Perl

Learn Perl in about 2 hours 30 minutes

By Sam Hughes
Perl is a dynamic, dynamically-typed, high-level, scripting (interpreted) language most comparable
with PHP and Python. Perl's syntax owes a lot to ancient shell scripting tools, and it is famed for
its overuse of confusing symbols, the majority of which are impossible to Google for. Perl's shell
scripting heritage makes it great for writing glue code : scripts which link together other scripts and
programs. Perl is ideally suited for processing text data and producing more text data. Perl is
widespread, popular, highly portable and well-supported. Perl was designed with the philosophy
"There's More Than One Way To Do It" (TMTOWTDI) (contrast with Python, where "there should
be one - and preferably only one - obvious way to do it").

Perl has horrors, but it also has some great redeeming features. In this respect it is like every
other programming language ever created.

This document is intended to be informative, not evangelical. It is aimed at people who, like me:

dislike the official Perl documentation at http://perl.org/ for being intensely technical and
giving far too much space to very unusual edge cases
learn new programming languages most quickly by "axiom and example"
wish Larry Wall would get to the point
already know how to program in general terms
don't care about Perl beyond what's necessary to get the job done.

This document is intended to be as short as possible, but no shorter.

Preliminary notes
The following can be said of almost every declarative statement in this document: "that's not,
strictly speaking, true; the situation is actually a lot more complicated". I've deliberately
omitted or neglected to bother to research the "full truth" of the matter for the same reason
that there's no point in starting off a Year 7 physics student with the Einstein field equations.
If you see a serious lie, point it out, but I reserve the right to preserve certain critical lies-to-
children.

Throughout this document I'm using example print statements to output data but not
explicitly appending line breaks. This is done to prevent me from going crazy and to give
greater attention to the actual string being printed in each case, which is invariably more
important. In many examples, this results in alotofwordsallsmusheduptogetherononeline if
the code is run in reality. Try to ignore this. Or, in your head or in practice, set $\ (also
known as $OUTPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR ) to "\n" , which adds the line breaks automatically. Or
substitute the say function.

Perl docs all have short, memorable names, such as perlsyn which explains Perl syntax,
perlop (operators/precedence), perlfunc (built-in functions) et cetera. perlvar is the most
important of these, because this is where you can look up un-Googlable variable names
like $_, $" and $|.

Hello world

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A Perl script is a text file with the extension .pl .

Here's the text of helloworld.pl :

use strict;
use warnings;
print "Hello world";

Perl has no explicit compilation step (there is a "compilation" step, but it is performed
automatically before execution and no compiled binary is generated). Perl scripts are interpreted
by the Perl interpreter, perl or perl.exe :
perl helloworld.pl [arg0 [arg1 [arg2 ...]]]

A few immediate notes. Perl's syntax is highly permissive and it will allow you to do things which
result in ambiguous-looking statements with unpredictable behaviour. There's no point in me
explaining what these behaviours are, because you want to avoid them. The way to avoid them is
to put use strict; use warnings; at the very top of every Perl script or module that you create.
Statements of the form use <whatever> are pragmas. A pragma is a signal to the Perl compiler,
and changes the way in which the initial syntactic validation is performed. These lines take effect
at compile time, and have no effect when the interpreter encounters them at run time.

The hash symbol # begins a comment. A comment lasts until the end of the line. Perl has no block
comment syntax.

Variables
Perl variables come in three types: scalars, arrays and hashes. Each type has its own sigil: $, @ and
% respectively. Variables are declared using my .

Scalar variables
A scalar variable can contain:

undef (corresponds to None in Python, null in PHP)

a number (Perl does not distinguish between an integer and a float)
a string
a reference to any other variable.
my $undef = undef;
print $undef; # error
# implicit undef:
my $undef2;
print $undef2; # exactly the same error
my $num = 4040.5;
print $num; # "4040.5"
my $string = "world";
print $string; # "world"

(References are coming up shortly.)

String concatenation using the . operator (same as PHP):

print "Hello ".$string; # "Hello world"

String concatenation by passing multiple arguments to print :

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print "Hello ", $string; # "Hello world"

It is impossible to determine whether a scalar contains a "number" or a "string". More

precisely, it is irrelevant. Perl is weakly typed in this respect. Whether a scalar behaves like a
number or a string depends on the operator with which it is used. When used as a string, a scalar
will behave like a string. When used as a number, a scalar will behave like a number (or raise a
warning if this isn't possible):
my $str1 = "4G";
my $str2 = "4H";
print $str1 . $str2; # "4G4H"
print $str1 + $str2; # "8" with two warnings
print $str1 eq $str2; # "" (empty string, i.e. false)
print $str1 == $str2; # "1" with NO WARNING!

The lesson is to always using the correct operator in the correct situation. There are separate
operators for comparing scalars as numbers and comparing scalars as strings:
# Numerical operators: <, >, <=, >=, ==, !=, <=>
# String operators: lt, gt, le, ge, eq, ne, cmp

Perl has no boolean data type. A scalar in an if statement evaluates to boolean "false" if and
only if it is one of the following:

undef
number 0
string ""
string "0" .

The Perl documentation repeatedly claims that functions return "true" or "false" values in certain
situations. In practice, when a function is claimed to return "true" it usually returns 1, and when it
is claimed to return false it usually returns the empty string, "".

Array variables
An array variable is a list of scalars indexed by integers beginning at 0. In Python this is known as
a list, and in PHP this is known as an array .
my @array = (
"print",
"these",
"strings",
"out",
"for",
"me", # trailing comma is okay
);

You have to use a dollar sign to access a value from an array, because the value being retrieved is
not an array but a scalar:
print $array[0]; # "print"
print $array[1]; # "these"
print $array[2]; # "strings"
print $array[3]; # "out"
print $array[4]; # "for"
print $array[5]; # "me"
print $array[6]; # warning

You can use negative indices to retrieve entries starting from the end and working backwards:
print $array[-1]; # "me"
print $array[-2]; # "for"
print $array[-3]; # "out"
print $array[-4]; # "strings"
print $array[-5]; # "these"

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print $array[-6]; # "print"

print $array[-7]; # warning

There is no collision between a scalar $array and an array @array containing a scalar entry
$array[0] . There may, however, be reader confusion, so avoid this.

