Intermediate Perl

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.

Foreword; Preface; Structure of This Book; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Comments and Questions; Safari® Enabled; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Introduction; 1.1 What Should You Know Already?; 1.2 What About All Those Footnotes?; 1.3 What's with the Exercises?; 1.4 What If I'm a Perl Course Instructor?; Chapter 2: Intermediate Foundations; 2.1 List Operators; 2.2 Trapping Errors with eval; 2.3 Dynamic Code with eval; 2.4 Exercises; Chapter 3: Using Modules; 3.1 The Standard Distribution; 3.2 Using Modules; 3.3 Functional Interfaces; 3.4 Selecting What to Import; 3.5 Object-Oriented Interfaces; 3.6 A More Typical Object-Oriented Module: Math::BigInt; 3.7 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network; 3.8 Installing Modules from CPAN; 3.9 Setting the Path at the Right Time; 3.10 Exercises; Chapter 4: Introduction to References; 4.1 Performing the Same Task on Many Arrays; 4.2 Taking a Reference to an Array; 4.3 Dereferencing the Array Reference; 4.4 Getting Our Braces Off; 4.5 Modifying the Array; 4.6 Nested Data Structures; 4.7 Simplifying Nested Element References with Arrows; 4.8 References to Hashes; 4.9 Exercises; Chapter 5: References and Scoping; 5.1 More Than One Reference to Data; 5.2 What If That Was the Name?; 5.3 Reference Counting and Nested Data Structures; 5.4 When Reference Counting Goes Bad; 5.5 Creating an Anonymous Array Directly; 5.6 Creating an Anonymous Hash; 5.7 Autovivification; 5.8 Autovivification and Hashes; 5.9 Exercises; Chapter 6: Manipulating Complex Data Structures; 6.1 Using the Debugger to View Complex Data; 6.2 Viewing Complex Data with Data::Dumper; 6.3 YAML; 6.4 Storing Complex Data with Storable; 6.5 Using the map and grep Operators; 6.6 Applying a Bit of Indirection; 6.7 Selecting and Altering Complex Data; 6.8 Exercises; Chapter 7: Subroutine References; 7.1 Referencing a Named Subroutine; 7.2 Anonymous Subroutines; 7.3 Callbacks; 7.4 Closures; 7.5 Returning a Subroutine from a Subroutine; 7.6 Closure Variables as Inputs; 7.7 Closure Variables as Static Local Variables; 7.8 Exercise; Chapter 8: Filehandle References; 8.1 The Old Way; 8.2 The Improved Way; 8.3 The Even Better Way; 8.4 IO::Handle; 8.5 Directory Handle References; 8.6 Exercises; Chapter 9: Practical Reference Tricks; 9.1 Review of Sorting; 9.2 Sorting with Indices; 9.3 Sorting Efficiently; 9.4 The Schwartzian Transform; 9.5 Multi-Level Sort with the Schwartzian Transform; 9.6 Recursively Defined Data; 9.7 Building Recursively Defined Data; 9.8 Displaying Recursively Defined Data; 9.9 Exercises; Chapter 10: Building Larger Programs; 10.1 The Cure for the Common Code; 10.2 Inserting Code with eval; 10.3 Using do; 10.4 Using require; 10.5 require and @INC; 10.6 The Problem of Namespace Collisions; 10.7 Packages as Namespace Separators; 10.8 Scope of a Package Directive; 10.9 Packages and Lexicals; 10.10 Exercises; Chapter 11: Introduction to Objects; 11.1 If We Could Talk to the Animals...; 11.2 Introducing the Method Invocation Arrow; 11.3 The Extra Parameter of Method Invocation; 11.4 Calling a Second Method to Simplify Things; 11.5 A Few Notes About @ISA; 11.6 Overriding the Methods; 11.7 