This is the third in O'Reilly's series of landmark Perl tutorials, which started with Learning Perl, the bestselling introduction that taught you the basics of Perl syntax, and Intermediate Perl, which taught you how to create re-usable Perl software. Mastering Perl pulls everything together to show you how to bend Perl to your will. It convey's Perl's special models and programming idioms. This book isn't a collection of clever tricks, but a way of thinking about Perl programming so you can integrate the real-life problems of debugging, maintenance, configuration, and other tasks you encounter as a working programmer. The book explains how to:

• Use advanced regular expressions, including global matches, lookarounds, readable regexes, and regex debugging

• Avoid common programing problems with secure programming techniques

• Profile and benchmark Perl to find out where to focus your improvements

• Wrangle Perl code to make it more presentable and readable

• See how Perl keeps track of package variables and how you can use that for some powerful tricks

• Define subroutines on the fly and turn the tables on normal procedural programming.

• Modify and jury rig modules to fix code without editing the original source

• Let your users configure your programs without touching the code

• Learn how you can detect errors Perl doesn't report, and how to tell users about them

• Let your Perl program talk back to you by using Log4perl

• Store data for later use in another program, a later run of the same program, or to send them over a network

• Write programs as modules to get the benefit of Perl's distribution and testing tools

Appendices include "brian's Guide to Solving Any Perl Problem" to improve your troubleshooting skills, as well as suggested reading to continue your Perl education. Mastering Perl starts you on your path to becoming the person with the answers, and, failing that, the person who knows how to find the answers or discover the problem.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 9 Ratings

A Collection Of Perl Stuff - 2008-01-01
Reviewer Rating:
This should not be called "Mastering Perl" but rather, "A Bunch Of Perl Stuff We Didn't Know What To Do With So We Put Them In This Book." You will find some interesting things but this book will not help you Master Perl. If you are looking for mastery try "Perl Best Practices",
"Advanced Perl" (1st and 2nd Ed) and "Higher Order Perl."

This book has interesting pieces that you will learn from but it is mis-titled.

Mastering Perl: at least a three (3) step process - 2007-10-26
Reviewer Rating:
The journey to mastering Perl requires at least three (3) steps :)
One optional route would be to read:
1) Learning Perl
2) Intermediate Perl... and finally
3) Mastering Perl

brian d foy mentions in his introduction and appendix A that the path to mastery involves learning from many people... and to learn from brian is an advantage. Appendix A is a list of Further Reading and by following up on many of these compounds the effect of the book. You get the bang for your buck.

Chapter 3 on Secure Programming Techniques is helpful because it places the topic front and center. This topic should find its way downstream into Learning Perl to encourage secure programming as early as possible.

I found immediate value in the chapters on benchmarking, profiling (especially DBI profiling) and logging. The chapters on Cleaning Up Perl (chapter 7: perltidy and de-obfuscation) and Configuring Perl (chapter 11: dealing with switches) are a great recap of material critical for "creating professional programs with Perl".

PS - My personal route to mastering Perl had a required stop at "Programming the Perl DBI".

Good, but not too essential for the experienced - 2008-01-31
Reviewer Rating:
This book is not essential, if you already have several years of experience with Perl, if you know who are Damian Conway, Randal Schwartz and Abigail, and if you know the meaning of weird words like CPAN, Perl Monks and "zero-width positive look-ahead assertion".

If you don't know what these things are, then with a little motivation you can find everything about them using Google without the need for this book. If this would be any other book about programming, i'd give it no more than 3 stars.

However, brian d foy's first-person writing style is very readable and enjoyable, which awards this book an extra star, and does make this book a good buy for people who learned the basics from Learning Perl or Programming Perl. Furthermore, as great and relevant as The Camel Book is, its last edition was published in 2000, and it is already a little dated, in terms of both the technology and the culture of Perl, so Mastering Perl is a pretty good way to get up-to-date.

To sum up - while this book is not as essential as Programming Perl, Perl Cookbook or Perl Best Practices, it is certainly up to the high standards set by those O'Reilly titles.

Great "used" books - 2009-04-22
Reviewer Rating:
It was in much better condition that I thought. Never know what to expect, but hey it's worth a chance for a great price. I was surprise to see it was in excellent condition, since it was rated as "very good" condition. It looks like a new book to me. That's why I keep buying "used" books from Amazon.

Perfect Companion Perl Reference - 2007-12-21
Reviewer Rating:
'Mastering Perl' is another gem in the line of O'Reilly Perl books that hav continued to set the standard for over a decade now. From the original Perl references that simply discussed the language from the basics of variable declaration to the most complicated ways you can use Perl, O'Reilly has continued to add more and more and more. Many new revisions and editions to the original Perl books were made, 'Learning Perl' was released and now 'Mastering Perl'. Is this too many books, is this simply a cash cow from O'Reilly? Yes and NO. Obviously publishers are here to try and make money, but this isn't a book that was just released for the sake of releasing it. I feel that 'Mastering Perl' is a fine addition to this line of books and well worth picking up for all serious Perl programmers. I feel that any book which builds on your programming skills and you can get something new from is worth the time and effort to read and learn from. This book is a welcome edition and I still feel that the Perl line of books (O'Reilly's original bread and butter) is the best the company has and it's a solid effort. If you want to go beyond the basics and sponge out even more goodies from this great language, pick this 300+ page book up today, kick back and become the best Perl developer that you can!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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