To get an array's length:

print "This array has ", (scalar @array), "elements"; # "This array has 6 elements"
print "The last populated index is ", $#array; # "The last populated index is
5"

String concatenation using the . operator:

print $array[0].$array[1].$array[2]; # "printthesestrings"

String concatenation by passing multiple arguments to print :

print @array; # "printthesestringsoutforme"

The arguments with which the original Perl script was invoked are stored in the built-in array
variable @ARGV .

Variables can be interpolated into strings:

print "Hello $string"; # "Hello world"
print "@array"; # "print these strings out for me"

Caution. One day you will put somebody's email address inside a string, "[email protected]". This
will cause Perl to look for an array variable called @gmail to interpolate into the string, and not find
it, resulting in a runtime error. Interpolation can be prevented in two ways: by backslash-escaping
the sigil, or by using single quotes instead of double quotes.
print "Hello \$string"; # "Hello $string"
print 'Hello $string'; # "Hello $string"
print "\@array"; # "@array"
print '@array'; # "@array"

Hash variables
A hash variable is a list of scalars indexed by strings. In Python this is known as a dictionary, and
in PHP it is known as an array .
my %scientists = (
"Newton" => "Isaac",
"Einstein" => "Albert",
"Darwin" => "Charles",
);

Notice how similar this declaration is to an array declaration. In fact, the double arrow symbol =>
is called a "fat comma", because it is just a synonym for the comma separator. A hash is merely a
list with an even number of elements, where the even-numbered elements (0, 2, ...) are all
considered as strings.

Once again, you have to use a dollar sign to access a value from a hash, because the value being
retrieved is not a hash but a scalar:
print $scientists{"Newton"}; # "Isaac"
print $scientists{"Einstein"}; # "Albert"
print $scientists{"Darwin"}; # "Charles"
print $scientists{"Dyson"}; # runtime error - key not set

Note the braces used here. Again, there is no collision between a scalar $hash and a hash %hash
containing a scalar entry $hash{"foo"}.

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You can convert a hash straight to an array with twice as many entries, alternating between key
and value (and the reverse is equally easy):
my @scientists = %scientists;

However, unlike an array, the keys of a hash have no underlying order . They will be returned in
whatever order is more efficient. So, notice the rearranged order but preserved pairs in the
resulting array:
print @scientists; # something like "EinsteinAlbertDarwinCharlesNewtonIsaac"

To recap, you have to use square brackets to retrieve a value from an array, but you have to
use braces to retrieve a value from a hash. The square brackets are effectively a numerical
operator and the braces are effectively a string operator. The fact that the index supplied is a
number or a string is of absolutely no significance:
my $data = "orange";
my @data = ("purple");
my %data = ( "0" => "blue");
print $data; # "orange"
print $data[0]; # "purple"
print $data["0"]; # "purple"
print $data{0}; # "blue"
print $data{"0"}; # "blue"

Lists
A list in Perl is a different thing again from either an array or a hash. You've just seen several lists:
(
"print",
"these",
"strings",
"out",
"for",
"me",
)
(
"Newton" => "Isaac",
"Einstein" => "Albert",
"Darwin" => "Charles",
)

A list is not a variable. A list is an ephemeral value which can be assigned to an array or a hash
variable. This is why the syntax for declaring array and hash variables is identical. There are many
situations where the terms "list" and "array" can be used interchangeably, but there are equally
many where lists and arrays display subtly different and extremely confusing behaviour.

Okay. Remember that => is just , in disguise and then look at this example:
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
(0 => 1, 2 => 3, 4 => 5)

The use of => hints that one of these lists is an array declaration and the other is a hash
declaration. But on their own, neither of them are declarations of anything. They are just lists.
Identical lists. Also:
()

There aren't even hints here. This list could be used to declare an empty array or an empty hash
and the perl interpreter clearly has no way of telling either way. Once you understand this odd
aspect of Perl, you will also understand why the following fact must be true: List values cannot

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be nested. Try it:

my @array = (
"apples",
"bananas",
(
"inner",
"list",
"several",
"entries",
),
"cherries",
);

Perl has no way of knowing whether ("inner", "list", "several", "entries") is supposed to be
an inner array or an inner hash. Therefore, Perl assumes that it is neither and flattens the list
out into a single long list:
print $array[0]; # "apples"
print $array[1]; # "bananas"
print $array[2]; # "inner"
print $array[3]; # "list"
print $array[4]; # "several"
print $array[5]; # "entries"
print $array[6]; # "cherries"
print $array[2][0]; # error
print $array[2][1]; # error
print $array[2][2]; # error
print $array[2][3]; # error

The same is true whether the fat comma is used or not:

my %hash = (
"beer" => "good",
"bananas" => (
"green" => "wait",
"yellow" => "eat",
),
);
# The above raises a warning because the hash was declared using a 7-element list
print $hash{"beer"}; # "good"
print $hash{"bananas"}; # "green"
print $hash{"wait"}; # "yellow";
print $hash{"eat"}; # undef, so raises a warning
print $hash{"bananas"}{"green"}; # error
print $hash{"bananas"}{"yellow"}; # error

More on this shortly.

Context
Perl's most distinctive feature is that its code is context-sensitive. Every expression in Perl is
evaluated either in scalar context or list context, depending on whether it is expected to
produce a scalar or a list. Many Perl expressions and built-in functions display radically different
behaviour depending on the context in which they are evaluated.

A scalar declaration such as my $scalar = evaluates its expression in scalar context. A scalar value
such as "Mendeleev" evaluated in scalar context returns the scalar:
my $scalar = "Mendeleev";

An array or hash declaration such as my @array = or my %hash = evaluates its expression in list
context. A list value evaluated in list context returns the list, which then gets fed in to populate the
array or hash:

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my @array = ("Alpha", "Beta", "Gamma", "Pie");

my %hash = ("Alpha" => "Beta", "Gamma" => "Pie");

No surprises so far.

