Perl Scripting
Price: $1495
Duration: 3 days | Perl Scripting Course Schedule
Prerequisites: Prior scripting experience or knowledge of fundamental programming concepts.
Description: This hands on Perl scripting class provides a thorough introduction to the Perl programming language, teaching attendees how to develop and maintain portable scripts useful for system management and data manipulation. Emphasis is placed on built-in subroutines that can be used to help conveniently build fast, portable and efficient scripts. Extensive hands on exercises provide practice in report creation, pattern matching, string manipulation, file I/O, command line processing, and debugging. Students are shown how to extend Perl's basic functionality with packages and loadable modules. Attendees who also want an in-depth introduction to CGI Programming and the use of the Perl DBI module for database access should attend the five-day Perl Programming and CGI Scripting course instead.
Introduction to Perl
- Origin and Design Goals of Perl
- Overview of Perl Features
- Getting and Installing Perl
- Accessing Documentation via perldoc
- HTML-Format Reference Documentation
- Perl Strengths and Limitations
- Scalar Variables
- Introduction to Standard Data Types
- Retrieving Standard Input Using the Default Variable $_
- Assigning Strings and Numbers to Scalar Variables
- Declaring Constants for Persistent Values
- Using strict to Declare Variables
- Introduction to Fundamental Operators
- Operator Precedence and Associativity
- Using the Ternary Operator ?: as a Shortcut for the if Statement
- Using <FILEHANDLE> and <> File I/O Operators for Standard Input/Output
- Using the Shortcut Operators +=, -=, *=, /=
- Conditional Expressions and Logical Operators
- if/else/elsif and unless
- Constructing switch/case Equivalent Expressions
- while Loops and do Loops
- for and foreach Loops
- Labels
- Altering Program Flow with next, last, and redo
- Trapping Errors with the eval Function
- Terminating a Script with exit
- Defining Numeric Index Arrays
- Defining Associative Arrays
- Sorting Arrays with the sort Function
- Adding and Deleting Items Using push, pop, shift, and unshift
- Using slice, splice, and reverse
- Other Array Manipulation Techniques
- Looping through an Array
- Merging Arrays
- Introduction to Hashes
- Preallocating Memory to Optimize Hash Performance
- Using open and close
- Difference Between print and write
- Reading and Writing Arrays
- Directory Manipulation Using opendir, closedir, readdir, chdir, mkdir and rmdir
- Reading Command Line Arguments from @ARGV
- Manipulating Positional Parameters with push, pop, shift
- Processing Command Line Options with getopt or getopts
- Analyzing Command Line Argument Values with the Getopt::Std and Getopt::Long Modules
- Reserved Variables
- Manipulating Identifiable Options Using GetOptions
- Using the Built-in Perl Debugger
- Starting the Debugger
- Debugger Command Syntax
- Checking for Script Syntax Errors
- Solving Compile-Time Errors
- Single-Stepping through a Script
- Executing to Breakpoints
- Setting Global Watches
- Printing Values of Variables
- Listing All Variables Used in the Script
- Using strict Error Checking
- Quitting the Debugger
Getting Started With Perl
- Explicit Invocation of the Perl Interpreter
- Running Perl on UNIX vs. Windows
- Running Perl from the Command Line
- Using Command Line Options
- Using Debug Mode
- Implicit Invocation of the Perl Interpreter
- Running and Debugging Perl Scripts
- Simple and Compound Statements
- Fundamental Input Techniques
- Using the print Function to Generate Standard Output
- Regular Expressions in Perl
- Using Pattern Matching Operators
- Altering Data with Substitutions in Regular Expressions
- Using Backreferences to Capture Data from Regular Expression Matching
- Global and Case-Insensitive Matches
- Altering Data with Character Translation
- Using Variables in Patterns
- String Comparison
- String Relations
- Concatenation
- Substring Manipulation
- Using chomp and chop to Eliminate EOL Characters
- Escape Characters for Formatting
- String Manipulation Functions
- Simplifying Scripts with Subroutines
- Defining and Calling a Subroutine
- Passing Arguments by Value
- Passing Arguments by Reference
- Using return to Return a Value
- Controlling Variable Scope using my and local Keywords
- The Power of Packages and Modules
- Introduction to Standard Modules
- Where to Find Modules on the Internet
- Installing a Module on UNIX or Windows
- Creating Packages for Portability
- Using Packages to Create Isolated Namespaces and to Separate Code
- Parsing Input
- Using Standard Input, Standard Output, and Standard Error
- String and Field Processing
- Using Streams and Pipes
- Using die to Quit with an Error
- Redirecting Standard Output and Standard Error to a File
- Getting Standard Input from a File
- Defining Report Formats
- Justifying Text (Left, Right, Center)
- Using write to Generate Reports
- Defining here Documents for Report Customization
- Creating Report Headers
- Using Built-in Variables to Control Report Appearance
- Printing Line Numbers on a Report
- Formatting Multi-Line Output
- Writing Formatted Text to a File
