Howto: Write script in Perl
Q. I’m new to Linux and Perl. I’ve printed perl man page but it is bit confusing and omits a lot of simple things or details. Can you tell me how do I write a perl script? How do I open perl editor?
A. Larry Wall began work on Perl in 1987 and it is a dynamic programming language. Traditionally perl programs are written using text editor such as vi or emacs. The overall structure of Perl derives broadly from C.
Also when you start learning a new programming language, always start with Hello world program.
Hello world Perl Program
Let us print Hello world from a shell prompt. Type the following command (excluding $ ):
$ perl -e 'print "Hello, world!\n"';
Output:
Hello, world!
Let us write hello world program using vi text editor:
$ vi hello.pl
Append code as follows:
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Hello, world!\n";
Save and close the file. Now setup a execute permission:
$ chmod +x hello.pl
Finally execute perl program:
$ ./hello.pl
- First, I used the vi command to create a file named hello.pl
- The first line of the script used to specify that the script is to be executed by perl program (#!/usr/bin/perl) and not by a shell.
- Print command prints hello world on screen. Please note that the notation \n which stands for newline i.e. print a newline.
Further reading
This is just a simple introduction. You should consider following text books & resources for more information and mastering the perl:
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Related Linux / UNIX FAQ:
- Sending mail with Perl mail script
- How do I send html email from Perl?
- Perl display and pass command ling arguments with @argv
- Perl sprintf: How do I use sprintf in a perl script?
- Howto find out perl version
Discussion on This FAQ
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Tags: hello_world, Linux, perl_editor, perl_program, perl_script, UNIX ~ Last updated on: July 17, 2007
July 18th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
While you answered the question adequately, I think I understand the ‘asker’.
When I started leaning PHP, all you have to do is go to php.net and it has an online reference regarding all the functions, even about the language syntax and grammar itself.
I have looked at Perl, read a book, understand most of it’s syntax and quirks, but I have yet to find a site of PHP.net’s quality to really ‘dig’ into Perl.
July 18th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Andy,
I agree with you. It is hard for a new person to get started with Perl. Php.net is one of the best site for all php related information.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Chucks, part of the reason of my post, was polling if you knew a perl equivalent of php.net… guess not!
July 19th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Noop, there is no such a site exists, AFAIK. You can try http://perldoc.perl.org/ (same as reading perldoc on UNIX)
HTH