A scalar expression evaluated in list context turns into a single-element list:

my @array = "Mendeleev";
print $array[0]; # "Mendeleev"
print scalar @array; # "1"

A list expression evaluated in scalar context returns the final scalar in the list:
my $scalar = ("Alpha", "Beta", "Gamma", "Pie");
print $scalar; # "Pie"

An array expression (an array is different from a list, remember?) evaluated in scalar context
returns the length of the array :
my @array = ("Alpha", "Beta", "Gamma", "Pie");
my $scalar = @array;
print $scalar; # "4"

You can force any expression to be evaluated in scalar context using the scalar built-in function.
In fact, this is why we use scalar to retrieve the length of an array.

You are not bound by law or syntax to return a scalar value when a subroutine is evaluated in
scalar context, nor to return a list value in list context. As seen above, Perl is perfectly capable of
fudging the result for you.

References and nested data structures

In the same way that lists cannot contain lists as elements, arrays and hashes cannot contain
other arrays and hashes as elements. They can only contain scalars. For example:
my @outer = ();
my @inner = ("Mercury", "Venus", "Earth");
$outer[0] = @inner;
print $outer[0]; # "3", not "MercuryVenusEarth" as you would hope
print $outer[0][0]; # error, not "Mercury" as you would hope

$outer[0] is a scalar, so it demands a scalar value. When you try to assign an array value like
@inner to it, @inner is evaluated in scalar context. This is the same as assigning scalar @inner,
which is the length of array @inner, which is 3.

However, a scalar variable may contain a reference to any variable, including an array variable or
a hash variable. This is how more complicated data structures are created in Perl.

A reference is created using a backslash.

my $colour = "Indigo";
my $scalarRef = \$colour;

Any time you would use the name of a variable, you can instead just put some braces in, and,
within the braces, put a reference to a variable instead.
print $colour; # "Indigo"
print $scalarRef; # e.g. "SCALAR(0x182c180)"
print ${ $scalarRef }; # "Indigo"

As long as the result is not ambiguous, you can omit the braces too:

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print $$scalarRef; # "Indigo"

Hence:
my %owner1 = (
"name" => "Santa Claus",
"DOB" => "1882-12-25",
);
my %owner2 = (
"name" => "Mickey Mouse",
"DOB" => "1928-11-18",
);
my @owners = ( \%owner1, \%owner2 );
my %account = (
"number" => "12345678",
"opened" => "2000-01-01",
"owners" => \@owners,
);

It is also possible to declare anonymous arrays and hashes using different symbols. Use square
brackets for an anonymous array and braces for an anonymous hash. The value returned in each
case is a reference to the anonymous data structure in question. Watch carefully, this results in
exactly the same %account as above:
# Braces denote an anonymous hash
my $owner1 = {
"name" => "Santa Claus",
"DOB" => "1882-12-25",
};
my $owner2 = {
"name" => "Mickey Mouse",
"DOB" => "1928-11-18",
};
# Square brackets denote an anonymous array
my $owners = [ $owner1, $owner2 ];
my %account = (
"number" => "12345678",
"opened" => "2000-01-01",
"owners" => $owners,
);

All of that is quite long-winded, so here's how it can all be achieved without all of those tedious
intermediate variables:
my %account = (
"number" => "31415926",
"opened" => "3000-01-01",
"owners" => [
{
"name" => "Philip Fry",
"DOB" => "1974-08-06",
},
{
"name" => "Hubert Farnsworth",
"DOB" => "2841-04-09",
},
],
);

And here's how you'd print that data out:

print "Account #", $account{"number"}, "\n";
print "Opened on ", $account{"opened"}, "\n";
print "Joint owners:\n";
print "\t", $account{"owners"}[0]{"name"}, " (born ", $account{"owners"}[0]{"DOB"},
")\n";

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print "\t", $account{"owners"}[1]{"name"}, " (born ", $account{"owners"}[1]{"DOB"},

")\n";

How to shoot yourself in the foot with references to arrays and hashes
This array has five elements:
my @array1 = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
print @array1; # "12345"

This array has one element (which happens to be a reference to an anonymous, five-element
array):
my @array2 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
print @array2; # e.g. "ARRAY(0x182c180)"

This scalar is a reference to an anonymous, five-element array:

my $array3 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
print $array3; # e.g. "ARRAY(0x22710c0)"
print @{ $array3 }; # "12345"
print @$array3; # "12345"

Some syntactic sugar

The arrow shortcut operator -> is much quicker and more readable than using tedious braces all
the time to reference things. You will see people accessing hashes through references very
frequently, so try to get used to it.
my @colours = ("Red", "Orange", "Yellow", "Green", "Blue");
my $arrayRef = \@colours;
print $colours[0]; # direct array access
print ${ $arrayRef }[0]; # use the reference to get to the array
print $arrayRef->[0]; # exactly the same thing
my %atomicWeights = ("Hydrogen" => 1.008, "Helium" => 4.003, "Manganese" => 54.94);
my $hashRef = \%atomicWeights;
print $atomicWeights{"Helium"}; # direct hash access
print ${ $hashRef }{"Helium"}; # use a reference to get to the hash
print $hashRef->{"Helium"}; # exactly the same thing - this is very common

Flow control
if ... elsif ... else ...
No surprises here, other than the spelling of elsif :
my $word = "antidisestablishmentarianism";
my $strlen = length $word;
if($strlen >= 15) {
print "'", $word, "' is a very long word";
} elsif(10 <= $strlen && $strlen < 15) {
print "'", $word, "' is a medium-length word";
} else {
print "'", $word, "' is a a short word";
}

Perl provides a shorter " statement if condition " syntax which is highly recommended:
print "'", $word, "' is actually enormous" if $strlen >= 20;

unless ... else ...

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my $temperature = 20;
unless($temperature > 30) {
print $temperature, " degrees Celsius is not very hot";
} else {
print $temperature, " degrees Celsius is actually pretty hot";
}

unless blocks are generally best avoided like the plague because they are very confusing. An
" unless [... else ]" block can be trivially refactored into an " if [... else ]" block by negating the
condition [or by keeping the condition and swapping the blocks]. Mercifully, there is no elsunless
keyword.

