Perl Practicum

by Hal Pomeranz

For the past two and a half years ;login: has been publishing a series of articles "intended to demystify some of the more occult aspects of Perl programming" (to quote from the introduction to the first article, published in August 1993). We are pleased to present the entire collection here.

No. 1: Out of Sorts

A discussion of how to get the most from Perl's sort() funtion.
(from ;login: Vol. 18 No. 4, August 1993)

No. 2: Know All the Angles

Using file handles, indirect file handles, and type globs.
(from ;login: Vol. 18 No. 5, October 1993)

No. 3: The Swiss Army Chainsaw

Perl builtin functions and additional techniques to emulate common UNIX utilities.
(from ;login: Vol. 18 No. 6, December 1993)

No. 4: You Say `rsh' and I Say `remsh'

Writing portable Perl code.
(from ;login: Vol. 19 No. 1, February 1994)

No. 5: "I'm Beginning to See a Pattern Here"

Understanding regular expression syntax, and techniques for humans trying to read or create complicated regular expressions.
(from ;login: Vol. 19 No. 2, April 1994)

No. 6: It Slices, It Dices...

Techniques for breaking up formatted and unformatted data.
(from ;login: Vol. 19 No. 3, June 1994)

No. 7: A Plea for Clarity

Tips for your Perl style guide.
(from ;login: Vol. 19 No. 6, December 1994)

No. 8: Fun With Format

Using formats to produce tabular data quickly.
(from ;login: Vol. 20 No. 3, June 1995)

No. 9: The Camel Spins a Web

A jumpstart on using Perl for CGI applications and the Web, including forms processing.
(from ;login: Vol. 20 No. 4, August 1995)

No. 10: DB or Not DB?

An introduction to the new Perl5 DB syntax.
(from ;login: Vol. 20 No. 6, December 1995)

No. 11: Failed To Understand the Reference

Manipulating the new Perl5 data type, the reference.
(from ;login: Vol. 21 No. 1, February 1996)

No. 12: Thanks for the Reference

Advanced tutorial on Perl5 references (includes extended example of how to marshall Perl data structures out to secondary storage).
(from ;login: Vol. 21 No. 2, April 1996)

No. 13: The Devil in the Details

Creating configuration files for Perl programs, including using Perl as a configuration file syntax.
(from ;login: Vol. 21 No. 3, June 1996)

No. 14: Network Wiles (Part I)

Using Perl to create network clients.
(from ;login: Vol. 21 No. 4, August 1996)

No. 15: Network Wiles (Part II)

Using Perl to create network servers (Part I).
(from ;login: Vol. 21 No. 5, October 1996)

No. 16: Network Wiles (Part III)

Additional material on creating network servers, including the proper use of fork() and chroot().
(from ;login: Vol. 22 No. 1, February 1997)

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