Learn Perl

So, you want to learn perl? Where to start? A good place is this introduction or any of the books in the Beginners section below. As you learn more, you can move down the book lists and visit www.perl.org and www.cpan.org for more information.

You can read the perl documentation on our perldoc site! Did you know that you can also access the perl documentation with the perldoc command? Try "perldoc perlreftut" at your command line prompt.

News

Announcing the learn.perl.org Online Library where you can read your favorite perl books.

You can now read the beginners lists (and all other perl.org mailinglists) with your newsreader (Unix, Windows or MacOS readers) from the news server nntp.perl.org. You can also browse it on the web

Books for Beginners

Books commonly recommended on the beginners lists. If a book isn't mentioned in this list it might still be good, but there is a good chance it isn't. :-)

Beginners

Learning Perl, Fifth Edition
by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, brian d foy; 348 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (June 2008)
Learning Perl is the tutorial book, covering how you could spend the first 30 to 40 hours with Perl. The fifth edition covers up to Perl 5.10.
Buy from: Amazon - Powells - Amazon UK -

Intermediate Perl
by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix; 278 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (March 2006)
Intermediate Perl picks up where Learning Perl leaves off. This new book offers a gentle introduction to the world of references, object-oriented programming, and the use of Perl modules that form the backbone of any effective Perl program. Following the successful format of Learning Perl, each chapter in the book is designed to be small enough to be read in just an hour or two. Each chapter ends with a series of exercises to help you practice what you've learned with answers in an appendix for your reference. In short, this book covers everything that separates the Perl dabbler from the Perl programmer.
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Beginning Perl, 2nd Edition
by James Lee; 464 pages; Apress, LLC; (August 2004)
Beginning Perl is a different kind of Perl book. It's written particularly with the beginning programmer in mind, but experienced programmers will not feel patronised. It covers a lot of ground, from the very basics of programming, right through to developing CGI applications for the web. More importantly, it emphasises good Perl practice, and readable and maintainable code.
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Essentials

Programming Perl, 3rd Edition
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant; 1092 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (July 2000)
The reference book for Perl 5.
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The Perl Cookbook, 2nd Edition
by Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, Larry Wall; 964 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (August 21, 2003)
"Precious few books can meet the needs of novices and experts simultaneously. The Perl Cookbook does, and on nearly every page. It has the perfect mix of instruction, revelation, and attitude." --Jon Orwant, editor of The Perl Journal
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Advanced

Advanced Perl Programming
by Simon Cozens; 298 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (June 28, 2005)
Perl has proven to be the most effective language for the latest trends in computing and business. Every programmer must keep up with the latest tools and techniques. This updated version of Advanced Perl Programming from O'Reilly gives you the essential knowledge of the modern Perl programmer. Whatever your current level of Perl expertise, this book will help you push your skills to the next level and become a more accomplished programmer.
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Perl Debugged
by Peter J. Scott, Ed Wright; 288 pages; Addison-Wesley; (March 27, 2001)
I highly recommend Perl Debugged to anyone at the beginning or intermediate stage in Perl programming, particularly to programmers who have less than 2-4 years of debugging experience in general. An experienced programmer, on the other hand, will want to buy a copy (copies?) to browse and then hand to his junior co-worker(s) with stern instructions to "read first, code later." — Joseph N. Hall (author of Effective Perl Programming)
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Effective Perl Programming
by Joseph N. Hall; 288 pages; Addison-Wesley; (January 1998)
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Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason
by Dave Rolsky, Ken Williams; 318 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (October 2002)
This book shows you how to create large, complex, dynamically driven web sites that look good and are a snap to maintain. You'll learn how to visualize multiple Mason-based solutions to any given problem and select among them. The book covers the latest line of Mason development 1.1x, which has many new features, including line number reporting based on source files, sub-requests, and easier use as a CGI.
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Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C: The Apache API and mod_perl
by Lincoln Stein, Doug MacEachern, Linda Mui (Editor); 724 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (March 1999)
Writing Apache Modules with Perl and C will allow you to enhance your Apache HTTP server in just about any way you'd like. Overall, it is an excellent book, and it has a lot of good information and terrific examples on everything from "Content Handlers" to customizing the Apache server configuration process. — Doug Beaver.
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Practical mod_perl - http://modperlbook.org/
by Stas Bekman & Eric Cholet; 924 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (May 27, 2003)
Mod_perl embeds the popular programming language Perl in the Apache web server, giving rise to a fast and powerful web programming environment. Written for Perl web developers and web administrators, Practical mod_perl is an extensive guide to the nuts and bolts of the powerful and popular combination of Apache and mod_perl. From writing and debugging scripts to keeping your server running without failures, the techniques in this book will help you squeeze every ounce of power out of your server. True to its title, this is the practical guide to mod_perl.
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mod_perl2 User Guide - http://modperl2book.org/
by Stas Bekman & Jim Brandt; OnyxNeon; (August 2007)
mod_perl 2, the next generation of the Apache Perl module, gives you full access to the Apache 2 internals via the Perl programming language, just as mod_perl 1 gave you access to Apache 1. New features in Apache and Perl make mod_perl 2 even more powerful and useful than before, allowing you to quickly write and deploy fast, robust web applications. As with any major upgrade, there are new features and key changes to mod_perl from the 1.x generation. The mod_perl 2 User's Guide explains these key changes and demonstrates the tools that you can use to port modules and migrate your existing code.
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mod_perl Developer's Cookbook
by Geoffrey Young, Paul Lindner, Randy Kobes; 650 pages; Sams Publishing; (January 2002)
A practical, hands-on guide that shows you how to exploit the power of mod_perl. review
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Mastering Regular Expressions, 3nd edition
by Jeffrey E. Friedl; 542 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (August 2006)
Mastering Regular Expressions, Third Edition has been thoroughly updated to include all the new features of Perl 5.8, as well as several other languages, including Java, VB.NET, C#, Python, JavaScript, Tcl, and Ruby. Written in the lucid, entertaining tone that made a complex, dry topic crystal-clear to thousands of programmers, and sprinkled with solutions to complex real-world problems, Mastering Regular Expressions offers a wealth information that you can put to immediate use. reviews
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Extended and Embedding Perl
by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens; 384 pages; Manning Publications Company; (July 2002)
Extending and Embedding Perl explains how to expand the functionality and usefulness of the Perl programming language and how to use Perl from C programs. It begins simply but also covers complex issues using real code examples from the Perl source. The book discusses how to write interfaces to C libraries (as well as C++ and Fortran libraries). It shows you how to implement Perl callbacks for C libraries, how to pass Perl hashes and arrays between Perl and C, and how to use the Perl Data Language infrastructure to improve the speed of array operations.
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Programming the Perl DBI
by Alligator Descartes, Tim Bunce; 346 pages; O'Reilly Media, Inc.; (February 2000)
Database programming with Perl
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Object Oriented Perl
by Damian Conway; 490 pages; Manning Publications Company; (August 1999)
Filled with syntactic tips and tricks, Object Oriented Perl is a sure bet for any programmer who wants to learn how to use Perl objects effectively. review
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