Well laid out, easy to follow for a beginner. Serious coders will need a more detailed and in depth book after completing this one.

I recommend this book to anyone who is new to perl. The only thing I thought could have been better though was add more examples after each chapter. But other than that the book explains the basics very good.

This book is a gives a gentle introduction to Perll; by the time you have gone through this book, you would have touched on some very simple operations and common language idioms found in Perl. This is not a comprehensive guide; on the contrary the book is selective about covering only those constructs and issues that one is most likely to face early on in programming with Perl.

This does not collect any of the more powerful feature in Perl like Reference; Data Structures; Manipulating lists of list.

I would not recomend this book.

I learned Perl from the second edition of this book a few years ago, and was very impressed. After a few years without writing a single line of Perl, I needed to learn it again, so I bought the most current version of this book, the fourth edition. I was not as impressed with the fourth edition, it seems that a lot of the more advanced, and useful, stuff has been moved out of this book into the intermediate book. This book is missing a lot of the features that makes Perl a productive language. I'd try a few online tutorials first and then see if the intermediate book would work. Or, if you can find an older edition give that a shot.

First of all, this book is only the beginning. It does teach the basics including arrays, scalars, functions and many other topics that are central to a basic understanding of Perl. It also covers regular expressions which aside from the great swatch of modules is one of Perl's greatest strengths.

Because of that and the teaching style this book earns the 5 star rating.


Toward the end it hints at some of the other 'required' topics such as references, modules and objects. After you've read this book get a copy of Intermediate Perl to read up on those topics.

The first thing that stood out to me about the book was the humor of the authors. The footnotes were not only informative but also good ways to lighten the mood of the book.
However, the jokes do not take away from the content in any way - you will learn a lot from the llama book. I always recommend the llama to anyone who asks for a book to learn Perl.
Now, this isn't an introduction to programming, programming basics are assumed (which isn't much to ask). But that's another thing I liked about "Learning Perl" - the authors give you the information you need with no fluff. Everything is straight to the point and explained clearly & concisely.

I learnt Perl scripting from the third edition of The Llama, and recently had cause to brush up my Perl for a new job, so I thought I'd check out the fourth edition. I'm pleased to say it's still an excellent work. If you want to use Perl as a scripting language, this may be all you need for your entire scripting career. Some basic programming knowledge might be helpful, but even a complete beginner could get something out of this.

The basics are covered well: strings, numbers, control structures, subroutines, arrays and hashes, and most importantly, reading and writing files, and the mighty regular expressions. In fact, I've not read a better treatment of regular expressions anywhere else. Everything is clearly explained and well-written. Basically, this is the gold standard against which all introductory books to a programming language should be judged.

However, this book makes no claim to covering all of Perl. At least the main text of the book doesn't. I don't know what happened with the blurb on the back of the book, but it mentions, among other things: threading, references, objects, modules and package implementation. Technically, these topics are indeed present, but only in that a paragraph each is devoted to them in Appendix B. You will certainly learn nothing of any value about them.

There are some other minor quibbles: you may find the constant Flintstones references tiring after a while. Also potentially wearing are the sometimes inane footnotes, which breaks the flow of the reading experience for little reward. On the other hand, I found them a lot less annoying in this edition, so perhaps I've just mellowed out in the intervening years. Finally, the last chapter does a very whistlestop tour of map, grep, exception handling with eval, and array and hash slicing. I've never found the 'cram a bunch of stuff we don't have time to talk about into one chapter' approach to be very useful, and it doesn't work here, either. Fortunately, apart from the slices, it's all covered again at slightly greater length in Intermediate Perl.

Speaking of Intermediate Perl, if you want to learn Perl as a general purpose language, rather than for short scripts, you need to go and read that one next. Many suggest that you can graduate onto The Camel straight after The Llama, but I strongly disagree -- I tried and failed miserably.

But as long as you bear in mind you're only getting half the Perl experience, this is still the book I would thrust into the hands of anyone looking to learn Perl.

It's amazing how this book could become so popular.
The set of examples is very confusing.
The authors seem to be trying to break the world record of code "compactness" or something.
I understand the language is very powerful and allows to write compact code, but this is definetly not the right thing to do while learning a new language, at least not if you do it at the expense of clarity.
In my opinion, a good programming introductory book (as this one intends to be, from the name) should teach one concept at a time, and give very clear examples.
I don't recommend this book.

