Perl is a versatile, powerful programming language used in a variety of disciplines, ranging from system administration to web programming to database manipulation. One slogan of Perl is that it makes easy things easy and hard things possible. Intermediate Perl is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones.

Originally released in 2003 as Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules and revised and updated for Perl 5.8, this book offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl. Written by the authors of the best-selling Learning Perl, it picks up where that book left off. Topics include:

• Packages and namespaces
• References and scoping
• Manipulating complex data structures
• Object-oriented programming
• Writing and using modules
• Testing Perl code
• Contributing to CPAN

Following the successful format of Learning Perl, we designed each chapter in the book to be small enough to be read in just an hour or two, ending with a series of exercises to help you practice what you've learned. To use the book, you just need to be familiar with the material in Learning Perl and have ambition to go further.

Perl is a different language to different people. It is a quick scripting tool for some, and a fully-featured object-oriented language for others. It is used for everything from performing quick global replacements on text files, to crunching huge, complex sets of scientific data that take weeks to process. Perl is what you make of it. But regardless of what you use Perl for, this book helps you do it more effectively, efficiently, and elegantly.

Intermediate Perl is about learning to use Perl as a programming language, and not just a scripting language. This is the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer.

Once one has contemplated the climbing of the mountain of Perl, and one gets to base camp, this is the book to read over the campfire. The authors provide a review, then cover intermediate foundations with a list operators, trapping errors with eval and creating dynamic code. They then describe using modules, creating and using references, working with scoping, manipulating complex data structures, performing subroutine references and file handling references, using practical reference tricks, building larger programs, working with objects and objects with data, performing object destruction, using the exporter, writing a distribution, performing essential testing and contributing to CPAN. Each section has exercises; an appendix includes the answers, but the text works through the solutions as well.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Once one has contemplated the climbing of the mountain of Perl, and one gets to base camp, this is the book to read over the campfire. The authors provide a review, then cover intermediate foundations with a list operators, trapping errors with eval and creating dynamic code. They then describe using modules, creating and using references, working with scoping, manipulating complex data structures, performing subroutine references and file handling references, using practical reference tricks, building larger programs, working with objects and objects with data, performing object destruction, using the exporter, writing a distribution, performing essential testing and contributing to CPAN. Each section has exercises; an appendix includes the answers, but the text works through the solutions as well. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Described as the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer, this book is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones. It is written by the bestselling authors of "Learning Pearl" and offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl.

Brian D. Foy has been an instructor for Stonehenge Consulting Services since 1998, a Perl user since he was a physics graduate student, and a die-hard Mac user since he first owned a computer. He founded the first Perl user group, the New York Perl Mongers, as well as the Perl advocacy nonprofit Perl Mongers, Inc., which helped form more than 200 Perl user groups across the globe. He maintains the perlfaq portions of the core Perl documentation, several modules on CPAN, and some stand-alone scripts. He's the publisher of The Perl Review, a magazine devoted to Perl, and is a frequent speaker at conferences including the Perl Conference, Perl University, MarcusEvans BioInformatics '02, and YAPC. His writings on Perl appear in The O'Reilly Network, The Perl Journal, Dr. Dobbs, and The Perl Review, on use.perl.org, and in several Perl usenet groups.