Perl5

4 definitions found

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  PERL
       Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (slang)
       
       

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:



  PERL
       Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL)
       
       

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  Perl /perl/ n. [Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a.
     Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister] An interpreted language
     developed by Larry Wall (<>, author of `patch(1)' and
     `rn(1)') and distributed over Usenet. Superficially resembles {awk}, but
     is much hairier, including many facilities reminiscent of `sed(1)' and
     shells and a comprehensive Unix system-call interface. Unix sysadmins,
     who are almost always incorrigible hackers, generally consider it one of
     the {languages of choice}, and it is by far the most widely used tool
     for making `live' web pages via CGI. Perl has been described, in a
     parody of a famous remark about `lex(1)', as the {Swiss-Army chainsaw}
     of Unix programming. Though Perl is very useful, it would be a stretch
     to describe it as pretty or {elegant}; people who like clean, spare
     design generally prefer {Python}. See also {Camel Book}, {TMTOWTDI}.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  Perl
       
           A {high-level} programming language, started
          by {Larry Wall} in 1987 and developed as an {open source}
          project.  It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from the
          ubiquitous {C} programming language and to a lesser extent
          from {sed}, {awk}, various {Unix} {shell} languages, {Lisp},
          and at least a dozen other tools and languages.  Originally
          developed for {Unix}, it is now available for many
          {platforms}.
       
          Perl's elaborate support for {regular expression} matching and
          substitution has made it the {language of choice} for tasks
          involving {string manipulation}, whether for text or binary
          data.  It is particularly popular for writing {CGI scripts}.
       
          The language's highly flexible syntax and concise regular
          expression operators, make densely written Perl code
          indecipherable to the uninitiated.  The syntax is, however,
          really quite simple and powerful and, once the basics have
          been mastered, a joy to write.
       
          Perl's only {primitive} data type is the "scalar", which can
          hold a number, a string, the undefined value, or a typed
          reference.  Perl's {aggregate} data types are {arrays}, which
          are ordered lists of {scalars} indexed by {natural numbers},
          and hashes (or "{associative arrays}") which are unordered
          lists of scalars indexed by strings.  A reference can point to
          a scalar, array, hash, {function}, or {filehandle}.  {Objects}
          are implemented as references "{blessed}" with a {class} name.
          Strings in Perl are {eight-bit clean}, including {nulls}, and
          so can contain {binary data}.
       
          Unlike C but like most Lisp dialects, Perl internally and
          dynamically handles all memory allocation, {garbage
          collection}, and type {coercion}.
       
          Perl supports {closures}, {recursive functions}, {symbols}
          with either {lexical scope} or {dynamic scope}, nested {data
          structures} of arbitrary content and complexity (as lists or
          hashes of references), and packages (which can serve as
          classes, optionally inheriting {methods} from one or more
          other classes).  There is ongoing work on {threads},
          {Unicode}, {exceptions}, and {backtracking}.  Perl program
          files can contain embedded documentation in {POD} (Plain Old
          Documentation), a simple markup language.
       
          The normal Perl distribution contains documentation for the
          language, as well as over a hundred modules (program
          libraries).  Hundreds more are available from The
          {Comprehensive Perl Archive Network}.  Modules are themselves
          generally written in Perl, but can be implemented as
          interfaces to code in other languages, typically compiled C.
       
          The free availability of modules for almost any conceivable
          task, as well as the fact that Perl offers direct access to
          almost all {system calls} and places no arbitrary limits on
          data structure size or complexity, has led some to describe
          Perl, in a parody of a famous remark about {lex}, as the
          "Swiss Army chainsaw" of programming.
       
          The use of Perl has grown significantly since its adoption as
          the language of choice of many {World-Wide Web} developers.
          {CGI} interfaces and libraries for Perl exist for several
          {platforms} and Perl's speed and flexibility make it well
          suited for form processing and on-the-fly {web page} creation.
       
          Perl programs are generally stored as {text} {source} files,
          which are compiled into {virtual machine} code at run time;
          this, in combination with its rich variety of data types and
          its common use as a glue language, makes Perl somewhat hard to
          classify as either a "{scripting language}" or an
          "{applications language}" -- see {Ousterhout's dichotomy}.
          Perl programs are usually called "Perl scripts", if only for
          historical reasons.
       
          Version 5 was a major rewrite and enhancement of version 4,
          released sometime before November 1993.  It added real {data
          structures} by way of "references", un-adorned {subroutine}
          calls, and {method} {inheritance}.
       
          The spelling "Perl" is preferred over the older "PERL" (even
          though some explain the language's name as originating in the
          acronym for "Practical Extraction and Report Language").  The
          program that interprets/compiles Perl code is called
          "perl", typically "/usr/local/bin/perl" or "/usr/bin/perl".
       
          Current version: 5.005_03 stable, 5.005_62 in development, as
          of 1999-12-04.
       
          {Home (http://www.perl.com/)}.
       
          {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.perl.announce},
          {news:comp.lang.perl.misc}.
       
          ["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz,
          O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.  Sebastopol, CA.  ISBN
          0-93715-64-1].
       
          ["Learning Perl" by Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates,
          Inc., Sebastopol, CA].
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (1999-12-04)