Perl stands for
Practical Extraction and Reporting language .It is a high level programming language written by Larry Wall.
Perl is mainly based on the aspects of 'C' Language. Perl also incorporate many features of Unix and many other tools and languages.
It is particularly strong at process manipulating, file manipulating and text manipulating. So, it is very much useful for system utilities, software tools, system management tasks, database access, graphical programmming, networking and web programming.
Perl is relatively unstructured language, ie, very less rules that one need to follow as compared to other languages.
in Perl there are more than one way to to things ie, TIMTOWTDI- THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE WAYS TO DO IT.
There are different ways to acheive the same result ,all being legally valid.
In Perl , writting a script is quite easy,
Suppose for Example:
In Perl we need to write: Print " Hello All"
For the same thing ic 'C' needs; #include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
Printf(" Hello All ");
}
Perl files are basically text files. We can write that in any text editor available. Perl can be used under various options like UNIX, WINDOWS etc.
Generally perl scripts have .pl extension.
Various Components of Perl are;
1. Variables:
a) $ - Scalar Variable - Mostly variables is perl are Scalar.
b) @ - Array Variable - List of Scalar variable.
c) % - Hash variable
2. Operators :
Various Operator are available. Such as ;
a) '+' Sum
b) '-' Difference etc.
3. Statements :
Various statements such as IF, LOOPS etc.
4. Subroutines : Also known as Functions
When we need to perform an operation on number of variables number of times, or same operation on number of variables, in that case Subroutines are very useful.
5. Modules : Collection of Subroutines is called as Modules.
This can be used in different scripts.