About Perl
Perl is a programming language that was created by Larry Wall in 1987. It stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language, and it has dynamic procedural characteristics. Perl borrows a number attributes from programming languages such as Lisp and C. One of the stated purposes for the development of Perl is the ability to alter text. However, it is often used today for a large number of tasks, and some of these are network programming, the creation of GUIs, and the development of web applications. The language was designed for ease of use, and beauty was not an important goal. Even though Perl is a procedural programming language, it does support object oriented programming.
The foundation for Perl is comprised of elements such as variables, control structures, and assignment statements. It also has a number of attributes that are commonly seen in shell programming systems. Each variable in Perl will be designated by a sigil. The sigils will be used to display the names of the variables, and this gives Perl an intricate syntax. In addition to this, sigils are useful in allowing variable to make connections with strings. There are a number of powerful functions that are built into this programming language. Some of these functions allow the program to be used for things such as sorting.
The parsing within this programming language is quite simple. In addition to this, the management of text and data is efficient as well. Since the initial release of Perl, a number of enhancements have been made to the language. The ability to handle advanced data structures was added, and the newer versions can also handle first-class functions as well. Many of the elements that are commonly seen in object oriented programming languages are supported, and some of these are packages and classes. The addition of lexically scoped variables has made it easier for programmers to write impressive code.
Modules are prominently featured in Perl, and this allows libraries to be written and distributed. Memory management is an important aspect of Perl. Even the oldest version of Perl offers automatic typing, and memory management is offered as well. Each type of data which exists in the system can be read and analyzed by the interpreter. The interpreter is responsible for making sure storage is freed up for certain objects. Perl has a large number of applications today. When it was first released, it was commonly used to create CGI scripts. However, it is now widely used for web development as well.
Perl was originally used in the creation of Wikipedia, and it was used with the development of Slash as well. Perl has been nicknamed the "glue language," and the reason for this is because of its ability to connect different systems together that were not originally designed to work together. In addition to this, it is also used for the mugging of data, and it can convert for a large number of tasks. It is useful for the creation of reports. Perl is one of the most popular programming languages for those who are system administrators. Other applications for Perl include bioinformatics.