I've been programming for a long time, C/C++, some Java, PHP, shell scripts, awk, etc. I needed a way to learn perl fast for a project, and a colleague recommended this book.

There's a lot of unreadable unmaintainable perl code out there, and books like this a probably a primary contributor to that. The authors seem to go out of their way to avoid writing clear code, constantly saying things like "well, you could write it this way, but perl programmers consider that a waste of typing," instead preferring to depend on hidden variables and the wide range of default behaviors that are perl.

The book is organized in a peculiar way that made it hard to find things: I don't usually expect to find descriptions of control constructs such as loops only in chapters about arrays.

I've come to see that its quite possible to write clear maintainable perl, but this book encourages poor coding habits.

I have owned this book for a couple of years now and I keep it on a bookshelf an arms reach away. It spends most of the time on my desk anyways. The book is excellent for beginners - I knew nothing of Perl when I bought it. I used it as a textbook and spent about a week reading through the chapters and doing the excercises. I've used it as a reference ever since. It really only covers basic Perl topic - there is a brief mention of databases at the end and two mentions of references in the whole book, but as a tutorial I certainly recommend it.

I purchased this book hoping to gain insight into Perl after having experience with C, C++ and Java. I came back with not only a wonderful, base knowledge of the principals of Perl, but came out with some other skills as well.

This books provides a wonderful, quick, easy read for beginners and pros alike. The knowledge of the language coupled with the coverage of core concepts, methodology, practices and practical programmatic thinking was a delight to read/review.

I picked this one up for a friend in an attempt to get him to stop bombarding me with perl questions. It didn't work. He just asked me more.

This book is amazing. Now a seasoned professional, I've been writing Perl for 4 years and it all started with this book. It is so well organized with succinct examples that I still pick it up almost every time I write a Perl program. If you have no experience with programming, particularly if you are a Windows user, this book is light out on some important points, specifically, how to run Perl programs under Windows. If you are a Linux or Mac user, however, you can easily dive right into this book by simply opening a text editor and terminal. Despite the omission of Windows instructions, I would still highly recommend this book for Windows users wanting to learn Perl. If you have done any other programming, or know how to use a search engine, you can figure out how to install and user Perl on Windows.

I bought this book as I have been asked to start using PERL at work. All I can say is what a waste of money. It has a tiny index (9 pages). In a programming book, the index is the most important part of the book. I get programming books and look-up things when I need help. If I can even find anything in the book, it points me to the PERL documentation. I offered it to a fellow co-worker who has been using PERL for a while now and he says it doesn't have anything that a beginner can't pick up using a free online tutorial. So, don't bother with this book.

I really don't need to say much, other than I nearly flunked my CS classes in school (I'm EE, I like physics, not programming), and I read this book and was writing POWERFUL scripts in 2 weeks. By far, the best book of this genre I've ever used.

I first tried to learn Perl by using the other O'Reilly book, "Programming Perl". I was completely lost. Then I found this book and my second attempt was much more successful. This book is great for self-teaching, and the book chapters should be read in order as each chapter builds on previous ones. Each chapter has plenty of good programming exercises with answers in the back of the book. I review this book in the context of the table of contents.

Chapter 1. Introduction
This chapter answers basic questions such as how to get and install Perl, how to construct a basic Perl program, and then takes you on a whirlwind tour of Perl.

Chapter 2. Scalar Data
As a general rule, when Perl has just one of something, that's a scalar, which is the topic of this chapter.

Chapter 3. Lists and Arrays
If a scalar is the "singular" in Perl, as described at the beginning of Chapter 2, the "plural" in Perl is represented by lists and arrays. A list is an ordered collection of scalars. An array is a variable that contains a list. In Perl, the two terms are often used as if they're interchangeable. But, to be accurate, the list is the data, and the array is the variable. You learn about these differences through practical code examples in this chapter.

Chapter 4. Subroutines
You've now seen and used some of the built-in system functions, such as chomp, reverse, and print. But, as other languages do, Perl has the ability to make subroutines. The name of a subroutine is another Perl identifier occasionally with an optional ampersand in front. There's a rule about when you can omit the ampersand and when you cannot, and that rule is discussed.

