Introduction to PERL

What is PERL?

 Practical Extraction and Report Language.

 Developed for text manipulation.
 PERL was created by Larry Wall.
 It is an interpreted language optimized for scanning
arbitrary text files, extraction information from them
and printing reports based on that information.
 Available on all platform.
 Interpreter programming.
 Cont..

 A scripting language which is both relatively simple

to learn.
 Perl is an Open Source software.
 Perl is a case sensitive programming language. Thus
$Manpower and $manpower are two different
identifiers in Perl.
 Advantages

 Speed of development
 You can enter the program in a text file, and just run it. It is an
interpretive language; no compiler is needed.

 It is powerful
 The regular expressions of Perl are extremely powerful.

 Uses sophisticated pattern matching techniques to scan large

amounts of data very quickly
 Cont..

 Portability
 Perl is a standard language and is available on all platforms.
 Free versions are available on the internet.

 Editing Perl programs

 No sophisticated editing tool is needed
 Any simple text editor like notepad or vi will do

 Flexibility
 Perl does not limit the size of your data
 If memory is available, Perl can handle the whole file as a single
string
 Allows one to write simple programs to perform complex tasks
 How to run Perl?

 Perl can be downloaded from the internet.

 Available on almost all platforms

 Assumptions:
 For Windows operating system, you are running Perl programs
from the command prompt.
 Run "cmd" to get command prompt window

 For Unix/Linux, you are running directly from the shell

prompt
 Working through an example

 Recommended steps
 Create a directory/folder where you will be storing the Perl
files.
 Using any text editor, create a file "test.pl" with the following
content:

print “Hello World!\n”;

 Execute the program by typing the following at the command

prompt:
perl test.pl
 Cont..

 On Unix/Linx, an additional line has to be given at

the beginning of every Perl program

#!/usr/bin/perl
print “Hello World!\n”;
 First Perl Program

 print “Hello World!\n”;

 This is a Perl ‘statement’, or line of code

 ‘print’ is a function - one of many
 “Hello World!\n” is a string of characters
 note the ‘\n’ is read as a single character meaning ‘newline’
 The semicolon ‘;’ tells the interpreter that this line of code is
complete.
 Cont..

# welcome.pl
print ( "1. Welcome to Perl!\n" );
print "2. Welcome to Perl!\n" ;
print "3. Welcome ", "to ", "Perl!\n";
print "4. Welcome ";
print "to Perl!\n";
print "5. Welcome to Perl!\n";
print "6. Welcome\n to\n\n Perl!\n";
1. Welcome to Perl!
2. Welcome to Perl!
3. Welcome to Perl!
4. Welcome to Perl!
5. Welcome to Perl!
6. Welcome
to

Perl!
 Cont..

 A Perl file must be saved with a .pl or .PL file

extension
 A line starting with hash #is a comment.
 Lines starting with = are interpreted as the start of a
section of embedded documentation (pod), and all
subsequent lines until the next =cut are ignored by
the compiler.
 Cont..

print "Hello, world\n";

=begin comment
This is all part of multiline comment.
You can use as many lines as you like
These comments will be ignored by the
compiler until the next =cut is encountered.
=cut

 O/P: Hello, world

 Sample Programs

print "Hello, world\n";

print "Hello
print 'Hello, world\n';
world\n";

O/P:
O/P:
Hello
Hello, world
world
Hello, world\n

$a = 10;
print "Value of a = $a\n";
print 'Value of a = $a\n';

O/P:
Value of a = 10
Value of a = $a\n
 Cont..
$a = 10;
$var = <<"EOF";
This is the syntax for here document and it will
continue
until it encounters a EOF in the first line.
This is case of double quote so variable value will be
O/P:
interpolated. For example value of a = $a
EOF
This is the syntax for here document and it will
continue
print "$var\n";
until it encounters a EOF in the first line.
This is case of double quote so variable value will be
$var = <<'EOF';
interpolated. For example value of a = 10
This is case of single quote so variable value will not
be
This is case of single quote so variable value will not
interpolated. For example value of a = $a
be
EOF
interpolated. For example value of a = $a
print "$var\n";
 Cont..

$result = "This is \"number\"";

print "$result\n";
print "\$result\n";

O/P:
This is "number"
$result
 Data Type

 Perl is a loosely typed language and there is no need

to specify a type for your data while using in your
program. The Perl interpreter will choose the type
based on the context of the data itself.

 Perl has three basic data types:

 Scalars

 Arrays of scalars

 Hashes of scalars, also known as associative arrays.

 Cont..

S. No. Types and Description

1 Scalar − Scalars are simple variables. They are preceded by a
dollar sign ($). A scalar is either a number, a string, or a
reference. A reference is actually an address of a variable, which
we will see in the upcoming chapters.

2 Arrays − Arrays are ordered lists of scalars that you access with a
numeric index which starts with 0. They are preceded by an "at"
sign (@).

3 Hashes − Hashes are unordered sets of key/value pairs that you

access using the keys as subscripts. They are preceded by a
percent sign (%).
 Cont..

$age = 25; # An integer assignment

$name = "John Paul"; # A string
$salary = 1445.50; # A floating point

print "Age = $age\n";

print "Name = $name\n";
print "Salary = $salary\n";

O/P:
Age = 25
Name = John Paul
Salary = 1445.5
 Cont..

