By Stephen Spainhour, Ellen Siever, Nathan Patwardhan
December 1998
Pages: 668
ISBN 10: 1-56592-286-7 |
ISBN 13: 9781565922860
(Average of 2 Customer Reviews)
This book has been updated—the edition you're requesting is OUT OF PRINT. Please visit the catalog page of the latest edition.
The latest edition is also available on Safari Books Online.
The perfect companion for working programmers, Perl in a Nutshell is a comprehensive reference guide to the world of Perl. It contains everything you need to know for all but the most obscure Perl questions. This wealth of information is packed into an efficient, extraordinarily usable format.
Full Description
- Basic language reference
- Introduction to using Perl modules
- Perl and CGI: CGI basics, CGI.pm, mod_perl
- DBI, the database-independent API for Perl
- Sockets programming in Perl
- LWP, the library for World Wide Web programming in Perl
- The Net::* modules
Register your book | Submit Errata
Browse within this book
Cover | Table of Contents | Index | Colophon
Book details
First Edition: December 1998
ISBN: 1-56592-286-7
Pages: 668
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 2 Reviews)
Featured customer reviews
Perl in a Nutshell Review, May 30 2002
I love O'Reilly books. But this one, put simple, is a bit of a dud. If you are expecting the kind of quality you may have found in other Nutshell books (Unix in Nutshell for instance), you aren't going to get it.
Looking for a quick reminder of some weird syntax? You probably won't find it.
Looking for some good little examples of commands you havn't used yet? You won't find them.
Looking for any hint of style, humor, or insight? You won't get that either.
Looking for exhaustive lists of all the options of a particular module? Nope.
Looking for an attractive and seldom used paperweight? Here it is.
Perl in a Nutshell Review, October 25 2001
This book kicks *** plain and simple. It's an indispensable reference for ANY Perl Programmer.
Perl in a Nutshell Review, January 29 2000
Submitted by Thomas Dworzanski [Respond | View]
This is a GREAT book. Let me tell you why I bought it.
When I had first decided I was going to learn Perl there were, or so it seemed, many options. After spending serveral weeks searching the web for a decent tutorial, one for a beginner with no knoledge other than HTML, and a little of JavaScript, I gave up. I eventually checked out the Perl books at the Borders by my school (I'm 15). After going over the serveral books I had chosen, and please keep reading after I tell you about this, "Perl for Dummies".
Reading "Perl for Dummies" gave me a general understanding of the Perl syntex, but I had no idea how, and where to use anything I learned. I mean, I couldn't write a script without bugs. Reference was almost impossible with a weak index and a book that covers about half of the Perl language.
Desperate, I went back to Borders and found "Perl in a Nutshell". With the help of this book and some sample scripts I picked up from several places on the web (check out cgi.resourceindex.com) I quickly learned how to use Perl, and in an effective way. I owe my knoledge of this great CGI language to O'Reilly.
Thanks for the great book, it lives on my computer and helps me all the time! By far the most helpful computer book I ever bought!
Perl in a Nutshell Review, September 16 1999
Submitted by Cook [Respond | View]
This is a book whose brilliance is not in its authors' mastery of English. It is just the most eloquent book I've found on any
programming language. After a certain point, you just want a book to lay out the language's syntax clearly; if you desire to 'grok'
the philosophy of perl, you look at other books or read the preface. This book doesn't tell you how feature x is strong, or make
jokes about how deprecated feature is weak. It lets you decide for yourself, and gives pointers to other books that contain
these comments. I of course don't recommend this as a starting text if you're a little new to programming, or don't quite
understand what Perl is useful for.
Perl in a Nutshell Review, June 03 1999
Submitted by Arthur Stevens [Respond | View]
I've been using perl since 95', this is the most overal useful book i've seen yet.
Perl in a Nutshell Review, February 24 1999
Submitted by Grant Hopwood [Respond | View]
Well worth its reasonable cost!
Perl in a Nutshell Review, February 24 1999
Submitted by A CGI/Perl programmer for the last 2 yea [Respond | View]
Please,
Can this book be made available ASAP? It's
really frustrating to see the date being pushed
forward every month.
At least you can shelve the whole project
like you did for the second edition of
'CGI programming for the World Wide Web'
by Shishir Gundavaram. I looked forward to that
too. But at least, I know that it is not going
to happen.
I like most of the things about O'reilly but
this is one thing which has annoyed me a lot.
Regards,
-Murali
Media reviews
"Perl in a Nutshell is everything programmers have come to expect{from O'Reilly}: clear, concise and no-nonsense information on the subjects which matter...for the workaday programmer who needs an elbow-side reference manual or the occasional coder looking for a memory jogger, this book is worth it's weight in gold." -amazon.co.uk
"maintains the exceptionally high quality of the O'Reilly Nutshell series." --Steve Coe, Canada Computes, Dec 2000
"Good reference for the Perl monger, a good way for the experienced programmer to start getting work done in Perl. Rating 10/10." --Andrew Gardner, slashdot.com, May 1999
Here's The Scenario It is every nerd's righteous duty to learn to hack in Perl. And not just hack, but obfuscate, and do it well. Its a prerequisite for database interfaces, CGI, and system administration, and engineers use Perl all the time. So, figuring it was time to establish my Official Nerd status and get some work done, I set out for the book store. After wading through the piles of books on prognostications about the future of the internet and the 17 volume How to Use AOL series, I found Perl in a Nutshell. I'd done a little Perl before (certainly nothing that would qualify me as a hacker), but I've spent enough time in front of a computer staring into an Emacs buffer full of Verilog to feel like an experienced geek. I didn't want my hand held, and I didn't want a book aimed at the "Netscape for Idiots" crowd. I just wanted to start doing stuff in Perl. What you get Just as the subtitle states, this is A Desktop Quick Reference. Right from the start, the assumption is that you are going to do something of value very quicky with the knowledge that you are acquiring. Accompanying the exhaustive list of functions, the description of the goals and functionality of each module keeps the book narrowly focused on what Perl can do for you, and what you can be doing with Perl right now. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the most popular modules available on CPAN, which greatly expands the scope of things you can do with this book. The descriptions of the entire broad spectrum of Perl that the book covers are all written in the same style. A quick introduction develops the purpose of the module, and then its straight into the function reference. There is very little fooling around here, and that's the best reason to buy this book. A brief list of the most useful topics: * Basic language reference (reserved words and standard modules) * CGI and mod_perl * Database interfaces * Sockets and network programming * Perl/Tk
The introduction to Perl in the first four chapters is sufficient for the experienced coder, and the function reference makes it simple to jumpstart projects in Perl. Unlike some technical books whose indices and tables of contents are as nondescript as physically possible, Perl in a Nutshell actually has a useful index and table of contents that makes it rather simple to find what you're looking for. Should you buy this book? Perl in a Nutshell is a perfect book for its market. If you're an inexperienced programmer, or you have no use for Perl, this book will do nothing for you. If you want to get started in Perl, the authors suggest Programming Perl, which is the definitive work on the subject. That really is the place to start. If, however, you have the Camel or the Llama or the Ram, then the Camel head, as the preface names it, might just be a welcome addition to your Perl library. So What's In It For Me? You don't get tons of code. And it's short on philosophy. You get a reference, and you get what you paid for. So, when you're desperate to get it to work, or you've got a couple of hours to pull something out of thin air, this is the book you want on your desk because it is truly a complete reference. --Andrew Gardner, slashdot.com
