Overview of Perl
What is Perl?
Running Perl Programs
Example Programs

Perl Variables
Three Types of Variables
Variable Names and Syntax
Variable Naming
Lists
Scalar and List Contexts
The Repetition Operator

Arrays and Hashes
Arrays
Example - The @ARGV Array
Array Functions
Array Slices
Hashes
Hash Functions
Scalar and List Contexts Revisited

I/O: Input Operations and File I/O
Filehandles
The open Function
The Input Operator
Default Input Operator
The print Function
File Operation Functions
Reading Directories

Operators
Perl operators
Operators, Functions and Precedence
File Test Operators
Assignment Operator Notations
The Range Operator
Quotation Operators
Pattern Matching Operators

Flow Control
Simple Statements
Simple Statement Modifiers
Compound Statements
The next, last and redo Statements
The for Loop
The foreach Loop

Regular Expressions
Pattern Matching Overview
The Substitution Operator
Regular Expressions
Special Characters
Quantifiers (*, +, ?, {})
Assertions (^, $, \b, \B)

Subroutines
Overview of Subroutines
Passing Arguments
Local Variables
Passing Names
Returning Values

Quoting and Interpolation
String Literals
Interpolation
Array Substitution
Backslashes and Single Quotes
Command Substitution
Here Documents

References
References
Creating References
Using References
Passing References as Arguments to Subroutines
Anonymous Composers
Hard References as Hash Keys
The Symbol Table

Complex Data Structures
Two-dimensional Arrays in Perl
Anonymous Arrays and Anonymous Hashes
Arrays of Arrays
Arrays of References
A Hash of Arrays
A Hash of Hashes
 Packages and Modules
Packages
BEGIN and END Routines
require vs. use
Modules
The bless Function

Object-Oriented Programming in Perl
What is Object-Oriented?
Why Use Object-Oriented Programming?
Classes, Objects, and Methods in Perl
Inheritance, the "is-a" Relationship
Containment, the "has-a" Relationship
Overloaded Operators
Destructors

Advanced Regular Expressions
Substrings
Substrings in List Context
RE Special Variables
RE Options
Multiline Res
Substituting with an Expression

Binary Data Structures
Variable-Length (Delimited) Fields
Variable vs. Fixed
Handling Binary Data
The pack() Function
The unpack() function
The read () Function
C Data Structures

Multitasking with Perl
What are Single and Multitasking?
UNIX Multitasking Concepts
Process Creation with fork
Program Loading with exec()
File Descriptor Inheritance
How UNIX Opens Files
One-Way Data Flow - Pipes
Final Result - Page Viewing

Sockets Programming in Perl
Clients and Servers
Ports and Services
Berkeley Sockets
Data Structures of the Sockets API
Socket System Calls
Generic Client/Server Models
A Little Web Server

Appendix 1 - The Perl Distribution
Where Can You Get Perl?
How Do You Build Perl?
What Gets Created and Installed?
Differences Between Platforms

Appendix 2 - The Perl Debugger
Overview of the Perl debugger
Debugger Commands
Non-Debugger Commands
Listing Lines
Single Stepping
Setting and Clearing Breakpoints
Modifying the Debugger
The -w and -D Flags