@ages = (25, 30, 40);

@names = ("John Paul", "Lisa", "Kumar");

print "\$ages[0] = $ages[0]\n";

print "\$ages[1] = $ages[1]\n";
print "\$ages[2] = $ages[2]\n";
print "\$names[0] = $names[0]\n";
print "\$names[1] = $names[1]\n";
print "\$names[2] = $names[2]\n";

O/P:
$ages[0] = 25
$ages[1] = 30
$ages[2] = 40
$names[0] = John Paul
$names[1] = Lisa
$names[2] = Kumar
 Cont..

%data = ('John Paul', 45, 'Lisa', 30, 'Kumar', 40);

print "\$data{'John Paul'} = $data{'John Paul'}\n";

print "\$data{'Lisa'} = $data{'Lisa'}\n";
print "\$data{'Kumar'} = $data{'Kumar'}\n";
@names = ('John Paul', 'Lisa', 'Kumar');
@copy = @names;
O/P:
$size = @names;
$data{'John Paul'} = 45
$data{'Lisa'} = 30
print "Given names are : @copy\n";
$data{'Kumar'} = 40
print "Number of names are : $size\n";

O/P:
Given names are : John Paul Lisa Kumar
Number of names are : 3
 Cont..

$str = "hello" . "world"; # Concatenates strings.

$num = 5 + 10; # adds two numbers.
$mul = 4 * 5; # multiplies two numbers.
$mix = $str . $num; # concatenates string and
number.

print "str = $str\n";

print "num = $num\n";
print "mix = $mix\n";
print "mul = $mul\n";

O/P:
str = helloworld
num = 15
mix = helloworld15
mul = 20
 Cont..

@days = qw/Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun/;

print "$days[0]\n";
print "$days[1]\n";
print "$days[2]\n";
print "$days[6]\n";
print "$days[-1]\n";
print "$days[-7]\n";

O/P:
Mon
Tue
Wed
Sun
Sun
Mon
 Cont..

@var_10 = (1..10);
@var_20 = (10..20);
@var_abc = (a..z);

print "@var_10\n"; # Prints number from 1 to 10

print "@var_20\n"; # Prints number from 10 to 20
print "@var_abc\n"; # Prints number from a to z

O/P:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
 Cont..

@array = (1,2,3);
print "Size: ",scalar @array,"\n";

O/P:
Size: 3 @array = (1,2,3);
$array[50] = 4;

$size = @array;
$max_index = $#array;

print "Size: $size\n";

print "Max Index: $max_index\n";

O/P:
Size: 51
Max Index: 50
 Cont..

# create a simple array

@coins = ("Quarter","Dime","Nickel");
print "1. \@coins = @coins\n";

# add one element at the end of the array

push(@coins, "Penny");
print "2. \@coins = @coins\n";

# add one element at the beginning of the array

unshift(@coins, "Dollar"); O/P:
print "3. \@coins = @coins\n"; 1. @coins = Quarter Dime Nickel
2. @coins = Quarter Dime Nickel Penny
3. @coins
# remove one element from the last = Dollar Quarter Dime Nickel Penny
of the array.
pop(@coins); 4. @coins = Dollar Quarter Dime Nickel
print "4. \@coins = @coins\n"; 5. @coins = Quarter Dime Nickel

# remove one element from the beginning of the array.

shift(@coins);
print "5. \@coins = @coins\n";
 Cont..

@days = qw/Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun/;

@weekdays = @days[3,4,5];

print "@weekdays\n";

O/P:
Thu Fri Sat

@days = qw/Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun/;

@weekdays = @days[3..5];

print "@weekdays\n";

O/P:
Thu Fri Sat
 Cont..

@foods = qw(pizza steak chicken burgers);

print "Before: @foods\n";

# sort this array

@foods = sort(@foods);
print "After: @foods\n";

O/P:
@odd = (1,3,5);
Before: pizza steak chicken burgers
@even = (2, 4, 6);
After: burgers chicken pizza steak
@numbers = (@odd, @even);

print "numbers = @numbers\n";

O/P:
numbers = 1 3 5 2 4 6
 Cont..

%data = ('John Paul', 45, 'Lisa', 30, 'Kumar', 40);

print "\$data{'John Paul'} = $data{'John

Paul'}\n";
print "\$data{'Lisa'} = $data{'Lisa'}\n";
print "\$data{'Kumar'} = $data{'Kumar'}\n";

O/P:
$data{'John Paul'} = 45
$data{'Lisa'} = 30
$data{'Kumar'} = 40
 Loops
$a = 10;
# while loop execution # for loop execution
while( $a < 20 ) for( $a = 10; $a < 20; $a = $a + 1 )
{ {
print"Value of a: $a\n"; print "value of a: $a\n";
$a = $a + 1; }
}

O/P:
Value of a: 10
Value of a: 11
Value of a: 12
Value of a: 13
Value of a: 14
Value of a: 15
Value of a: 16
Value of a: 17
Value of a: 18
Value of a: 19
 Subroutines

A Perl subroutine or function is a group of

statements that together performs a task.

# Function definition
sub Hello{
print "Hello, World!\n";
}

# Function call
Hello(); O/P: Hello, World!
 Cont..

# Function definition
sub Average{
# get total number of arguments passed.
$n = scalar(@_);
$sum = 0;

foreach $item (@_){

$sum += $item;
}
$average = $sum / $n;

print "Average for the given numbers : $average\n";

}

# Function call
Average(10, 20, 30); O/P: Average for the given numbers : 20
Thank You..