Preface 1. Getting Started 2. Working with Scalars 3. Arrays 4. Control Structures 5. Associative Arrays (Hashes) 6. Regular Expressions 7. Subroutines A. Background of Perl B. GNU Free Documentation License General Index -- The Detailed Node Listing --- Preface Purpose of this Book Acknowledgments Obtaining the Most Recent Version Audience Who should read this book? Material Covered What does this book cover? Conventions Used in this Book How do I read this book? Getting Started 1.1 A First Perl Program 1.2 Expressions, Statements, and Side-Effects Working with Scalars 2.1 Strings 2.2 Numbers 2.3 Scalar Variables 2.4 Operators 2.5 Output of Scalar Data 2.6 Special Variables 2.7 Summary of Scalar Operators Strings 2.1.1 Single-quoted Strings 2.1.2 A Digression--The print Function 2.1.3 Double-quoted Strings Single-quoted Strings 2.1.1.1 Special Characters in Single-quoted Strings 2.1.1.2 Newlines in Single-quoted Strings 2.1.1.3 Examples of Invalid Single-quoted Strings Double-quoted Strings 2.1.3.1 Interpolation in Double-quoted Strings 2.1.3.2 Examples of Interpolation 2.1.3.3 Examples of Interpolation (ASCII Octal Values) 2.1.3.4 Examples of Interpolation (ASCII Hex Values) 2.1.3.5 Characters Requiring Special Consideration Numbers 2.2.1 Numeric Literals Numeric Literals 2.2.1.1 Printing Numeric Literals Using print with numeric literals Scalar Variables 2.3.1 Scalar Interpolation Expanding scalar variables in double-quoted strings 2.3.2 Undefined Variables Before a Variable has a value, It is undefined Operators 2.4.1 Numerical Operators Operators for numeric scalars 2.4.2 Comparison Operators Operators to compare scalars with each other 2.4.3 Auto-Increment and Decrement 2.4.4 String Operators Operators for string scalars Arrays 3.1 The Semantics of Arrays 3.2 List Literals 3.3 Array Variables 3.4 Manipulating Arrays and Lists Array Variables 3.3.1 Array Variables 3.3.2 Associated Scalars Manipulating Arrays and Lists 3.4.1 It Slices! 3.4.2 Functions 3.4.3 The Context--List vs. Scalar 3.4.4 Array Interpolation Functions 3.4.2.1 Arrays as Stacks 3.4.2.2 Arrays as Queues Control Structures 4.1 Blocks 4.2 A Digression--Truth Values 4.3 The if/unless Structures 4.4 The while/until Structures 4.5 The do while/until Structures 4.6 The for Structure 4.7 The foreach Structure Associative Arrays (Hashes) 5.1 What Is It? 5.2 Variables 5.3 Literals 5.4 Functions 5.5 Slices 5.6 Context Considerations Functions 5.4.1 Keys and Values 5.4.2 Each Regular Expressions 6.1 The Theory Behind It All 6.2 The Simple 6.3 Pattern Matching 6.4 Regular Expression Shortcuts The Simple 6.2.1 Simple Characters 6.2.2 The * Special Character 6.2.3 The . Character 6.2.4 The | Character 6.2.5 Grouping with ()s 6.2.6 The Anchor Characters Subroutines 7.1 Defining Subroutines 7.2 Returning Values 7.3 Using Arguments Basic Input with Perl 8.1 Reading Input from Standard Input 8.2 STDIN and Redirection 8.3 Input Control using the Diamond Operator 8.4 Input and the Default Variable Perl Output 9.1 Standard Output and the print Operator 9.2 Formatted Output and the printf Operator 9.3 Field Widths with printf Background of Perl A.1 A Brief History of Perl A.2 Perl as a Natural Language A.3 The Slogans
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