This, by comparison, is highly recommended because it is so easy to read:

print "Oh no it's too cold" unless $temperature > 15;

Ternary operator
The ternary operator ?: allows simple if statements to be embedded in a statement. The
canonical use for this is singular/plural forms:
my $gain = 48;
print "You gained ", $gain, " ", ($gain == 1 ? "experience point" : "experience
points"), "!";

Aside: singulars and plurals are best spelled out in full in both cases. Don't do something clever
like the following, because anybody searching the codebase to replace the words "tooth" or "teeth"
will never find this line:
my $lost = 1;
print "You lost ", $lost, " t", ($lost == 1 ? "oo" : "ee"), "th!";

Ternary operators can be nested:

my $eggs = 5;
print "You have ", $eggs == 0 ? "no eggs" :
$eggs == 1 ? "an egg" :
"some eggs";

if , unlessand ?: statements evaluate their conditions in scalar context. For example, if(@array)
returns true if and only if @array has 1 or more elements. It doesn't matter what those elements
are - they may contain undef or other false values for all we care.

Array iteration
There's More Than One Way To Do It.

Basic C-style for loops are available, but these are obtuse and old-fashioned and should be
avoided. Notice how we have to put a my in front of our iterator $i, in order to declare it:
for(my $i = 0; $i < scalar @array; $i++) {
print $i, ": ", $array[$i];
}

Native iteration over an array is much nicer. Note: unlike PHP, the for and foreach keywords are
synonyms. Just use whatever looks most readable:
foreach my $string ( @array ) {
print $string;
}

If you do need the indices, the range operator .. creates an anonymous array of integers:

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foreach my $i ( 0 .. $#array ) {
print $i, ": ", $array[$i];
}

If you don't provide an explicit iterator, Perl uses a default iterator, $_. $_ is the first and
friendliest of the built-in variables:
foreach ( @array ) {
print $_;
}

If using the default iterator, and you only wish to put a single statement inside your loop, you can
use the super-short loop syntax:
print $_ foreach @array;

Perl also provides while loops but those are coming up in a second.

Hash iteration
You can't iterate over a hash. However, you can iterate over its keys. Use the keys built-in function
to retrieve an array containing all the keys of a hash. Then use the foreach approach that we used
for arrays:
foreach my $key (keys %scientists) {
print $key, ": ", $scientists{$key};
}

Since a hash has no underlying order, the keys may be returned in any order. Use the sort built-in
function to sort the array of keys alphabetically beforehand:
foreach my $key (sort keys %scientists) {
print $key, ": ", $scientists{$key};
}

There is also a special each built-in function which retrieves key/value pairs one at a time. Every
time each is called, it returns an array containing two values, until the end of the array is reached,
when a false value is returned. We assign the values of two scalars to the values of the array,
simultaneously:
while( my ($key, $value) = each %scientists ) {
print $key, ": ", $value;
}

Loop control
next and last can be used to control the progress of a loop. In most programming languages
these are known as continue and break respectively. We can also optionally provide a label for any
loop. By convention, labels are written in ALLCAPITALS. Having labelled the loop, next and last
may target that label. This example lists all the non-fictional animals from an array:
my @input = (
"dragon", "camel", "cow", "pangolin", "unicorn",
"pig", "sheep", "donkey", "pig", "basilisk",
"monkey", "jellyfish", "squid", "crab", "dragon",
);
my @fictional = ("basilisk", "dragon", "unicorn");
INPUT: foreach my $input ( @input ) {
# See if this input animal is fictional
foreach my $fictional ( @fictional ) {
# It is?

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if($input eq $fictional) {
# Then jump to the next input animal
next INPUT;
}
}
# Animal is not fictional, print it
print $input;
}

Array functions
In-place array modification
We'll use @stack to demonstrate these:
my @stack = ("Fred", "Eileen", "Denise", "Charlie");
print @stack; # "FredEileenDeniseCharlie"

pop extracts and returns the final element of the array. This can be thought of as the top of the
stack:
print pop @stack; # "Charlie"
print @stack; # "FredEileenDenise"

push appends extra elements to the end of the array:

push @stack, "Bob", "Alice";
print @stack; # "FredEileenDeniseBobAlice"

shift extracts and returns the first element of the array:

print shift @stack; # "Fred"
print @stack; # "EileenDeniseBobAlice"

unshift inserts new elements at the beginning of the array:

unshift @stack, "Hank", "Grace";
print @stack; # "HankGraceEileenDeniseBobAlice"

pop , push , shift and unshift are all special cases of splice. splice removes and returns an array
slice, replacing it with a different array slice:
print splice(@stack, 1, 4, "<<<", ">>>"); # "GraceEileenDeniseBob"
print @stack; # "Hank<<<>>>Alice"

Creating new arrays from old

Perl provides the following functions which act on arrays to create other arrays.

join

The join function concatenates many strings into one:

my @elements = ("Antimony", "Arsenic", "Aluminum", "Selenium");
print @elements; # "AntimonyArsenicAluminumSelenium"
print "@elements"; # "Antimony Arsenic Aluminum Selenium"
print join(", ", @elements); # "Antimony, Arsenic, Aluminum, Selenium"

reverse

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The reverse function returns an array in reverse order:

my @numbers = ("one", "two", "three");
print reverse(@numbers); # "threetwoone"

map

The map function takes an array as input and applies an operation to every scalar $_ in this array.
It then constructs a new array out of the results. The operation to perform is provided in the form
of a single expression inside braces:
my @capitals = ("Baton Rouge", "Indianapolis", "Columbus", "Montgomery", "Helena",
"Denver", "Boise");
print join ", ", map { uc $_ } @capitals;
# "BATON ROUGE, INDIANAPOLIS, COLUMBUS, MONTGOMERY, HELENA, DENVER, BOISE"

grep

The grep function takes an array as input and returns a filtered array as output. The syntax is
similar to map . This time, the second argument is evaluated for each scalar $_ in the input array. If
a boolean true value is returned, the scalar is put into the output array, otherwise not.
print join ", ", grep { length $_ == 6 } @capitals;
# "Helena, Denver"

Instead of a single Perl expression, you may supply a regular expression. In this case, the scalar is
put into the output array only if the regular expression matches $_:
print join ", ", grep m/^[B-H]/, @capitals;
# "Baton Rouge, Columbus, Helena, Denver, Boise"

Obviously, the length of the resulting array is the number of successful matches , which means you
can use grep to quickly check whether an array contains an element:
print scalar grep { $_ eq "Columbus" } @capitals; # "1"

grep and map may be combined to form list comprehensions , an exceptionally powerful feature
conspicuously absent from many other programming languages.

sort

By default, the sort function returns the input array, sorted into alphabetical order:
my @elevations = (19, 1, 2, 100, 3, 98, 100, 1056);
print join ", ", sort @elevations;
# "1, 100, 100, 1056, 19, 2, 3, 98"

However, similar to grep and map , you may supply some code of your own. Sorting is always
performed using a series of comparisons between elements. Your block receives $a and $b as
inputs and should return -1 if $a is "less than" $b, 0 if they are "equal" or 1 if $a is "greater than"
$b .

