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Perl Basics for Scripting

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What is Perl?

 Perl is short for “Practical Extraction and

Report Language”. High level
language

 Larry Wall created Perl in the mid-1980s.

 Perl is a high level, interpreted and dynamic Perl

Interpreter
computer programming language.

 It is used for a variety of purposes including

Linux system administration, network Low level
language
programming, web development, etc.

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Why Perl?

Perl is extremely portable.It can run on any operating system that has Perl
interpreter installed, so it is platform independent.

Perl is free to use.

It is object oriented.

This is an interpreted language with fast execution time as there is no need to

compile a Perl script.

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Where is Perl used?

Webpage Development
Perl is used to automate many tasks Webpage Scripting &
in automations. development Automation

Perl used in System Administration.

Perl used in Networking.
PERL

System Networking
Administration

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Perl Datatypes

Scalars: A scalar variable holds a single

value. Scalars
$scalar_name
Arrays: An array variable holds multiple Arrays
values in the form of a list using index.
@array_name Hashes
Hashes:A hash variable holds multiple
values in the form of a list using hash keys.
%hash_name

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Scalars
Scalar
The scalar name should start
with either an alphabet or
underscore and can be
alphanumeric.
Valid legal names
Strings Numbers
$var
$var32
$var_num Single Double
quoted quoted

Integers Floating Octal Hexa Binary

point decimal

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Strings

A string can have as many characters which depends on the system memory.
Single quotes string literals
$s = ‘It’s a Perl session’;
Double quotes string literals
$v = “It’s a Perl session”;
A double quoted string only can perform variable expansion and expand escape
characters.

$var
PERL

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Numbers
Integers
It’s a whole number which can be signed or unsigned.
Examples: 0; -23; 142
Floating point numbers
It’s a real number.
Examples:3.14; -3.12
Octal
Its preceded by 0.
Examples:037
Hexadecimal
Its preceded by 0x.
Examples:0x4a
Binary
Its preceded by 0b.
Examples:0b110

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Arrays

An Array is a special type of variable which stores data in the form of a list.
Each element can be accessed using the index number which will be unique
for each and every element. The index starts from 0.
An array can store numbers, strings, floating values.

1 2 1 a b

Index 0 1 2 3

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Hash

A hash is a special type of variable which can hold a list of scalars.

A hash uses strings to access the values unlike index in an array. It is called as hash
keys.
An hash can store numbers, strings, floating values.

key1 1

key2 2

key3 a

key4 b

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Operators

Arithmetical operators
+,-,*,/,**,%,++,--

Arithmetical Assignment Logical Relational

Assignment operators
+=,-=,*=,/=,**=,%=

Relational operators
Used to compare numbers & strings.
==,eq,!=,ne,>,gt,<,lt,>=,ge,<=,le

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Logical operators
||,or,&&,and

String repetition operator

x
$string x 4

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Operators precedence

Operators Associativity
++,-- Null
Highest
** Right
*, /,% Left
+,- Left
>,<.,<=,>=,lt,gt,le,ge Null
==,!=,eq,ne Null
&& Left
|| Left
+=,-=,*=,/= Right
not Left
and Left
or Left Lowest

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Perl conditional branches

Conditional statements are

those which gets executed
under a specific condition.
if
if else
if elsif

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Perl controlled loops

for loop
The for loop will execute till
the condition is satisfied.
foreach loop
The foreach loop iterates over
a list of elements and is auto-
incremented without any
condition check.
while loop
The while loop will execute
the statements till the condition
is true.

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Perl Subroutines

Subroutines are similar to functions.

Perl also support built-in functions.

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Perl built-in functions

print : It’s a function which prints its

arguments to its STDOUT.

chop: It’s a function which removes

any last character from a string.

chomp: It’s a function which removes

only new line character from end of a
scalar.

open: This function is used in File

read & write operations.

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system: This executes a given Unix

command as a separate process.
reverse: Reverses the given array
elements.

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Methods of arrays

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“pop” in Arrays

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“push” in Arrays

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“Shift” in array

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“Unshift” in Arrays

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“Slice” in array

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“Splice” in array

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Perl Special variables

Special variables are those who have a pre-defined
meaning.
It can be a Scalar, an Array or a Hash.
These variables use a punctuation character at end.
Scalar
$_ : It’s a default scalar variable which contains
the default input & pattern searching space.
$1,$2 : It holds the values of the pattern
matched.
Array
@_ : It’s a default array variable. Used in sub-
routines while passing parameters to the sub-
routines.
@ARGV : Stores the command line arguments
passed.
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File operation in Perl

File handles are used to read from or write to an

external file.
A File handle is a string written in uppercase
letter without quotes.
File write
open(FILEH,”>file.txt”); #write mode
open(FILEH,”>>file.txt”); #append mode File
FileWrite
Read
File to

Script
Filee to e

File read
Output
open(FILEH,”file.txt”); #Read mode console

file.txt
file.txt

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File read operation

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@ARGV in FILE operation

@ARGV
Command line arguments
are automatically copied
into this array.

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Perl regular expressions

Regular expressions are used in

pattern matching within a
statement or group of
statements.
Operators used for the same is
denoted as =~ . Its called as
pattern binding operator.
A pattern is represented within
/pattern/ .

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Special characters in Regular expressions

\w One letter, digit or underscore

\w+ One or more letters, digits or underscores
\s White space character, : space, tab or newline
\d Matches a digit
\d{n} Matches exactly n times
\d{m,n} Matches at least m times and at most n times
\d+ Matches one or more digits
( ) Pattern Memory
*, +, {} Number of occurrences
^ , $ , \b Pattern anchors
| Alternatives
[a-z] Only alphabets
[0-9] Only digits

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Examples on Pattern matching with special characters

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Examples on Pattern matching with special characters

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Perl Modules & Packages

Perl Modules are collections of reusable Spreadsheet::WriteExcel

codes called packages.
Perl Modules are defined in a file with
.pm as the extension.
These modules can be loaded in Perl
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
scripts to make use of the sub-routines.
CPAN: Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network
www.cpan.org

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Write Excel

For e.g
use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel ;

Module name

my $book = Spreadsheet::WriteExcel->new('report.xls');
$sheet = $book->add_worksheet( );
$format = $book->add_format( );
$format->set_bold();
$format->set_color('red');
$format->set_align('center');
$sheet->write_string ($row,$col,$name,$format);
$sheet->write($row,$col_next,$b,$format);

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References

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/perl/

https://www.guru99.com/perl-tutorials.html

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Thank you

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