Perl

Pratical Extraction and Reporting Language

What is it?

Perl is an open souce high-level programming language, similar in syntax to C. It was originally designed with Unix in mind, but is now very much a cross platform development language. Perl has many features which are unequalled in any other mainstream programming language, primarily for text and file manipulation.

Pros

• Quick development phases
• Open Source, and free licencing
• Excellent text handling and pattern matching capabilities, anyone familiar with awk will love this language
• Large experienced active user base
• Fast, for an interpreted language
• Code developed is generally cross plaform
• Very easy to write powerful programs in a few lines of code

Cons

• Can look complicated, initially, particularly if you're not familiar with pattern matching
• Limited GUI support

Consider using for

• Most command line applications
• Batch processing
• Reports
• System administration
• Web applications
• Database access and manipulation
• Any application involving significant text processing
• Any application you may have considered programming in COBOL

Some useful Perl links

• perl.com
  Central repository for Perl source code, and information.
• ActiveState
  Get the windows binary distribution of Perl here.

Modules

• SAMIE
  Simple Automation Module for IE is a Perl module that allows you to automate Internet Explorer, it's great for developing test scripts and automating repetitive tasks.