Perl Training Courses: Introduction to Perl Programming - A Fundamentals Perl Course from GBdirect Perl Training (UK)

Perl Programming

Synopsis

This is our main Perl training course. It covers general Perl programming together with system and database interaction. The basic four-day course is a grounding in using the Perl programming language as a successful Perl programmer and/or system administrator. An optional fifth day can be added, focusing on CGI Perl and Perl for web development.

Suitable for

Delegates have usually encountered some Perl before, but may not always have found it easy to learn or use. The course is for developers who want to learn the Perl way of doing things. It emphasizes taking advantage of Perl's native productivity tools and techniques, rather than trying to ‘make do’ with other language's idioms.

The course covers the fundamentals of Perl from the beginning, as we have found that a good understanding of how and why Perl does things in particular ways helps everyone to learn more effectively; even those who have been programming in Perl for a couple of years.

Delivery

This is a hands-on practical workshop based around the coding of real-world solutions to real-world problems.

This course is run both as publicly scheduled Perl training for individuals and as in-house Perl courses for company groups. For in-house programmers the course can be extended with our full range of Perl modules, or the basic content can be taught over five days to enable more practical exercises and mentoring.

Please contact us at training@gbdirect.co.uk to arrange delivery of any of our Perl courses for your company or to register an interest in an individual place on a public presentation of this Perl course. Please state clearly which of these options applies to you.

For details on the optional fifth day's course content, please see our Perl for web development page.

Contents

Preparing to learn Perl

Things you need to know and do in order to run Perl programs and learn Perl programming
A module designed for complete beginners
The perl compiler/interpreter
Perl under Unix/Linux
Perl under MS Windows 2000/NT/95/98/ME (perl.exe)
ActiveState Perl
Making programs executable (chmod +x)
Perl from the command line (perl command)
Specify the perl compiler/interpreter (#!)
Using plain text for programs
Writing a very simple program
Running a very simple program
Basic syntax

Perl: the absolute minimum

Enough of the language to get started
The print function
Variables
Scalars — numbers and strings
Assignment
Simple conditional tests — if
Lists
Arrays — for storing lists
foreach loops
Hashes
Other loops: while, for, do, until
Arrays — the rest
Simple input, e.g., while(<>)
Functions overview — recognising, writing, using
Simple file handling — open, print
Subroutines — parameters in and out, listification, local variables (my)
Help — perldoc, books, web

Regular expressions

Text manipulation with regular expressions
Matching strings
Matching the default variable
Case-sensitivity and matching
Special characters
Special characters: where
Special characters: what
Special characters: how many
Built-in character classes
Built-in character class examples
Capturing
Regular expression examples
Substitution
Global substitutions

Perl: beyond the basics

More flow control
Statement modifiers
Quoting mechanisms — qq(), etc.
Here documents
Uppercase/lowercase conversion
Splitting strings into lists
Joining lists into strings
Filtering lists with map
Sorting lists
The importance of context
Assignment shortcuts
Scoping rules
Special variables

Complex data structures & references

Limits of flat lists
Nesting arrays
Array references
Anonymous arrays
Named array references
Passing multiple arrays to/from functions
Hashes of arrays
Hash references
Arrays of hashes
Hashes of hashes
Complex nested data structures
Code references
Dispatch tables

Finding Out More For Yourself

How to read Perl's documentation
Where to find more information
Knowing what's out there to look for
FAQs

Using Perl Modules from CPAN

The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)
Why effective Perl programmers are efficient CPAN users
CPAN's philosophy
Finding modules
Installing Modules
Using modules
Some particularly useful modules

The Perl debugger & debugging Perl

Avoiding bugs
Perl's built-in debugger
Invoking the debugger
What you can do with the debugger
Understanding the debugger's command line interface
Knowing the debugger's basic command set
Exploring some extended functions
Graphical debuggers
Alternative debugging techniques

Command-Line Perl

General principles
Using Perl as a filter
Editing files in-place
Many real world examples
Command line flags
Many examples using regular expressions

A Whistle-Stop Tour of the World of Perl

Wheels you don't need to re-invent
Common recipes
Common pitfalls

Perl Style

The Philosophy of Perl
Why good style is important
Good style
Bad style

Handling Databases with Perl

Interacting with SQL databases from Perl
Using DBI
Connection/disconnection, log in/log out
Retrieving a single record
Retrieving multiple records
Update/insert queries
Place-holders and bind values
Connecting through ODBC

Advanced File Processing with Perl

Types of open
Filehandles
Reading line by line
Reading paragraph by paragraph
Reading entire files
Special variables
The flip-flop operator (..)
File test functions
Pipes

System interaction

Connecting to other programs
Unsafe pipes
Using IO::Pipe
Grabbing a program's output
Other ways to run programs

Perl Security Issues

Potential security pitfalls
Coding for security
Taint checking
Dangerous environment variables
File input
Set-user-id Perl programs
Permissions and users

Perl Programming — a 4–5-day course