Last Updated on April 18, 2024
11. The Perl Reference Guide by Johan Vromans
The Perl Reference Guide is a concise book that examines Perl syntax, variables, literals, operators and precedence, statements, subroutines, packages and modules.
Later chapters cover object oriented programming, functions (arithmetic, conversion, string, array and hash, search and replace), input/output, and more.
The author does not specify a specific license, but the book can be reproduced, printed and distributed freely for non-profit purposes.
12. Learning Perl the Hard Way by Allen B. Downey
Learning Perl the Hard Way is a book for people who already know how to program in another language, but have not previously developed in Perl. It tries to get through the basics as quickly as possible, and how to do fun things. It emphasizes good programming style in Perl.
Learning Perl the Hard Way has chapters on:
- Arrays and Scalars – describes the statements and operators needed to read command-line arguments, define and invoke subroutines, parse parameters, and read the contents of files.
- Regular Expressions – covers pattern matching, anchors, quantifiers, alternation, capture sequences, minimal matching, extended patterns, operators, and subroutine semantics.
- Hashes – with sections on stack operators, queue operators, hashes, frequency table, sort operator, checking whether an element is a member of a set, references to subroutines, hashes as parameters, markov generator, and generating random text.
- Objects – goes through packages, the bless operator, methods, constructors, printing objects, and heaps.
- Modules – examines variable-length codes, the frequency table, creating a new module, assembling the Huffman tree, inheritance, and more.
- Callbacks and pipes.
Learning Perl the Hard Way is a free book available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
13. Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason by Dave Rolsky, Ken Williams
The Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason book documents the HTML::Mason framework in detail, including chapters on component syntax, Mason object APIs, a sample site walkthrough, recipes, and details on Mason’s advanced features and how to use them.
The book shows individuals how to create large, complex, dynamically driven web sites that look good and are a snap to maintain. You’ll learn how to visualize multiple Mason-based solutions to any given problem and select among them. The book covers the latest line of Mason development 1.1x, which has many new features, including line number reporting based on source files, sub-requests, and easier use as a CGI.
This book is published under the Open Publication License.
14. CGI Programming on the World Wide Web by Shishir Gundavaram
This book introduces the reader to a variety of applications that serve as models for CGI scripts. Complete applications in the book include an animated clock, a search tool, a survey, a quiz program, a game, a gateway to Usenet News, and an appointment calendar based on a clickable imagemap.
It includes forms, server side includes, hypermedia documents, multiple form interaction as well as advanced and creative CGI applications. It also teaches the reader how to debug and test CGI programs.
This book is out of print, but it has been made available online through the O’Reilly Open Books Project, with “open” copyright. There is a 2nd edition in paperback available to buy.
15. Web Client Programming with Perl by Clinton Wong
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.
The book is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Next page: Page 4 – Perl 6 at a Glance and more books
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Modern Perl and more books
Page 2 – Impatient Perl and more books
Page 3 – The Perl Reference Guide and more books
Page 4 – Perl 6 at a Glance and more books
Page 5 – Perl 5 Internals and more books
All books in this series:
| Free Programming Books | |
|---|---|
| Ada | ALGOL-like programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages |
| Agda | Dependently typed functional language based on intuitionistic Type Theory |
| Arduino | Inexpensive, flexible, open source microcontroller platform |
| Assembly | As close to writing machine code without writing in pure hexadecimal |
| Awk | Versatile language designed for pattern scanning and processing language |
| Bash | Shell and command language; popular both as a shell and a scripting language |
| BASIC | Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code |
| C | General-purpose, procedural, portable, high-level language |
| C++ | General-purpose, portable, free-form, multi-paradigm language |
| C# | Combines the power and flexibility of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic |
| Clojure | Dialect of the Lisp programming language |
| ClojureScript | Compiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript |
| COBOL | Common Business-Oriented Language |
| CoffeeScript | Transcompiles into JavaScript inspired by Ruby, Python and Haskell |
| Coq | Dependently typed language similar to Agda, Idris, F* and others |
| Crystal | General-purpose, concurrent, multi-paradigm, object-oriented language |
| CSS | CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) specifies a web page’s appearance |
| D | General-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax |
| Dart | Client-optimized language for fast apps on multiple platforms |
| Dylan | Multi-paradigm language supporting functional and object-oriented coding |
| ECMAScript | Best known as the language embedded in web browsers |
| Eiffel | Object-oriented language designed by Bertrand Meyer |
| Elixir | Relatively new functional language running on the Erlang virtual machine |
| Erlang | General-purpose, concurrent, declarative, functional language |
| F# | Uses functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming methods |
| Factor | Dynamic stack-based programming language |
| Forth | Imperative stack-based programming language |
| Fortran | The first high-level language, using the first compiler |
| Go | Compiled, statically typed programming language |
| Groovy | Powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language |
| Haskell | Standardized, general-purpose, polymorphically, statically typed language |
| HTML | HyperText Markup Language |
| Icon | Wide variety of features for processing and presenting symbolic data |
| J | Array programming language based primarily on APL |
| Java | General-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, high-level language |
| JavaScript | Interpreted, prototype-based, scripting language |
| Julia | High-level, high-performance language for technical computing |
| Kotlin | More modern version of Java |
| LabVIEW | Designed to enable domain experts to build power systems quickly |
| LaTeX | Professional document preparation system and document markup language |
| Lisp | Unique features - excellent to study programming constructs |
| Logo | Dialect of Lisp that features interactivity, modularity, extensibility |
| Lua | Designed as an embeddable scripting language |
| Markdown | Plain text formatting syntax designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write |
| Objective-C | Object-oriented language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to C |
| OCaml | The main implementation of the Caml language |
| Pascal | Imperative and procedural language designed in the late 1960s |
| Perl | High-level, general-purpose, interpreted, scripting, dynamic language |
| PHP | PHP has been at the helm of the web for many years |
| PostScript | Interpreted, stack-based and Turing complete language |
| Prolog | A general purpose, declarative, logic programming language |
| PureScript | Small strongly, statically typed language compiling to JavaScript |
| Python | General-purpose, structured, powerful language |
| QML | Hierarchical declarative language for user interface layout - JSON-like syntax |
| R | De facto standard among statisticians and data analysts |
| Racket | General-purpose, object-oriented, multi-paradigm, functional language |
| Raku | Member of the Perl family of programming languages |
| Ruby | General purpose, scripting, structured, flexible, fully object-oriented language |
| Rust | Ideal for systems, embedded, and other performance critical code |
| Scala | Modern, object-functional, multi-paradigm, Java-based language |
| Scheme | A general-purpose, functional language descended from Lisp and Algol |
| Scratch | Visual programming language designed for 8-16 year-old children |
| SQL | Access and manipulate data held in a relational database management system |
| Standard ML | General-purpose functional language characterized as "Lisp with types" |
| Swift | Powerful and intuitive general-purpose programming language |
| Tcl | Dynamic language based on concepts of Lisp, C, and Unix shells |
| TeX | Markup and programming language - create professional quality typeset text |
| TypeScript | Strict syntactical superset of JavaScript adding optional static typing |
| Vala | Object-oriented language, syntactically similar to C# |
| VHDL | Hardware description language used in electronic design automation |
| VimL | Powerful scripting language of the Vim editor |
| XML | Rules for defining semantic tags describing structure ad meaning |