The cmp operator does exactly this for strings:

print join ", ", sort { $a cmp $b } @elevations;
# "1, 100, 100, 1056, 19, 2, 3, 98"

The "spaceship operator", <=> , does the same for numbers:

print join ", ", sort { $a <=> $b } @elevations;

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# "1, 2, 3, 19, 98, 100, 100, 1056"

$a and $b are always scalars, but they can be references to quite complex objects which are
difficult to compare. If you need more space for the comparison, you can create a separate
subroutine and provide its name instead:
sub comparator {
# lots of code...
# return -1, 0 or 1
}
print join ", ", sort comparator @elevations;

You can't do this for grep or map operations.

Notice how the subroutine and block are never explicitly provided with $a and $b. Like $_, $a and
$b are, in fact, global variables which are populated with a pair of values to be compared each
time.

Built-in functions
By now you have seen at least a dozen built-in functions: print , sort , map , grep , each , keys ,
scalar and so on. Built-in functions are one of Perl's greatest strengths. They

are numerous
are very useful
are extensively documented (in "perlfunc")
vary greatly in syntax, so check the documentation
sometimes accept regular expressions as arguments
sometimes accept entire blocks of code as arguments
sometimes don't require commas between arguments
sometimes will consume an arbitrary number of comma-separated arguments and sometimes
will not
sometimes will fill in their own arguments if too few are supplied
generally don't require brackets around their arguments except in ambiguous circumstances

The best advice regarding built-in functions is to know that they exist, so that you can use them.
If you are carrying out a task which feels like it's low-level and common enough that it's been
done many times before, the chances are that it has.

User-defined subroutines
Subroutines are declared using the sub keyword. In contrast with built-in functions, user-defined
subroutines always accept the same input: a list of scalars. That list may of course have a single
element, or be empty. A single scalar is taken as a list with a single element. A hash with N
elements is taken as a list with 2N elements.

Although the brackets are optional, subroutines should always be invoked using brackets, even
when called with no arguments. This makes it clear that a subroutine call is happening.

Once you're inside a subroutine, the arguments are available using the built-in array variable @_.
Examples follow.

Unpacking arguments
There's More Than One Way To unpack these arguments, but some are superior to others.

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The example subroutine leftPad below pads a string out to the required length using the supplied
pad character. (The x function concatenates multiple copies of the same string in a row.) (Note:
for brevity, these subroutines all lack some elementary error checking, i.e. ensuring the pad
character is only 1 character, checking that the width is greater than or equal to the length of
existing string, checking that all needed arguments were passed at all.)

leftPad is typically invoked as follows:

print leftPad("hello", 10, "+"); # "+++++hello"

1. Some people don't unpack the arguments at all and use @_ "live". This is unreadable and
discouraged:
sub leftPad {
my $newString = ($_[2] x ($_[1] - length $_[0])) . $_[0];
return $newString;
}

2. Unpacking @_ is only slightly less strongly discouraged:

sub leftPad {
my $oldString = $_[0];
my $width = $_[1];
my $padChar = $_[2];
my $newString = ($padChar x ($width - length $oldString)) . $oldString;
return $newString;
}

3. Unpacking @_ by removing data from it using shift is highly recommended for up to 4

arguments:
sub leftPad {
my $oldString = shift @_;
my $width = shift @_;
my $padChar = shift @_;
my $newString = ($padChar x ($width - length $oldString)) . $oldString;
return $newString;
}

If no array is provided to the shift function, then it operates on @_ implicitly. This approach
is seen very commonly:
sub leftPad {
my $oldString = shift;
my $width = shift;
my $padChar = shift;
my $newString = ($padChar x ($width - length $oldString)) . $oldString;
return $newString;
}

Beyond 4 arguments it becomes hard to keep track of what is being assigned where.

4. You can unpack @_ all in one go using multiple simultaneous scalar assignment. Again, this is
okay for up to 4 arguments:
sub leftPad {
my ($oldString, $width, $padChar) = @_;
my $newString = ($padChar x ($width - length $oldString)) . $oldString;
return $newString;
}

5. For subroutines with large numbers of arguments or where some arguments are optional or
cannot be used in combination with others, best practice is to require the user to provide a
hash of arguments when calling the subroutine, and then unpack @_ back into that hash of
arguments. For this approach, our subroutine call would look a little different:
print leftPad("oldString" => "pod", "width" => 10, "padChar" => "+");

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And the subroutine itself looks like this:

sub leftPad {
my %args = @_;
my $newString = ($args{"padChar"} x ($args{"width"} - length
$args{"oldString"})) . $args{"oldString"};
return $newString;
}

Returning values
Like other Perl expressions, subroutine calls may display contextual behaviour. You can use the
wantarray function (which should be called wantlist but never mind) to detect what context the
subroutine is being evaluated in, and return a result appropriate to that context:
sub contextualSubroutine {
# Caller wants a list. Return a list
return ("Everest", "K2", "Etna") if wantarray;
# Caller wants a scalar. Return a scalar
return "Everest ::: K2 ::: Etna";
}
my @array = contextualSubroutine();
print @array; # "EverestK2Etna"
my $scalar = contextualSubroutine();
print $scalar; # "Everest ::: K2 ::: Etna"

A quick note on variables

All the variables you have seen so far are lexical variables, which are declared using the my
keyword and last until the end of the enclosing block or file.

