, and object oriented.
Perl has a powerful regular expression engine built directly into its syntax. Perl
allows the creation components that may enhance the functionality of your Web
portfolio such as guestbooks and hit counters (Castro, 1999). The use of Perl
scripts in the Web portfolio can be beneficial to those who have the ability to
integrate them. However, using CGI scripts may be a better starting path for
those who are new to using interactive forms on a Web page.
Perl is often considered the archetypal scripting language, and has been called
by many “the glue that holds the Web together”, as it is one of the most popular
CGI languages. Its function as a glue language can be described broadly as its
ability to tie together different systems and interfaces that were not designed to
interoperate. Perl is one of the programming language components of the
popular LAMP free software program for Web development. Perl is free
software, available under a combination of the Artistic License (software
license used for certain free software packages) and the GPL (General Public
License). It is available for most operating systems but is particularly prevalent
on Unix and Unix-like systems (such as Linux and FreeBSD) and is growing in
popularity on Microsoft Window systems.
Perl is regarded by both its proponents and detractors as something of a grab
bag of features and syntax. A huge collection of freely usable Perl models,
ranging from advanced mathematics to database connectivity, networking and
more, can be downloaded from a network of sites called CPAN, an acronym
for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. Most or all of the software on
CPAN is also available under the Artistic License, the GPL, or both.
