Perl Programming — a 3-day course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

This course is designed to give delegates the knowledge to develop/maintain Perl scripts.

Course Objectives

The delegate will learn to:

• Declare variables and initialise them
• Understand scalar and list context
• Construct expressions with arithmetic, logical and relational operators
• Use iterative type statements
• Use conditional statements
• Read/write text and binary files
• Manipulate text using regular expression
• Use and code subroutines
• Use built-in library functions
• Use arrays and hashes
• Declare and use packages

Suitable for

Programmers who need to write or maintain scripts in Perl.

Prerequisites

• Experience of programming in another programming language is required.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Course Contents

Introduction and Basic Syntax

• What is PERL and why PERL is useful
• How to run PERL programs on UNIX and Windows platform
• A simple PERL Program
• Labs

Operators and Control Flow

• Scalar variables - usage
• Basic arithmetic operators and how they work with scalar operands
• What an expression is
• How to use the if statement and the == operator
• Two-way and multi-way branching using else and elsif
• Simple loops using while and until statements
• Labs

Scalar Values and Scalar Context

• Scalar values and scalar context
• Integer and floating point representation
• Octal and Hexadecimal notations
• Character strings, single and double quote representation
• Escape sequences
• Interchangeability of character and numeric values
• Labs

More Operators

• More arithmetic operators, **, % and - (unary)
• Integer and string comparison operators
• Logical operators
• Bit manipulation operators
• Compound assignment operators
• Autoincrement and autodecrement operators
• Concatenation and repetition operators
• Conditional and comma operators
• Labs

List Context and Array Values

• What lists are
• Relationship between scalars and lists
• Storing lists in array variables
• Accessing elements of arrays and lists
• Range operator
• Array assignment in scalar and list context
• Library functions used with lists
• Labs

List Context and Array Variables

• What lists are
• Relationship between scalars and lists
• Storing lists in array variables
• Accessing elements of arrays and lists
• Range operator
• Array assignment in scalar and list context
• Library functions used with lists
• Labs

Pattern Matching

• How pattern matching works
• Pattern matching operators
• Pattern matching special characters
• Labs part I
• Pattern matching options
• Pattern substitution
• Pattern tagging
• Translation
• Labs

Subroutines

• What is a subroutine
• How to define and invoke subroutines
• Argument passing and return values from a subroutine
• Typeglob for argument passing
• Local and global variables in subroutines
• How to nest subroutines
• How to use recursive subroutines
• Special system subroutines - AUTOLOAD, BEGIN and END
• Labs

Associative Array

• What an associative array is
• How to define and use associative arrays
• Initialising and extending hashes
• Assigning and copying hashes
• How to delete elements of an associative array
• How to loop using associative arrays
• Library function used with associative arrays
• How to build advanced data structures using associative arrays
• Labs

Multithreading

• What is Multithreading
• How to check the perl interpreter for multi thread capability
• Create a simple Multi Thread program
• More complex example of multi threading
• Problems with multi thread programs
• Labs

Miscellaneous System and Data Manipulationg Functions

• Handling Errors - die, warn, eval
• Handling exceptions - throw, catch
• Handling signals - %SIG hash, kill, alarm, sleep
• Directory manipulation functions
• File attribute functions
• Labs

Arrays & Hashes

• Multi-dimensional arrays
• Hashes containing arrays
• Hashes of hashes
• Labs

Modules & Pachages

• Namespaces
• Scope resolution operator
• Package declaration
• Use and require
• Data hiding and exporting
• Finding libraries and modules - @INC and %INC
• Setting the search path
• Labs