Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files, and processes. It provides a more concise and readable way to do many jobs that were formerly accomplished (with difficulty) by programming with C or one of the shells. Perl is likely to be available wherever you choose to work. And if it isn't, you can get it and install it easily and free of charge.

This heavily revised second edition of Programming Perl contains a full explanation of the features in Perl version 5.003. Contents include:

• An introduction to Perl
• Explanations of the language and its syntax
• Perl functions
• Perl library modules
• The use of references in Perl
• How to use Perl's object-oriented features
• Invocation options for Perl itself, and also for the utilities that come with Perl
• Other oddments: debugging, common mistakes, efficiency, programming style, distribution and installation of Perl, Perl poetry, and so on.