1. Chapter 1 Introduction

   1. History of Perl

   2. Purpose of Perl

   3. Availability

   4. Support

   5. Basic Concepts

   6. A Stroll Through Perl

   7. Exercises

2. Chapter 2 Scalar Data

   1. What Is Scalar Data?

   2. Numbers

   3. Strings

   4. Scalar Operators

   5. Scalar Variables

   6. Scalar Operators and Functions

   7. <STDIN> as a Scalar Value

   8. Output with print

   9. The Undefined Value

   10. Exercises

3. Chapter 3 Arrays and List Data

   1. What Is a List or Array?

   2. Literal Representation

   3. Variables

   4. Array Operators and Functions

   5. Scalar and List Context

   6. <STDIN> as an Array

   7. Variable Interpolation of Arrays

   8. Exercises

4. Chapter 4 Control Structures

   1. Statement Blocks

   2. The if/unless Statement

   3. The while/until Statement

   4. The do {} while/until Statement

   5. The for Statement

   6. The foreach Statement

   7. Exercises

5. Chapter 5 Hashes

   1. What Is a Hash?

   2. Hash Variables

   3. Literal Representation of a Hash

   4. Hash Functions

   5. Hash Slices

   6. Exercises

6. Chapter 6 Basic I/O

   1. Input from STDIN

   2. Input from the Diamond Operator

   3. Output to STDOUT

   4. Exercises

7. Chapter 7 Regular Expressions

   1. Concepts About Regular Expressions

   2. Simple Uses of Regular Expressions

   3. Patterns

   4. More on the Matching Operator

   5. Substitutions

   6. The split and join Functions

   7. Exercises

8. Chapter 8 Functions

   1. Defining a User Function

   2. Invoking a User Function

   3. Return Values

   4. Arguments

   5. Private Variables in Functions

   6. Semiprivate Variables Using local

   7. File-Level my( ) Variables

   8. Exercises

9. Chapter 9 Miscellaneous Control Structures

   1. The last Statement

   2. The next Statement

   3. The redo Statement

   4. Labeled Blocks

   5. Expression Modifiers

   6. &&, ||, and ?: as Control Structures

   7. Exercises

10. Chapter 10 Filehandles and File Tests

    1. What Is a Filehandle?

    2. Opening and Closing a Filehandle

    3. Using Pathnames and Filenames

    4. A Slight Diversion: die

    5. Using Filehandles

    6. The -x File Tests

    7. The stat Function

    8. Exercises

11. Chapter 11 Formats

    1. What Is a Format?

    2. Defining a Format

    3. Invoking a Format

    4. More About the Fieldholders

    5. The Top-of-Page Format

    6. Changing Defaults for Formats

    7. The FileHandle Module

    8. Exercises

12. Chapter 12 Directory Access

    1. Moving Around the Directory Tree

    2. Globbing

    3. Directory Handles

    4. Opening and Closing a Directory Handle

    5. Reading a Directory Handle

    6. Exercises

13. Chapter 13 File and Directory Manipulation

    1. Removing a File

    2. Renaming a File

    3. Making and Removing Directories

    4. Modifying Permissions

    5. Modifying Timestamps

    6. Exercises

14. Chapter 14 Process Management

    1. Using system and exec

    2. Using Backquotes

    3. Using Processes as Filehandles

    4. Summary of Process Operations

    5. Win32::Process

    6. Exercises

15. Chapter 15 Other Data Transformation

    1. Finding a Substring

    2. Extracting and Replacing a Substring

    3. Formatting Data with sprintf( )

    4. Advanced Sorting

    5. Transliteration

    6. Exercises

16. Chapter 16 System Information

    1. Getting User and Machine Information

    2. Packing and Unpacking Binary Data

    3. Getting Network Information

    4. The Registry

    5. Opening and Reading Registry Values

    6. Setting Registry Values

    7. Exercises

17. Chapter 17 Database Manipulation

    1. DBM Databases and DBM Hashes

    2. Opening and Closing DBM Hashes

    3. Using a DBM Hash

    4. Fixed-Length Random-Access Databases

    5. Variable-Length ( Text) Databases

    6. Win32 Database Interfaces

    7. Exercises

18. Chapter 18 CGI Programming

    1. The CGI.pm Module

    2. Your CGI Program in Context

    3. Simplest CGI Program

    4. Passing Parameters via CGI

    5. Creating a Guestbook Program

    6. Troubleshooting CGI Programs

    7. Perl and the Web: Beyond CGI Programming

    8. Further Reading

    9. Exercises

19. Chapter 19 OLE Automation

    1. Introduction to OLE Automation

    2. Creating Automation Objects

    3. Using Automation Objects

    4. Variants

    5. Tips and Techniques

    6. Exercises

1. Appendix Exercise Answers

   1. Chapter 2

   2. Chapter 3

   3. Chapter 4

   4. Chapter 5

   5. Chapter 6

   6. Chapter 7

   7. Chapter 8

   8. Chapter 9

   9. Chapter 10

   10. Chapter 11

   11. Chapter 12

   12. Chapter 13

   13. Chapter 14

   14. Chapter 15

   15. Chapter 16

   16. Chapter 17

   17. Chapter 18

   18. Chapter 19

2. Appendix Libraries and Modules

   1. Library Terminology

   2. Standard Modules

   3. CPAN: Beyond the Standard Library

   4. Win32 Extensions

3. Appendix Networking Clients

   1. A Simple Client

   2. A Webget Client

4. Appendix Topics We Didn’t Mention

   1. Full Interprocess Communications

   2. The Debugger

   3. The Command Line

   4. Other Operators

   5. Many, Many More Functions

   6. Many, Many Predefined Variables

   7. Symbol Table Manipulation With *FRED

   8. Additional Regular Expression Features

   9. Packages

   10. Embeddible, Extensible

   11. And Other Stuff

5. Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Learning Perl on Win32 Systems is a wall gecko. Geckos are a very large and diverse family of lizards, with approximately 670 species. The wall gecko is found in North Africa, southern parts of Spain, France, and Italy, the Canary Islands, and some South Pacific islands. Their wide distribution is largely due to geckos stowing away aboard cargo ships. Wall geckos regularly live among humans, making their homes in the crevices of houses.

As their name implies, wall geckos can climb walls with ease, a skill they share with other geckos. Contrary to long-held opinion, they do not have suction cup- like fingers and toes. Instead, they have microscopic, hooked cells covering their digits. The cells hook into any tiny crevice or irregularity in a surface, even glass.

Geckos are the only reptiles that make extensive use of their voices. They communicate danger, attract mates, and mark territory using a range of chirps, squeaks, and barks. If caught, a gecko can break off a section of its tail using muscular contraction, which severs a tail vertebra. The tail will regenerate, but can never again be broken off at that particular site.

Wall geckos, which are nocturnal, have excellent vision. They have no eyelids, just a transparent scale covering the eye surface. Like cats' eyes, the gecko's pupil closes to a slit to restrict light, and opens to fill the iris at night. Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on other Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.32 using ITC Garamond from Adobe. Whenever possible, our books use RepKoverTM, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover's limit, perfect binding is used. ... The inside layout was designed by Nancy Priest and formatted in FrameMaker 5.0 by Mike Sierra using ITC Garamond Light and ITC Garamond Book fonts. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.