Perl Cookbook |
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Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington
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Pages: 964 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0596003137
Pub: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Pub date: 2003-08-21
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17528
Editorial Review:
In the world of art, a picture can paint a thousand words. In the world of computing a good example does much the same thing.
The Perl Cookbook is a superb collection of coding snippets which cover all manner of subject areas in a fashion that proves suitable for beginners and established programmers alike. From date formatting and text searching to socket programming and creating Internet services, it's all here and each is a little gem.
Authors Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington have done a sterling job of documenting each code snippet through explanatory text and in-line comments which goes a long way to helping the casual user understand what is going on and more importantly, how and why.
As a volume in its own right, the Cookbook is an essential desktop reference for anyone with an interest in programming the language, but combined with O'Reilly's other weighty Perl tomes--Learning Perl, Programming Perl and Advanced Perl Programming--it forms the final piece in one of the most thorough and comprehensive documentation sets for any programming language.
Reader Reviews:
Perl Cookbook (0/0 people found this helpful)
This book is an essential collection of code snippets that can be used as a guide when coding applications. In my opinion this book along with Learning Perl are the 2 essential books to have on your desk if you are doing serious stuff with perl
Evergreen classic (0/0 people found this helpful)
Once you've learnt the syntax of a language, you want to learn the idioms, and how it's used most effectively. And given Perl's famous 'There's More The One Way To Do It' motto, you'll need all the help you can get. Perl Cookbook is that help.
Neither a reference nor a tutorial, if you've ever read another cookbook, you'll know what to expect -- after all, this is the daddy of them all. Themed chapters, consisting of short tasks that most people will find handy e.g. trimming white space from a string, or populating a hash. What makes Perl Cookbook so valuable is not just finding out how to do it, but finding out what the most efficient and idiomatic way to do it is. This is where you'll see the Perl way of doing things in action, and it's an immensely valuable learning experience, even if you never need to do exactly any of the things in the book.
For me, the most vital material is the earliest stuff, which takes you through how to use the string, array and hash, the guts of any Perl program. The final half of the book explores Perl's libraries for the use of databases, and a lot of network and web-related stuff, from simple socket programming, to CGI, and the use of mod_perl.
This is a cornucopia of Perl lore, firmly established in the Perl Canon, and deservedly so. You want it on your bookshelf if you want to really call yourself a Perl programmer.
Not what I had in mind (9/32 people found this helpful)
Being a Perl beginner, this book is too hard for me, things I knew and learned I found out on the net.
This Book is maybe a must have for people who's work is writing perl applications all day... For me, writing little programs to process text, this book is too hard...
You also need to have unix/linux background.
Maybe I should have bought a beginners book, but I saw the 5 stars and read some reviews the book was very good...
I only recommend this book to advaced programmers.
Buy it ... (14/14 people found this helpful)
The summary line says it all - if you're a Perl programmer, you should buy this book irrespective of whether you're a beginner or an `old hand'.
One of the best (and worst) things about Perl is the fact that 'There's More Than One Way To Do It', and the Cookbook contains a number of useful recipes for a variety of different tasks ranging from simple things like opening files up to data parsers. A downside of this is that just when you think you know the language, the authors come up with another way to do something! The book focuses, rightly, on `everyday' programming applications and as a result the treatment of CGI and databases is lacking but, having said that, perfectly good books are available on both subjects.
Along with O'Reilly's other Perl books, the Cookbook has taken up permanent residence on my desk - the book is *that* good. If you're just getting into Perl programming, you'll learn an awful lot by using the Camel Book in conjunction with the Cookbook.
There are lots of poor computing books out there, but the Cookbook stands head and shoulders above practically everything, but then would you expect anything less from two authors who are pillars of the Perl community?
Just go out and buy it!
Brilliant book - perfect for when you need a job done (6/7 people found this helpful)
Why are there so many brilliant Perl books (and so many bad PHP ones)? This book runs the gamut of things you can do with Perl. Having recipes for everything. No need to write any perl from scratch once you have this.
CGI section could have been a little bigger as could the section on Perl/Tk. But hey, no one's perfect. I use this book all the time - couldn't be without it.
If you ever do any Perl programming get this book.
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