Chapter 5. Input and Output
This chapter covers the 80% of the I/O you'll need for most programs. If you're familiar with the workings of standard input, output, and error streams, you're ahead of the game. If not, you get you caught up by the end of this chapter.

Chapter 6. Hashes
In this chapter, you will see a feature that makes Perl one of the world's great programming languages--hashes. Though hashes are a powerful and useful feature, you may have used other powerful languages for years without ever hearing of hashes. But you'll use hashes in nearly every Perl program you'll write from now on; they're that important.

A hash is a data structure like an array, in that it can hold any number of values and retrieve these values at will. However, instead of indexing the values by number, as in arrays, you look up the values by name. That is, the indices aren't numbers but are arbitrary unique strings.

Chapter 7. In the World of Regular Expressions
Perl has many features that set it apart from other languages. Of all those features, one of the most important is its strong support for regular expressions. These allow fast, flexible, and reliable string handling. But that power comes at a price. Regular expressions are tiny programs in their own special language, built inside Perl. This means that you're about to learn another programming language, although, fortunately, it's a simple one. In this chapter, you'll visit the world of regular expressions, where, for the most part, you can forget about the world of Perl.

Chapter 8. Matching with Regular Expressions
In the previous chapter, you visited the world of regular expressions. Now you'll see how that world fits into the world of Perl.

Chapter 9. Processing Text with Regular Expressions
You can use regular expressions to change text, too. So far, the book has only shown you how to match a pattern. Now, you'll learn how to use patterns to locate the parts of strings that you want to change.

Chapter 10. More Control Structures
In this chapter, you'll see some alternative ways to write Perl code. For the most part, these techniques don't make the language more powerful, but they make it easier or more convenient to get the job done. You don't have to use these techniques in your own code, but don't skip this chapter. You're certain to see these control structures in other people's code, sooner or later.

Chapter 11. File Tests
Earlier, this book showed how to open a filehandle for output. Normally, that will create a new file, wiping out any existing file with the same name. Perhaps you want to check that there isn't a file by that name. Perhaps you need to know how old a given file is, or perhaps you want to go through a list of files to find which ones are larger than a certain number of bytes and not accessed for a certain amount of time. Perl has a complete set of tests you can use to find information about files, and that is the topic of this chapter.

Chapter 12. Directory Operations
The files created in the previous chapter were generally in the same place as your program. But modern operating systems let you organize files into directories, allowing you to keep your MP3 files away from your important work files so you don't accidentally send an MP3 file to your boss. In this chapter you'll see how Perl lets you manipulate these directories directly, in ways that are even fairly portable from one operating system to another.

Chapter 13. Strings and Sorting
Perl is designed to be good at solving programming problems that are about 90% working with text and 10% everything else. So it's no surprise that Perl has strong text-processing abilities, including all that can be done with regular expressions. But sometimes the regular expression engine is too fancy, and you need a simpler way of working with a string, as you'll see in this chapter.

Chapter 14. Process Management
One of the best parts of being a programmer is launching someone else's code so you don't have to write it yourself. This chapter shows how to manage your child processes by launching other programs directly from Perl. The examples in this chapter are primarily Unix-based; if you have a non-Unix system, expect to see some differences.

Chapter 15. Perl Modules
There is a lot more to Perl than what is in this book, and there are a lot of people doing a lot of interesting things with Perl. If there is a problem to solve, then somebody has probably already solved it and made their solution available on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), which is a worldwide collection of servers and mirrors containing thousands of modules of reusable Perl code. If you want to learn how to write modules, consult the "Alpaca book". In this chapter, you learn how to use modules that already exist.

Chapter 16. Some Advanced Perl Techniques
The techniques in this chapter are only "advanced" in the sense that they aren't necessary for beginners. The first time you read this book, you may want to either skip or skim this chapter so you can get right to using Perl. Then come back to it later when you're ready to get more out of Perl.

Appendix A - Exercise Answers
Appendix B - Beyond the Llama

This is my favorite Perl book, as this is where I started, and where I go back for refreshers. I have the Third Edition, and can only imagine that the Fourth Edition is just that much better. As for it being a Unix only book, I would dispute that, as I learned quite enough about Perl to create scripts for the Win32 port of Perl running on Win 2000.