Package variables, which we are about to meet, are declared using the our keyword and are
effectively global in scope.

Packages and modules

In Perl, packages and modules are different things.

Packages
A package is a namespace in which subroutines and package variables can be declared. Any
subroutine or package variable you declare is implicitly declared within the current package. At the
beginning of execution, you are in the main package, but you can switch package using the
package built-in function:

sub subroutine {
print "universe";
}
our $variable = "empty";
package Food::Potatoes;
# no collision:
sub subroutine {
print "kingedward";
}
our $variable = "mashed";

Any time you call a subroutine, you implicitly call a subroutine which is inside the current package.

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The same is true of package variables. Alternatively, you can explicitly provide a package. See
what happens if we continue the above script:
subroutine(); # "kingedward"
print $variable; # "mashed"
main::subroutine(); # "universe"
print $main::variable; # "empty"
Food::Potatoes::subroutine(); # "kingedward"
print $Food::Potatoes::variable; # "mashed"

Modules
A module is a .pm file that you can include in another Perl file (script or module). A module is a
text file with exactly the same syntax as a .pl Perl script. An example module might be located at
C:\foo\bar\baz\Mathematics\Powers.pm or /foo/bar/baz/Mathematics/Powers.pm , and read as
follows:
use strict;
use warnings;
package Mathematics::Powers;
our $e = 2.71828;
sub exp {
return $e ** shift;
}
1;

Because a module is executed from top to bottom when it is loaded, you need to return a true
value at the end to show that it was loaded successfully. return 1 would suffice. If you don't use
return, the value returned is the value returned when the most recent statement was evaluated .
So, you will often see 1 at the bottom of a Perl module, as shown above.

So that the Perl interpreter can find them, directories containing Perl modules should be listed in
your environment variable PERL5LIB beforehand. List the root directory containing the modules,
don't list the module directories or the modules themselves:
set PERL5LIB=C:\foo\bar\baz;%PERL5LIB%

or
export PERL5LIB=/foo/bar/baz:$PERL5LIB

Once the Perl module is created and perl knows where to look for it, you can use the require
built-in function to search for and execute it during a Perl script. For example, calling require
Mathematics::Powers causes the Perl interpreter to search each directory listed in PERL5LIB in turn,
looking for a file called Mathematics/Powers.pm. After the module has been loaded, the subroutines
and variables that were defined there suddenly become available in the main script. Our example
script might be called powers.pl and read as follows:
use strict;
use warnings;
require Mathematics::Powers;
print Mathematics::Powers::exp(2); # "7.3890461584"

Now read this next bit carefully.

Packages and modules are two completely separate and distinct features of the Perl programming
language. The fact that they both use the same double colon delimiter is a monumental red
herring. It is possible to switch packages multiple times over the course of a script or module, and

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it is possible to use the same package declaration in multiple locations in multiple files. Calling
require Foo::Bar does not look for and load a file with a package Foo::Bar declaration somewhere
inside it. Calling require Foo::Bar does not necessarily load subroutines or package variables in
the Foo::Bar namespace. Calling require Foo::Bar merely loads a file called Foo/Bar.pm , which
need not have any kind of package declaration inside it at all, and in fact might declare package
Baz::Qux and other nonsense inside it for all you know.

Likewise, a subroutine call Baz::Qux::processThis() need not necessarily have been declared
inside a file named Baz/Qux.pm . It could have been declared literally anywhere.

Separating these two concepts is one of the stupidest features of Perl, and treating them as
separate concepts invariably results in chaotic, maddening code. Fortunately for us, the majority of
Perl programmers obey the following two laws:

1. A Perl script ( .pl file) must always contain exactly zero package declarations.
2. A Perl module ( .pm file) must always contain exactly one package declaration,
corresponding exactly to its name and location. E.g. module Mathematics/Powers.pm
must begin with package Mathematics::Powers .

Because of this, in practice you will find that most "packages" and "modules" produced by reliable
third parties can be regarded and referred to interchangeably. However, it is important that you do
not take this for granted, because one day you will meet code produced by a madman.

Object-oriented Perl
Perl is not a great language for OO programming. Perl's OO capabilities were grafted on after the
fact, and this shows.

An object is simply a reference (i.e. a scalar variable) which happens to know which class its
referent belongs to. To tell a reference that its referent belongs to a class, use bless . To
find out what class a reference's referent belongs to (if any), use ref .

A method is simply a subroutine that expects an object (or, in the case of class methods, a
package name) as its first argument. Object methods are invoked using $obj->method() ;
class methods are invoked using Package::Name->method() .

A class is simply a package that happens to contain methods.

A quick example. An example module Animals/Animals.pm containing a class Animals::Animal

reads like this:
use strict;
use warnings;
package Animals::Animal;
sub eat {
# First argument is always the object to act upon.
my $self = shift;
foreach my $food ( @_ ) {
if($self->canEat($food)) {
print "Eating ", $food;
} else {
print "Can't eat ", $food;
}
}
}
sub canEat {
return 1;
}

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1;

And a Perl script making use of this class might read:

use strict;
use warnings;
require Animals::Animal;
my $animal = {}; # $animal is an ordinary hash reference
print ref $animal; # "HASH"
bless $animal, "Animals::Animal"; # now it is an object of class "Animals::Animal"
print ref $animal; # "Animals::Animal"
$animal->eat("insects", "curry", "salmon");

This final call is equivalent to Animals::Animal::eat($animal, "insects", "curry", "salmon") .

Note: literally any reference can be blessed into any class. It's up to you to ensure that (1) the
referent can actually be used as an instance of this class and (2) that the class in question exists
and has been loaded.

Inheritance
To create a class inheriting from a base class, populate the @ISA package variable. Let's suppose
we subclassed Animals::Animal with Animals::Bear , located at Animals/Bear.pm :
use strict;
use warnings;
package Animals::Bear;
require Animals::Animal;
# Inherit from Animals::Animal
our @ISA = ("Animals::Animal");
# Override one method
sub canEat {
shift;
return 1 if shift eq "salmon";
return 0;
}
1;

And some sample code:

use strict;
use warnings;
require Animals::Bear;
my $bear = bless {}, "Animals::Bear";
$bear->eat("insects", "curry", "salmon"); # eat only the salmon

This final method call tries to invoke Animals::Bear::eat($bear, "insects", "curry", "salmon") ,
but a subroutine eat() isn't defined in the Animals::Bear package. However, because @ISA has
been populated with a parent package Animals::Animal , the Perl interpreter tries calling
Animals::Animal::eat($bear, "insects", "curry", "salmon") instead, which works. Note how the
class Animals::Animal had to be loaded explicitly by Animals::Bear .

