Pro Perl Programming

Master intermediate to advanced techniques of the Perl programming language starting with a focus on regular expressions and some of their advanced features. This book then covers other pro-level features, including formatted output, file handling, and more.

Additionally, you'll learn and explore the most useful built-in variables, pragmas, and modules available in the Perl language. Furthermore, you'll work with geometry managers and get a thorough treatment of graphical user interface development using Perl/TK and widgets. Lastly, you’ll cover debugging techniques.

Pro Perl Programming is a professional-level reference guide on Perl and includes important aspects of it that you need as a professional programmer.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

* Program regular expressions including atoms, smartmatch operators, and more
Use advanced features such as HiRes Time, slurp() functions, Critic, Tidy and many more functions * Handle advanced formatted output such as printf and sprintf
Explore useful built-in variables, including status variables, separator variables, and the signal handle variable * Explore and use Perl's built-in modules, including the Pragma modules
Work with Perl/TK and its widgets-like geometry managers, frames, labels, buttons, check buttons, radio buttons, scrollbars, scales, entries, and menus


WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Those with at least some prior experience with Perl programming or have read Beginning Perl Programming by William Rothwell.

At the impressionable age of 14, WILLIAM "BO" ROTHWELL crossed paths with a TRS-80 Micro Computer System (affectionately known as a “Trash 80”). Soon after the adults responsible for Bo made the mistake of leaving him alone with the TSR-80. He immediately dismantled it and held his first computer class, showing his friends what made this “computer thing” work. Since this experience, Bo’s passion for understanding how computers work and sharing this knowledge with others has resulting in a rewarding career in IT training. His experience includes Linux, Unix, DevOps tools, and programming languages such as Perl, Python, Tcl, and BASH. Chapter One Intermediate Regular Expressions

1.1 Review: Basic Regular Expressions

1.2 Modifiers

1.3 Getting the Nth occurrence of a match

1.4 Greedy vs. Non-Greedy matches

1.5 Regular Expression variables

1.6 Special characters in regular expressions

1.7 Assertions

1.8 Reading from filehandles using split 1.9 Multiple line matching

1.10 Commenting Regular Expressions

1.11 Alternative Delimiters

1.12 Additional resources

1.13 Lab Exercises

Chapter Two Advanced Regular Expressions

2.1 Make use of the Smartmatch Operator

2.2 Understand Regular Expression precedence

2.3 Understand what is *NOT* a Regular Expression atom

2.4 Using Regular Expressions in List Context

2.5 Match whitespace properly

2.6 Use \G

2.7 Use the \A, \Z and \z assertions

2.8 Avoid capturing

2.9 Avoid the variables $`, $& and $'

2.10 Compile your Regular Expressions before using them

2.11 Benchmark your patterns

2.12 Use Regexp::Common

2.13 Flags you should consider always using

2.14 Avoid escapes

2.15 Use the re Pragma

2.16 Understand backtracking

Chapter Three Advanced Features

3.1 Use my iterator variables with for loops

3.2 Utilize loop labels

3.3 Avoid using for file matching

3.4 Time::HiRes

3.5 Contextual::Return

3.6 Indirect Filehandles

3.7 The three argument technique to the open statement

3.8 Always check the return values of open, close and when printing to a file

3.9 Close filehandles as soon as possible

3.10 Avoid slurping

3.11 Creatively use the do statement

3.12 Use the slurp() function

3.13 Test for interactivity

3.14 Use IO::Prompt

3.15 Understand where to find documentation

3.16 Understand context

3.17 Understand the => operator

3.18 Understand subroutine calls

3.19 Understand and/or versus &/||

3.20 Use Perl::Tidy

3.21 Use Perl::Critic

3.22 Understand Getopt::Std

3.23 Understand Getopt::Long

3.24 Alternative commenting technique

3.25 Passing notes within a Perl program 3.26 Use Smart::Comments

Chapter Four Advanced Formatted Output

4.1 Review: The format statement

4.2 Advanced format statement features

4.3 printf and sprintf

4.4 Using select

4.5 The operator

4.6 Additional Resources

4.7 Lab Exercises

Chapter Five Exploring Useful Built-in Variables

5.1 Perl's built-in variables

5.2 Variables reference chart

5.3 Use English

5.4. Status variables

5.5 Separator variables

5.6 The signal handle variable5.7 Version of Perl

5.8 Program start time

5.9 Additional Resources

5.10 Lab Exercises

Chapter Six Advanced File Handling

6.1 Review: Basic File Handling

6.2 Displaying the file position

6.3 Moving the file position

6.4 Opening files for reading and writing

6.5 Making "files" within your script

6.6 Locking files

6.7 Flushing output buffers

6.8 Additional Resources

6.9 Lab Exercises

Chapter Seven Pragmas 7.1 Perl pragmas

7.2 Pragma chart

7.3 Review: use strict

7.4 Predeclaring subroutines

7.5 Predeclaring global variables

7.6 Additional Resources

7.7 Lab Exercises

Chapter Eight Exploring Useful Built-in Modules

8.1 Built-in modules

8.2 Module table8.3 Cwd

8.4 Env

8.5 File

8.6 Math

8.7 Sys

8.8 Text

8.9 Fatal

8.10 Benchmark

8.11 Getopt::Std

8.12 Getopt::Long

8.13 Additional Resources

8.14 Lab Exercises

Chapter Nine Debugging Tools

9.1 Review: The -w switch

9.2 Review: The Perl debugger

9.3 Debugger commands

9.4 Diagnostics

9.5 Carp9.6 Data::Dumper

9.7 Additional Resources

9.8 Lab Exercises

Chapter Ten Perl/TK Basics

10.1 Working with Windows

10.2 Types of Widgets

10.3 Geometry Managers

10.4 Creating Widgets

10.5 The OO nature of the Tk module

10.6 Additional resources

10.7 Lab Exercises

Chapter Eleven Perl TK Widgets

11.1 Frames

11.2 Labels

11.3 Buttons

11.4 Checkbuttons

11.5 Radiobuttons

11.6 Listboxes

11.7 Scrollbars

11.8 Scales

11.9 Entries

11.10 Creating menus

11.11 Additional Resources

11.12 Lab Exercises

Module Twelve Geometry Managers

12.1 pack options

12.2 The -after and -before option

12.3 The -anchor and -side options

12.4 The -fill option

12.5 Padding with pack

12.6 Managing widgets with pack

12.7 Binding

12.8 The focus command 12.9 Additional Resources

12.10 Lab Exercises