| Overview
This complete guide to the Perl programming language ranges widely
through the Perl programmer's universe, gathering together in a
convenient form a wealth of information about Perl itself and its
application to CGI scripts, XML processing, network programming,
database interaction, and graphical user interfaces. The book is an
ideal reference for experienced Perl programmers and beginners
alike. With more than a million dedicated programmers, Perl is
proving to be the best language for the latest trends in computing
and business, including network programming and the ability to
create and manage web sites. It's a language that every Unix system
administrator and serious web developer needs to know. In the past
few years, Perl has found its way into complex web applications of
multinational banks, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and hundreds of
large corporations. In this second edition, Perl in a
Nutshell has been expanded to include coverage of Perl 5.8,
with information on Unicode processing in Perl, new functions and
modules that have been added to the core language, and up-to-date
details on running Perl on the Win32 platform. The book also covers
Perl modules for recent technologies such as XML and SOAP. Here are
just some of the topics contained in this book:
Basic Perl reference Quick reference to built-in functions and standard
modules CGI.pm and mod_perl XML::* modules DBI, the database-independent API for Perl Sockets programming LWP, the library for Web programming in Perl Network programming with the Net modules Perl/Tk, the Tk extension to Perl for graphical
interfaces Modules for interfacing with Win32 systems
As part of the successful "in a Nutshell" book series from O'Reilly
& Associates, Perl in a Nutshell is for readers who want
a single reference for all their needs. "In a nutshell, Perl is
designed to make the easy jobs easy, without making the hard jobs
impossible." -- Larry Wall, creator of Perl
Editorial ReviewsProduct DescriptionThis complete guide to the Perl programming language ranges widely through the Perl programmer's universe, gathering together in a convenient form a wealth of information about Perl itself and its application to CGI scripts, XML processing, network programming, database interaction, and graphical user interfaces. The book is an ideal reference for experienced Perl programmers and beginners alike. In this second edition, Perl in a Nutshell has been expanded to include the latest version of Perl (5.7), with information on Unicode processing in Perl, new functions and modules that have been added to the core language, and up-to-date details on running Perl on the Win32 platform. The book also covers Perl modules for recent technologies such as XML and SOAP. As part of the successful "in a Nutshell" book series from O'Reilly & Associates, Perl in a Nutshell is for readers who want a single reference for all their needs. | Amazon.com ReviewPerl in a Nutshell strives to be a perfect set of socket tools for the active Perl programmer. By and large, it succeeds, providing endless and well-thought-out lists and tables on the language's modules, flags, and extensions. The authors briefly address basic learner's questions--such as the difference between a hash and an array--but these concepts are not the purpose of the book. (Those new to Perl would be better off with others in the O'Reilly Perl series, such as Learning Perl, while programmers making the switch to Perl can pick up the nuances of the language with Programming Perl.) This book is pure Perl reference, briefly covering Perl/Tk (for GUI Perl programs on Unix and Windows 95/NT) and Perl for Win 32. The authors do start at the very beginning, and even in a self-described "desktop quick reference" find the time to comment on less urgent--but still interesting--Perl-related matters (like how to find online help amidst the "Perl culture"). The format of the book makes sections on topics such as Perl debugging easily understandable, illustrating how to make an interactive and timesaving environment. Of particular convenience is the outstanding section on the standard Perl modules. A four-page "quick look" allows you to easily scan through short definitions of all the modules and find the entry you're looking for. An index with full definitions for each module follows, showing you how to use each module and providing a more in-depth explanation (and often, examples). Perl in a Nutshell concludes--as you might expect--with an excellent and well-cross-referenced index. --Jennifer Buckendorff |
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Reader Reviews From Amazon (Ranked by 'Helpfulness') Average Customer Rating: based on 24 reviews. Excellent, 2008-08-23 Reviewer rating: I have a shelf of Perl books from O'Reilly, from the Quick Reference to Advanced Perl Programming. This tends to be my first grab when I am looking for something. A bit thick when I am on the road, so I fall back to the Quick Reference, and whenever I do, I find I miss having the Nutshell book (with all my notes in the margins :) If I can't find it in this book, I jump to the Perl Reference most often. | I've used Perl for several years and love this book, 2004-05-03 Reviewer rating: Exactly as advertised, "Perl in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" is a great reference book if you already have a basic understanding of Perl. Although it does have a section that it refers to as an "Introduction to Perl" it is actually a pretty cursory introduction and there are better books for learning the basics of Perl. The book does have an excellent section on installing Perl including installation on both the Unix and Windows platforms. I've worked with both platforms and the installation process is well documented including how to install modules. This brings us to the large chapter on getting and installing Perl modules. I have spent hours sometimes trying to find an appropriate module for a special situation. This chapter lists all the most common modules and includes descriptions of what they do. This alone makes it a valuable resource for anyone involved in Perl. The authors also include a lot of technical information including command line options and environment variables as well as a section on program structure, data types, special variables, operators, expressions, subroutines, filehandles, and just about anything else that you might need a quick refresher on. Functions are listed both by category and by alphabetical order with descriptions and syntax information. I had a couple of problems on a large project recently and it took three days to get an answer through the forums on the Internet. The answers to all of them are right here and I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had had this book then. A lot of other information is available in the book including CGI programming, Webserver programming, database programming, SOAP, Network modules including Net, Mail, NNTP, FTP, and LDAP, Perl/Tk, Win32 Modules and Extensions, OLE Automation, and ODBC Extensions. This book will be the one I keep close at hand when working with Perl and deserves its location on my desktop instead of in the library. "Perl in a Nutshell" is highly recommended for Perl programmers from basic to advanced level. | A handy reference, but..., 2003-12-14 Reviewer rating: This is a handy reference, but if you have a limited budget you should probably go with Programming Perl and the Perl Cookbook before this one. This is a fine reference but it doesn't have the depth that the other books have and the information on the modules is available online through CPAN. I have the entire Perl library on my bookshelf and I hardly ever pick this one up. | Great reference!, 2002-09-06 Reviewer rating: I am not a beginning programmer nor am I what you would call an expert. Having a background in PHP made Perl easy to learn, so I didn't need a book that would "teach" Perl. All I needed was a good reference to figure out the differences between PHP and Perl. This book did exactly that! I was able to start programming within a day and I have referenced this book more times than I can count during my most recent development efforts. The binding is nearly worn out! I recommend this book to intermediate programmers that only need a small boost to get to work. If you're a beginner, buy this book to use after you learn the basics and you'll find it to be one of the most valuable tools on your desk! | High Level Descriptions with Few Samples, 2002-07-24 Reviewer rating: This book is full of alphabetical high level descriptions (which are always ambiguous) of Perl language statements with few or no illustrative examples (which always help clear up ambiguity). It is a waste of money. |
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