16 of the Best Free Perl Books - Part 4

13. Web Client Programming with Perl

Web Client Programming with Perl shows you how to extend scripting skills to the Web. This book teaches you the basics of how browsers communicate with servers and how to write your own customized Web clients to automate common tasks. It is intended for those who are motivated to develop software that offers a more flexible and dynamic response than a standard Web browser.

A web client is an application that communicates with a web server, using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

This books helps developers learn how to:

• Automate repetitive queries on the Web
• Detect broken hyperlinks on your site
• Write simple "robots" that traverse hyperlinks across a site, and across the Web in general

Most of the examples in this book use Perl. The book does not teach Perl, but the techniques used in the book should be easily followed by anyone with some programming background and can be adapted to whatever language you choose.

14. Programming Perl

Programming Perl is a five day module in which you will learn how to program in Perl. It assumes you have programmed before, that you understand the concept of variables, conditional and looping constructs, and the use of user defined functions.

Chapters include:

• A brief guide to Perl and perldoc
• Creating and running a Perl program
• Perl variables
• Operators and functions
• Conditional constructs
• Subroutines
• Regular expressions
• Introduction to Modules
• External Files and Packages
• Writing modules
• Building modules with Module::Starter
• Testing your module
• Using Perl objects
• References and complex data structures
• Advanced regular expressions
• File I/O
• System interaction
• Practical exercises

This book is released under the Open Publications License 1.0.

15. Perl 5 Internals

Perl 5 Internals is a three-hour course which provides a hands-on introduction to how the Perl interpreter works internally, how to go about testing and fixing bugs in the interpreter, and what the internals are likely to look like in the future of Perl, Perl 6.

The book covers:

• Development Structure
• Parts of the Interpreter
• Internal Variables
• The Lexer and the Parser
• Fundamental operations
• The Runtime Environment
• The Perl Compiler
• Hacking Perl
• Perl 6 Internals

16. Picking up Perl

Picking up Perl was primarily written to serve as a freely redistributable tutorial for the Perl language.

Topics covered include:

• Working with Scalars
• Arrays
• Control Structures
• Associative Arrays (Hashes)
• Regular Expressions
• Subroutines
• Background of Perl

This book is released under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version.