Since @ISA is an array, Perl supports multiple inheritance, with all the benefits and horrors this
entails.

BEGIN blocks

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A BEGIN block is executed as soon as the compiler has finished parsing it, even before the compiler
parses the rest of the file. It is ignored at execution time.
use strict;
use warnings;
# a package declaration might go here
BEGIN {
# do something extremely important
}
# actual code

A BEGIN block is always executed first. If you create multiple BEGIN blocks (don't), they are
executed in order from top to bottom as the compiler encounters them. A BEGIN block always
executes first even if it is placed halfway through a script (don't do this) or even at the end (or
this).

Because they are executed at compilation time, a BEGIN block placed inside a conditional block will
still be executed first, even if the conditional evaluates to false and despite the fact that the
conditional has not been evaluated at all yet and in fact may never be evaluated . Do not put
BEGIN blocks in conditionals! If you want to do something conditionally at compile time, you
need to put the conditional inside the BEGIN block:
BEGIN {
if($condition) {
# etc.
}
}

use
Okay. Now that you understand the obtuse behaviour and semantics of packages, modules, class
methods and BEGIN blocks, I can explain the exceedingly commonly-seen use function.

The following three statements:

use Bugs::Caterpillar ("crawl", "pupate");
use Bugs::Caterpillar ();
use Bugs::Caterpillar;

are respectively equivalent to:

BEGIN {
require Bugs::Caterpillar;
Bugs::Caterpillar->import("crawl", "pupate");
}
BEGIN {
require Bugs::Caterpillar;
}
BEGIN {
require Bugs::Caterpillar;
Bugs::Caterpillar->import();
}

No, the three examples are not in the wrong order. It is just that Perl is dumb.
A use call is a disguised BEGIN block. The same caveats apply. use statements must always
be placed at the top of the file, and never inside conditionals.
import() is not a built-in Perl function. It is a user-defined class method. The burden is
on the programmer of the Bugs::Caterpillar package to define or inherit import() , and the
method could theoretically accept anything as arguments and do anything with those
arguments.
Notice how require Bugs::Caterpillar loads a module named Bugs/Caterpillar.pm ,
whereas Bugs::Caterpillar->import() calls the import() subroutine that was defined inside

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the Bugs::Caterpillar package. Let's hope the module and the package coincide!

Exporter
The most common way to define an import() method is to inherit it from Exporter module.
Exporter is a de facto core feature of the Perl programming language. In Exporter's
implementation of import() , the list of arguments that you pass in is interpreted as a list of
subroutine names. When a subroutine is import() ed, it becomes available in the current
namespace as well as in its own original namespace.

This concept is easiest to grasp using an example. Here's what Bugs/Caterpillar.pm looks like:
use strict;
use warnings;
package Bugs::Caterpillar;
require Exporter;
our @ISA = ("Exporter");
our @EXPORT_OK = ("crawl", "eat");
our @EXPORT = ("crawl");
sub crawl { print "inch inch"; }
sub eat { print "chomp chomp"; }
sub pupate { print "bloop bloop"; }
1;

And here's a script which makes use of the Bugs/Caterpillar.pm module:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Bugs::Caterpillar;
Bugs::Caterpillar::crawl(); # "inch inch"
Bugs::Caterpillar::eat(); # "chomp chomp"
Bugs::Caterpillar::pupate(); # "bloop bloop"
crawl(); # "inch inch"

The package variable @EXPORT_OK can be populated with a list of all subroutines which the user can
import explicitly by passing subroutine names to import() . If import() is called with the name of a
subroutine not in this list, a runtime error will occur. For example, try use Bugs::Caterpillar
("pupate") .

The package variable @EXPORT can be populated with a list of subroutines to be exported by
default. These are exported if import() is called with no arguments at all, which is what happens
in this example.

As a result of being import() ed, a method such as Bugs::Caterpillar::crawl() become available

without qualification as crawl(). This saves typing. (Note: regardless of the content of @EXPORT_OK ,
every method can always be called "longhand", as shown above. There are no private methods in
Perl. Customarily, a method intended for private use is named with a leading underscore or two.)

A caution. Notice how crawl() was neither defined in the script, nor explicitly import() ed from
another file with e.g. use Bugs::Caterpillar ("crawl") . Suppose the middle three lines weren't
there to provide clues, and suppose there were a dozen use calls alongside use
Bugs::Caterpillar . And remember that any module is free to have more use calls of its own. In
such a situation, it is extremely difficult to locate the place where crawl() was originally defined.
The moral of this story is twofold:

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1. When creating a module which makes use of Exporter, never use @EXPORT to export
subroutines by default. Always make the user call subroutines "longhand" or import() them
explicitly (using e.g. use Bugs::Caterpillar ("crawl") , which is a strong clue to look in
Bugs/Caterpillar.pm for the definition of crawl() ).

2. When use ing a module, always explicitly name the subroutines you want to import() . If you
don't want to import() any subroutines and wish to refer to them longhand, you must
supply an explicit empty list: use Bugs::Caterpillar ().

Files
A file handle is a completely different object from a scalar, array or hash variable. File handles are
customarily represented in ALLCAPS; three familiar built-in filehandles are STDIN , STDOUT and
STDERR.