I had originally bought the Second Edition years ago and am finding that the two books now have very, very little in common -- it's like reading 2 different books. I'm not sure about the Third Edition, but if you have the First or Second, it would be a good time to upgrade. I really like how this edition is written ... very good read!

I bought it because I became responsible for a testing facility written in Perl. It was incomprehensable (the testing harness) at first but after a day's reading Learning Perl it began to make sense and after a week I was sucessfully modifying Perl code.

In a month or two Perl will likely become my favorite scripting language...
wcn

This is the first programming book that I read cover to cover. It provides an excellent introduction to perl, very readable, and the exercies were very accessable. I felt that the book was rather light and didn't go in-depth to certain important issues. Regardless, I purchased the sequel, Intermediate Perl, which this book has plenty of plugs for, and am very satisfied with Learning Perl as a whole. Due to the friendly and quality writing style, I definitely recommend this book to anyone with slight programming experience and interest in perl.

This is one of the easiest books I've ever seen, you'll learn a lot without much effort. There are exercises at the end of each chapter and all the solutions at the end of the book, the exercises are not hard yet I find them very very useful. I'm still not done reading it and I already write Perl code that makes my job a lot easier. Also there are plenty of funny jokes. Get it now!

This book should be half as thin. It is full of vain attempts to be funny, vague irritating forward references, and references to other programming languages that are not helpful for people who know them and unnecessarily intimidating for those who don't. The authors have good information to give, but I had to get through too much extra writing to get to the point. This is my first and only Perl book, so I don't know how much better other Perl books are. I'm not a professional programmar, but I have some experience using Unix and C/C++. If you're comfortable with Unix shell (but not necessarily an expert) and any basic programming, maybe you'll be better off with some more advanced book. This book can be childish and boring.

Most of the answers to the exercises in Appendix A don't even compile, much less work. I admit I'm not a great code writer, but at some point you need the answer, otherwise you can sit in front of your screen all day writing code that doesn't work or compile. I can do that without the help of this book.

I am a network geek by day but occasionally need to do some programming to support my work. I do a lot of reporting work and Perl was the best language to do what I need.

I bought this book and was able to start programming in no time. I really liked the examples and was able to change them to do what I wanted pretty easily. I recommend this to anyone who needs to do scripted work quickly!

Un-arguably the most irritating book I have ever read in order to learn a new language (I have lost count how many I have read in the last 25 years). While I now love Perl, I do so despite having started with this book. The authors attempt to play the "my way is SO superior " approach by filling the text with derogatory references to other languages, while at the same time writing with that condescending "for Dummies" approach. The book frequently teases the reader with un-referenced mentions of knowledge to be revealed in later chapters -- we'd apparently be too confused if the information were to be related now, let alone referenced -- so that an experienced programmer is frustrated by having to search through the text to find out how commas are "used for a more-important purpose", or "we'll see later there are other kinds of quoting". That, combined with the obligatory cult-of-personality type homage to their exalted ruler Larry Wall who is referred to by the authors on a first-name-basis in the all-too-frequent footnotes take this book decidedly off my list of recommendations.

I learnt Perl for the first time from this book. (Before this, I had no idea of Perl.) This is a great book and a gentle introduction to Perl. I completed this whole book (plus exercises) in about 5 days flat, reading about 6-7 hours/day (during the Spring break :-)

Anyway, certainly get this book if you are learning Perl for the first time. And, then if you need more Perl, you can move onto the Perl Cookbook or Programming Perl.

I deducted one star from the rating for the following reasons:

1. The book has more than a few typographical errors. However, these errors are mostly trivial and of non-conceptual nature, so if you are following closely, you will catch them.

2. Although this is a beginners book, some of the exercises are way too elementary. I skipped some of the beginning exercises because I knew instantly what to type.

The bottomline is that this is a great book for learning Perl. So, if you are beginner, go get it!

This book has been very helpful in learning Perl thus far, and the writing is a welcome change from most technical books. The authors mix in funny footnotes which make learning the most difficult pieces of perl a little easier with humor. Great buy definitely recommend it for people needing to learn Perl

I bought this book for a friend whose job changed and is required to start programming in Perl. I had read the previous edition and found it a very good intorduction to Perl.

If you search the simplest way to learn PERL this is the guide that you need. You can find a simple explanation of code with examples and at the end of any chapters, a serie of exercises (with solutions) that help you to understand well how to apply what you have learn.

If you are to purchase a Perl book, and want to use Perl quickly, this is the resource for you. I still use the 2nd edition to do production code.

Should be on every Perl bookshelf.

This is the single best intro into perl. It's a small book but covers *ALL* the perl essentials in a straightforward way without burdening you with tons of details. I learned perl from this book on unix and on windows, and moreover it was a fine read as it happens to be well written. Don't be fooled by reviews stating it's for unix hackers, this is just NOT true. Although perl has its roots in unix, perl IS perl, it's about the language and it's the same for 99% whether you are learning it on ux or on windows - it's os agnostic and that's one of it's strengths. You need more details, you get some experience ? Go for the Wall book, the Friedl book on regular expressions or the perl cookbook (or just buy them altogether, it's a great set).

I came to this book with 10 years C/C++ programming experience and need to quickly learn enough Perl to understand and modify some Perl scripts. "Learning Perl" met my needs perfectly. This book is well organized and its presentation of the language is relatively clear and concise. A slight annoyance is the near constant promotion of Perl.

While I've gained a degree of competence and confidence with Perl, I'm still not a zealot. It's on to the camel book for me

Well written, lots of tongue-in-cheek jokes.

Answers to the exercises, which I find valuable.

I've been programming in C for over 20 years, have occassionally worked in perl (but don't know it off the top of
my head). I found the book very easy to read, and very
informative.

I think the book is geared towards an experienced programmer who wants to learn perl.

If you want to spend some time learning Perl, this fourth edition of the book is for you. Authors Randal Schwartz, Tom Phoenix and brian foy, have done an outstanding job of providing you with a book that helps you understand why the Perl programming language is the workhorse of the Internet; as well as, the language of choice for system administrators, web hackers, and casual programmers around the world.

Schwartz, Phoenix and foy begin by asking you a number of questions: What does Perl stand for? How can you get Perl? How do you make a Perl program? And, so forth. Next, the authors cover scalar data, with respect to numbers and strings. Then, they examine lists (an ordered collection of scalars) and arrays ( a variable that contains a list). The authors continue by showing you how Perl can make subrountines, which are user-defined functions. In addition, the authors next introduce you to the workings of standard input, output and error streams. They also show you a feature that makes Perl one of the world's great programming languages--hashes. Next, the authors take you on a trip to visit the world of regular expressions, where you can forget about the world of Perl. Then, they show you where this world fits into Perl's world. The authors continue by showing you how to use patterns to locate the parts of strings that you want to change. Then, you'll see some alternative ways to write Perl code. In addition, the authors present a complete set of tests that are used by Perl to help you find information about files. They also show you how Perl lets you manipulate operations directories directly, in ways that are even fairly portable from one operating system to another. Next, the authors show you a simpler way of working with strings and sorting. Then, they present the inner workings of process management. The authors continue by showing you how to use modules that already exist. Finally, they examine some advanced Perl techniques.

With the preceding in mind, the authors have done an excellent job of giving you a real whirlwind tour of Perl. So, at the end of the day, you'll know whether this is the right Perl book for you!

This is excellent book for beginers. Why?

1)The authors are established experts on perl. When I say experts I mean so much so they are famous in the perl community. It is also clear from this book that they have a wealth of other knowledge related to perl (especially linux, design patterns, etc).
2)Randal Schwartz's writing is extremely clear.
3)there are exercises at the end of each chapter. of course, if you want to learn a language to have to use it, not just read it. they do not neglect this important fact (like so many other authors). they give their own expert solutions as well. comparing their solutions with your own further facilates comprehension of teh material.

the only minus is i wish they added a few chapter on OO perl and references!

don't start with the camel and skip the llama. even if you are smart enough, it is faster to learn to walk and then run and to try and run from the start.

sorry for any spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, etc. although i spend hours on this book, i wrote this review in a minute or two.