Advanced Perl Programming 1ST Edition

This book covers complex techniques for managing production-ready Perl programs and explains methods for manipulating data and objects that may have looked like magic before. It gives you necessary background for dealing with networks, databases, and GUIs, and includes a discussion of internals to help you program more efficiently, and imbed Perl within C when necessary.

Preface; The Case for Scripting; Why Perl?; What Must I Know?; The Books Approach; Conventions; Resources; Perl Resources; Wed Like to Hear from You; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Data References and Anonymous Storage; 1.1 Referring to Existing Variables; 1.2 Using References; 1.3 Nested Data Structures; 1.4 Querying a Reference; 1.5 Symbolic References; 1.6 A View of the Internals; 1.7 References in Other Languages; 1.8 Resources; Chapter 2: Implementing Complex Data Structures; 2.1 User-Defined Structures; 2.2 Example: Matrices; 2.3 Professors, Students, Courses; 2.4 Pass the Envelope; 2.5 Pretty-Printing; 2.6 Resources; Chapter 3: Typeglobs and Symbol Tables; 3.1 Perl Variables, Symbol Table, and Scoping; 3.2 Typeglobs; 3.3 Typeglobs and References; 3.4 Filehandles, Directory Handles, and Formats; Chapter 4: Subroutine References and Closures; 4.1 Subroutine References; 4.2 Using Subroutine References; 4.3 Closures; 4.4 Using Closures; 4.5 Comparisons to Other Languages; 4.6 Resources; Chapter 5: Eval; 5.1 The String Form: Expression Evaluation; 5.2 The Block Form: Exception Handling; 5.3 Watch Your Quotes; 5.4 Using Eval for Expression Evaluation; 5.5 Using Eval for Efficiency; 5.6 Using Eval for Time-Outs; 5.7 Eval in Other Languages; 5.8 Resources; Chapter 6: Modules; 6.1 Basic Package; 6.2 Packages and Files; 6.3 Package Initialization and Destruction; 6.4 Privacy; 6.5 Importing Symbols; 6.6 Nesting Packages; 6.7 Autoloading; 6.8 Accessing the Symbol Table; 6.9 Language Comparisons; Chapter 7: Object-Oriented Programming; 7.1 OO: An Introduction; 7.2 Objects in Perl; 7.3 UNIVERSAL; 7.4 Recap of Conventions; 7.5 Comparison with Other OO Languages; 7.6 Resources; Chapter 8: Object Orientation: The Next Few Steps; 8.1 Efficient Attribute Storage; 8.2 Delegation; 8.3 On Inheritance; 8.4 Resources; Chapter 9: Tie; 9.1 Tying Scalars; 9.2 Tying Arrays; 9.3 Tying Hashes; 9.4 Tying Filehandles; 9.5 Example: Monitoring Variables; 9.6 Comparisons with Other Languages; Chapter 10: Persistence; 10.1 Persistence Issues; 10.2 Streamed Data; 10.3 Record-Oriented Approach; 10.4 Relational Databases; 10.5 Resources; Chapter 11: Implementing Object Persistence; 11.1 Adaptor: An Introduction; 11.2 Design Notes; 11.3 Implementation; 11.4 Resources; Chapter 12: Networking with Sockets; 12.1 Networking Primer; 12.2 Socket API and IO::Socket; 12.3 Handling Multiple Clients; 12.4 Real-World Servers; 12.5 IO Objects and Filehandles; 12.6 Prebuilt Client Modules; 12.7 Resources; Chapter 13: Networking: Implementing RPC; 13.1 Msg: Messaging Toolkit; 13.2 Remote Procedure Calls (RPC); 13.3 Resources; Chapter 14: User Interfaces with Tk; 14.1 Introduction to GUIs, Tk, and Perl/Tk; 14.2 Starting with Perl/Tk; 14.3 Widget Tour; 14.4 Geometry Management; 14.5 Timers; 14.6 Event Bindings; 14.7 Event Loops; 14.8 Resources; Chapter 15: GUI Example: Tetris; 15.1 Introduction to Tetris; 15.2 Design; 15.3 Implementation; Chapter 16: GUI Example: Man Page Viewer; 16.1 man and perlman; 16.2 Implementation; 16.3 Resources; Chapter 17: Template-DrivenCode Generation; 17.1 On Code Generation; 17.2 Jeeves Example; 17.3 Jeeves Overview; 17.4 Jeeves Implementation; 17.5 Sample Specification Parser; 17.6 Resources; Chapter 18: Extending Perl: A First Course; 18.1 Writing an Extension: Overview; 18.2 Example: Fractals with Perl; 18.3 SWIG Features; 18.4 XS Features; 18.5 Degrees of Freedom; 18.6 A Detour into Fractals; 18.7 Resources; Chapter 19: Embedding Perl:The Easy Way; 19.1 Why Embed?; 19.2 Embedding Overview; 19.3 Examples; 19.4 Adding Extensions; 19.5 Resources; Chapter 20: Perl Internals; 20.1 Reading the Source; 20.2 Architecture; 20.3 Perl Value Types; 20.4 Stacks and Messaging Protocol; 20.5 Meaty Extensions; 20.6 Easy Embedding API; 20.7 A Peek into the Future; 20.8 Resources; Tk Widget Reference; Button; Canvas; Entry; Listbox; Menus; Scrollbars and Scrolling; Scale; HList — Hierarchical List; Syntax Summary; References; Nested Data Structures; Closures; Modules; Objects; Dynamic Behavior; Exception Handling; Meta-Information; Typeglobs; Filehandles, Formats; Colophon;