Perl Class Outline

This course will develop your skills in using Perl's object-oriented modules to access files in web and native applications on UNIX/Linux and MS-Windows.

Duration 5 days

Typically this works out to be 30 to 35 hours of classroom time. Longer days are possible, but this type of class doesn't lend itself to extended days. Ten half days would be fine though.

Course Description

In this course you learn to write Perl scripts in your operating system environment, and apply Perl built-in functions.

You will learn to:

• Edit text with Perl expressions
• Access and manipulate data from multiple files
• Solve problems using Perl's decision operators and built-in functions
• Create code in reusable modules and subroutines
• Create Perl scripts to process Web queries
• Retrieve data to create dynamic Web content
• Connect to a SQL database
• Create and retrieve data from a SQL database

Who Needs to Attend

Anyone involved in database or web site development using Perl, including

• webmasters
• Linux and UNIX administrators
• Windows support technicians
• software engineers
• business analysts
• network techs
• web developers
• technology auditors
• MIS managers
• programmers, coders, etc.
• power users

Prerequisites

Prior experience with "any C-like language" is preferable which includes: C, C#, C++, awk, Java, Perl, php and csh. It is adequate to have experience in any procedural programming language regardless of whether it was in college 99 years ago or yesterday

Knowledge of UNIX regular expressions and scripting tools (e.g. Korn Shell, grep, sed, and awk) is helpful but not required.

Course Content

1. Introduction
2. What is Perl
3. Creating a a Perl program
4. Perl variables
5. Operators and functions
6. Conditional constructs
7. Subroutines
8. Regular expressions
9. Practical exercises
10. File I/O
11. Advanced regular expressions
12. More functions
13. System interaction
14. References and data structures
15. perlstyle
16. About databases
17. Textfiles as databases
18. Relational databases
19. MySQL^?
20. The DBI and DBD modules
21. Acme Widget Co. Exercises
22. What is CGI?
23. Generating web pages with Perl
24. Processing form input
25. Security issues
26. Other related Perl modules
27. Win32::EventLog
28. Win32::NetAdmin
29. Other Perl Win32 Modules

Optional items that will be covered as time permits:

• Win32 modules
• XML modules
• DBIx modules (particularly DBIx::Class with Class::DBI for context)
• Web Frameworks (particularly Catalyst)
• Graphics Programming in Perl
• Bioinformatics (which is naturally perl)
• Intense regular expressions
• Creating Perl Modules for CPAN

Further Topics

Further topics will be discussed with the consent of the students and the instructor. A variety of programming, administration, Linux, and security topics relate to what the course is about and provide a richer appreciation for the value of Perl in the trenches.

Discounts

Discounts are available for members of the RichmondPM and Hampton Roads Perl Mongers. Since membership entails being on a mailing list and showing to a meeting once every few years, its a low sweat way to save a buck.

Discounts also apply for large groups (six or more) and pairs of folks from the same organization.