Starting the Search from a Different Place; 11.8 The SUPER Way of Doing Things; 11.9 What to Do with @_; 11.10 Where We Are So Far...; 11.11 Exercises; Chapter 12: Objects with Data; 12.1 A Horse Is a Horse, of Course of Course—or Is It?; 12.2 Invoking an Instance Method; 12.3 Accessing the Instance Data; 12.4 How to Build a Horse; 12.5 Inheriting the Constructor; 12.6 Making a Method Work with Either Classes or Instances; 12.7 Adding Parameters to a Method; 12.8 More Interesting Instances; 12.9 A Horse of a Different Color; 12.10 Getting Our Deposit Back; 12.11 Don't Look Inside the Box; 12.12 Faster Getters and Setters; 12.13 Getters That Double as Setters; 12.14 Restricting a Method to Class-Only or Instance-Only; 12.15 Exercise; Chapter 13: Object Destruction; 13.1 Cleaning Up After Yourself; 13.2 Nested Object Destruction; 13.3 Beating a Dead Horse; 13.4 Indirect Object Notation; 13.5 Additional Instance Variables in Subclasses; 13.6 Using Class Variables; 13.7 Weakening the Argument; 13.8 Exercise; Chapter 14: Some Advanced Object Topics; 14.1 UNIVERSAL Methods; 14.2 Testing Our Objects for Good Behavior; 14.3 AUTOLOAD as a Last Resort; 14.4 Using AUTOLOAD for Accessors; 14.5 Creating Getters and Setters More Easily; 14.6 Multiple Inheritance; 14.7 Exercises; Chapter 15: Exporter; 15.1 What use Is Doing; 15.2 Importing with Exporter; 15.3 @EXPORT and @EXPORT_OK; 15.4 %EXPORT_TAGS; 15.5 Exporting in a Primarily OO Module; 15.6 Custom Import Routines; 15.7 Exercises; Chapter 16: Writing a Distribution; 16.1 There's More Than One Way To Do It; 1111116.2 Using h2xs; 16.3 Embedded Documentation; 16.4 Controlling the Distribution with Makefile.PL; 16.5 Alternate Installation Locations (PREFIX=...); 16.6 Trivial make test; 16.7 Trivial make install; 16.8 Trivial make dist; 16.9 Using the Alternate Library Location; 16.10 Exercise; Chapter 17: Essential Testing; 17.1 More Tests Mean Better Code; 17.2 A Simple Test Script; 17.3 The Art of Testing; 17.4 The Test Harness; 17.5 Writing Tests with Test::More; 17.6 Testing Object-Oriented Features; 17.7 A Testing To-Do List; 17.8 Skipping Tests; 17.9 More Complex Tests (Multiple Test Scripts); 17.10 Exercise; Chapter 18: Advanced Testing; 18.1 Testing Large Strings; 18.2 Testing Files; 18.3 Testing STDOUT or STDERR; 18.4 Using Mock Objects; 18.5 Testing POD; 18.6 Coverage Testing; 18.7 Writing Your Own Test::* Modules; 18.8 Exercises; Chapter 19: Contributing to CPAN; 19.1 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network; 19.2 Getting Prepared; 19.3 Preparing Your Distribution; 19.4 Uploading Your Distribution; 19.5 Announcing the Module; 19.6 Testing on Multiple Platforms; 19.7 Consider Writing an Article or Giving a Talk; 19.8 Exercise; Appendix A: Answers to Exercises; A.1 Answers for Chapter 2; A.2 Answers for Chapter 3; A.3 Answers for Chapter 4; A.4 Answers for Chapter 5; A.5 Answers for Chapter 6; A.6 Answer for Chapter 7; A.7 Answers for Chapter 8; A.8 Answers for Chapter 9; A.9 Answers for Chapter 10; A.10 Answers for Chapter 11; A.11 Answer for Chapter 12; A.12 Answer for Chapter 13; A.13 Answers for Chapter 14; A.14 Answers for Chapter 15; A.15 Answer for Chapter 16; A.16 Answer for Chapter 17; A.17 Answers for Chapter 18; A.18 Answer for Chapter 19; Colophon;