Filehandles don't need declaring explicitly using my or our . They pop into existence automatically. A
file handle can be opened using open . open must be supplied with a method. The method <
indicates that we wish to open the file to read from it:
my $f = "text.txt";
my $result = open INPUT, "<", $f;
if(!defined $result || !$result) {
die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for reading";
}

As seen above, you should always check that the open operation completed successfully. If
successful, open returns a true value. Otherwise, it returns undef . This checking procedure being
rather tedious, a frequently-seen idiom is this:
open(INPUT, "<", $f) || die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for reading";

Notice how without the brackets, this would be:

open INPUT, "<", $f || die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for reading";

Which is the same as the nonsensical:

open INPUT, "<", ($f || die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for reading");

For this reason (and, as far as I can tell, solely this reason), Perl provides a completely separate
operator, or, which works exactly like || except that it has extremely low precedence, making this
possible:
open INPUT, "<", $f or die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for reading";

To read a line of text from a filehandle, use the readline built-in function. readline returns a full
line of text, with a line break intact at the end of it (except possibly for the final line of the file), or
undef if you've reached the end of the file.

while(1) {
my $line = readline INPUT;
last unless defined $line;
# process the line...
}

To truncate that possible trailing line break, use chomp :

chomp $line;

Note that chomp acts on $line in place. $line = chomp $line is probably not what you want.

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You can also use eof to detect the end of the file:
while(!eof INPUT) {
my $line = readline INPUT;
# process $line...
}

But beware of just using while(my $line = readline INPUT), because if $line turns out to be "0" ,
the loop will terminate early. If you want to write something like that, Perl provides the <>
operator which wraps up readline in a fractionally safer way. This is very commonly-seen and
perfectly safe:
while(my $line = <INPUT>) {
# process $line...
}

And even:
while(<INPUT>) {
# process $_...
}

To read a single line of user input:

my $line = <STDIN>;

To just wait for the user to hit Enter:

<STDIN>;

Calling <> with no filehandle reads data from standard input, or from any files named in arguments
when the Perl script was called.

Writing to a file involves first opening it in a different mode. The method > indicates that we wish
to open the file to write to it. ( > will clobber the content of the target file if it already exists and
has content. To merely append to an existing file, use mode >>). Then, simply provide the
filehandle as a zeroth argument for the print function.
open OUTPUT, ">", $f or die "Couldn't open ", $f, " for writing";
print OUTPUT "The eagles have left the nest";

Notice the absence of a comma between the filehandle and the first argument in print . As you've
gathered, if the filehandle is omitted, STDOUT is used by default.

File handles are actually closed automatically at script exit time, but otherwise:
close INPUT;
close OUTPUT;

A scalar variable may hold a reference to a file handle instead of a variable:

my $fh;
open $fh, "<", "text.txt" or die;
while(<$fh>) {
# etc...
}
close $fh;

System calls
Apologies if you already know the following non-Perl-related facts. Every time a process finishes on
a Windows or Linux system (and, I assume, on most other systems), it concludes with a 16-bit
status word . The highest 8 bits constitute a return code between 0 and 255 inclusive, with 0

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conventionally representing unqualified success, and other values representing various degrees of
failure. The other 8 bits are less frequently examined - they "reflect mode of failure, like signal
death and core dump information".

You can exit from a Perl script with the return code of your choice (from 0 to 255) using exit .

Perl provides More Than One Way To - in a single call - spawn a child process, pause the current
script until the child process has finished, and then resume interpretation of the current script.
Whichever method is used, you will find that immediately afterwards, the built-in variable $?
( $CHILD_ERROR) has been populated with the status word that was returned from that child
process's termination. You can get the return code by taking just the highest 8 of those 16 bits: $?
>> 8.

The system function can be used to invoke another program with the arguments listed. The value
returned by system is the same value with which $? is populated:
my $rc = system "perl", "anotherscript.pl", "foo", "bar", "baz";
$rc >>= 8;
print $rc; # "37";

Alternatively, you can use backticks `` to run an actual command at the command line and
capture the standard output from that command. In scalar context the entire output is returned as
a single string. In list context, the entire output is returned as an array of strings, each one
representing a line of output.
my $text = `perl anotherscript.pl foo bar baz`;
print $text; # "foobarbaz"

This is the behaviour which would be seen if anotherscript.pl contained, for example:
use strict;
use warnings;
print @ARGV;
exit(37);

Miscellaneous notes
Perl provides a wide selection of quote-like operators in addition to what you've seen in these
documents:

There's an alternate syntax, qw{ }, for declaring arrays. This often seen in use statements:
use Account qw{create open close suspend delete};

qr// can be used to put a regex into a scalar variable. This is especially useful because
recompiling a regular expression multiple times actually takes substantial time:
my @capitals = ("Baton Rouge", "Indianapolis", "Columbus", "Montgomery",
"Helena", "Denver", "Boise");
my $regex = qr/^[B-H]/;
print join ", ", grep /$regex/, @capitals;

qx{ } can be used instead of `backticks` to invoke a program and capture its output:
my $text = qx{perl anotherscript.pl foo bar baz};

And many more!

Instead of braces, you can use any character you like as the delimiter in these alternate quote-like
operators, as well as in m// regex matches and s/// regex replacements. This is actually quite
useful if your regex contains a lot of slashes or backslashes. For example, m!///! matches three

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Perl

literal forward slashes.

Perl does have CONSTANTS . These are discouraged now, but weren't always. Constants are actually
just subroutine calls with omitted brackets.

Sometimes people omit quotes around hash keys. They can get away with it because in this
situation a bareword (a string with no sigil) occurs as a string, as opposed to a subroutine call or a
filehandle or a package name.

If you see a block of unformatted code wrapped in a delimiter with double chevrons, like <<EOF ,
the magic word to Google for is "heredoc".

The Data::Dumper module can be used to output an arbitrary scalar variable to the screen. This is
an essential debug tool.

Warning! Many built-in functions can be called with no arguments, causing them to operate on
$_ instead. Hopefully this will help you understand formations like:

print foreach @array;

foreach ( @array ) {
next unless defined;
}

I dislike this formation because it can lead to problems when refactoring.

File tests
The function -e is a built-in function which tests whether the named file exists.
print "what" unless -e "/usr/bin/perl";

The function -d is a built-in function which tests whether the named file is a directory.

The function -f is a built-in function which tests whether the named file is a plain file.

These are just three of a large class of functions of the form -X where X is some lower- or upper-
case letter. These functions are called file tests . Note the leading minus sign. In a Google query,
the minus sign indicates to exclude results containing this search term. This makes file tests hard
to Google for! Just search for "perl file test" instead.

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