Mastering Perl

Take the next step toward Perl mastery with advanced concepts that make coding easier, maintenance simpler, and execution faster. Mastering Perl isn't a collection of clever tricks, but a way of thinking about Perl programming for solving debugging, configuration, and many other real-world problems you’ll encounter as a working programmer. The third in O’Reilly’s series of landmark Perl tutorials (after Learning Perl and Intermediate Perl), this fully upated edition pulls everything together and helps you bend Perl to your will. Explore advanced regular expressions features Avoid common problems when writing secure programs Profile and benchmark Perl programs to see where they need work Wrangle Perl code to make it more presentable and readable Understand how Perl keeps track of package variables Define subroutines on the fly Jury-rig modules to fix code without editing the original source Use bit operations and bit vectors to store large data efficiently Learn how to detect errors that Perl doesn’t report Dive into logging, data persistence, and the magic of tied variables

Mastering Perl helps readers to learn the Perl programming language with real-world examples. High-level, interpreted, and multipurpose, Perl’s roots are in text manipulation. It is used for UI development in system administration, networking, and other fields, borrowing heavily from C and Shell scripts. Among programmers, Perl is also known as "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" or "Practically Everything Really Likable." Since Perl’s inception, it has mostly been used for text processing, namely the extraction of data from text files and its subsequent transformation into other formats. In addition to being interoperable with HTML, XML, and other markup languages, Perl provides cross-platform compatibility. It is Open Source, meaning it is free to use and licensed under both the Artistic and GNU General Public Licenses (GPL). With Mastering Perl, learning Perl becomes a charm and will help readers undoubtedly advance their careers.

The sixth edition of this bestselling Perl tutorial includes recent changes to the language. Years of classroom testing and experience helped shape the book's pace and scope, and this edition is packed with exercises that let readers practice the concepts while they follow the text.

Many programmers would love to use Perl for projects that involve heavy lifting, but miss the many traditional algorithms that textbooks teach for other languages. Computer scientists have identified many techniques that a wide range of programs need, such as: Fuzzy pattern matching for text (identify misspellings!)Finding correlations in dataGame-playing algorithmsPredicting phenomena such as Web trafficPolynomial and spline fitting Using algorithms explained in this book, you too can carry out traditional programming tasks.

Covers basic and advanced applications of Perl/Tk, discussing topics including basic Perl/Tk widgets and geometry managers, how to use callbacks and bindings effectively, working with images, and developing a Tk widget in C.

Perl/Tk is the marriage of the Tk graphical toolkit with Perl, the powerful programming language used primarily for system administration, web programming, and database manipulation. With Perl/Tk, you can build Perl programs with an attractive, intuitive GUI interface with all the power of Perl behind it.Mastering Perl/Tk is the "bible" of Perl/Tk: It's not only a great book for getting started, but the best reference for learning the techniques of experienced Perl/Tk programmers. The first half of the book contains the basics on how to use Perl/Tk, and then branches out into advanced applications with a series of extensive program examples. The result is a book accessible for novices, and invaluable for experienced programmers ready to learn the next step in the elegant and effective use of Perl/Tk. The book includes: An introduction to each of the basic Perl/Tk widgets and geometry managers A dissection of the MainLoop, including how to use callbacks and bindings effectively Coverage of the Tix widgets, an extended set of widgets that are a part of the standard Perl/Tk distribution Working with images in Perl/Tk, including bitmaps, pixmaps, photos, and how to compose a compound image type How to create custom mega-widgets in Perl/Tk, both composite and derived Handling interprocess communication with Perl/Tk, both with standard Unix utilities (pipes and sockets) and with the send command designed for direct communication between Tk applications Developing your own Tk widget in the C language Examples of web applications written with Perl/Tk and the LWP library The book also includes appendices on installing Perl/Tk, a complete quick-reference for each standard widget, and listings of all the extended examples in the book.Nancy Walsh is the author of Learning Perl/Tk, and Steve Lidie wrote the Perl/Tk Pocket Reference as well as a series of Perl/Tk articles in The Perl Journal. Together, they have written Mastering Perl/Tk to be the definitive guide to Perl/Tk.

Historically, programming hasn't been considered a critical skill for biologists. But now, with access to vast amounts of biological data contained in public databases, programming skills are increasingly in strong demand in biology research and development. Perl, with its highly developed capacities in string handling, text processing, networking, and rapid prototyping, has emerged as the programming language of choice for biological data analysis.Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics covers the core Perl language and many of its module extensions, presenting them in the context of biological data and problems of pressing interest to the biological community. This book, along with Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics, forms a basic course in Perl programming. This second volume finishes the basic Perl tutorial material (references, complex data structures, object-oriented programming, use of modules--all presented in a biological context) and presents some advanced topics of considerable interest in bioinformatics.The range of topics covered in Mastering Perl for Bioinformatics prepares the reader for enduring and emerging developments in critical areas of bioinformatics programming such as: Gene finding String alignment Methods of data storage and retrieval (SML and databases) Modeling of networks (graphs and Petri nets) Graphics (Tk) Parallelization Interfacing with other programming languages Statistics (PDL) Protein structure determination Biological models of computation (DNA Computers) Biologists and computer scientists who have conquered the basics of Perl and are ready to move even further in their mastery of this versatile language will appreciate the author's well-balanced approach to applying Perl's analytical abilities to the field of bioinformatics. Full of practical examples and real-world biological problem solving, this book is a must for any reader wanting to move beyond beginner level Perl in bioinformatics.

"Intermediate Perl" offers a clear roadmap for improving readers' skills and gain working knowledge of Perl's objects, references, and modules--ingredients that make the language so versatile and effective. This book offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl.