New To Perl

**enk0d** · 06-15-2003

Greetings everyone

It has come to my attention that perl is a the language of Sys Admin. But yet some people would say that perl is ugly language not easy to learn for newbies to programming. How true is this and how does one go about resolving this issue.

Some people have gone so far as saying that python can do just as much as perl and is much cleaner which is true but how common is it as a sys admin language of today?

I would like to learn perl so that i too can benefit from it within my field. If python can do just as much seeing how it is object orienated language and alot easier do you think it is possible to use python over perl?

**andutt** · 06-15-2003

Thats not true!! Perl is a much more scaleble program-language and if you learn it you can program almost anything. It have databasesupport and there are a bunch modules you can use.

Perl is much alike ordinary shell/bash scripting when it comes to the syntax. So maybe you can start with that if you think that is simplier. Otherwise Perl is very good documented so its easy to get good documentation. You can also type

Code:

info perl

as root in a terminal for more information on Perl. The docs that are included in linux is also good.

Regards

**Dolda2000** · 06-15-2003

The very fact that python is object oriented makes me despise it. Also, the very fact that perl isn't very clean is precisely what makes it so useful. There isn't really anything wrong with the language itself, it's just that the syntax is "write only", if you see what I mean. That is precisely the strength of the language, though. It is incredibly easy to write a small script that does powerful things in a very small amount of time, and that is precisely what perl is intended for. Of course, like andutt says, it is scalable, so you can do large projects as well, but small scripts for automation of tasks or generation of status reports is what perl was designed to do, and it is also what it's best at.

**enk0d** · 06-15-2003

I understand what you are saying as to perl being write only. Now the only thing that is left is what would be a good book for it. O'reilly - Learning Perl. What do you think any suggestions guys?

You mentioned one can do alot with perl do you think if someone wrote a perl script in linux and needed to use the same script on a windows machine or machines would it work with needing any modifications?

**enk0d** · 06-15-2003

I was aslo wondering what all can PERL interact with as for databases? MYSQL? ACCESS? I am curious

**Dolda2000** · 06-16-2003

Considering how much UNIX differs from Windows, I wouldn't bet that there would be no modifications required. It all depends on what the script does, though.

I would be surprised if Perl had no MySQL interaction module. I know for a fact that it does DBM databases, though. Those are not SQL-based on the other hand. Why ever would you want to interface against a MS Jet database? They suck so much that words cannot express it.

**sykkn** · 06-16-2003

There are definately database access modules for Perl. To connect to a database irst you need DBI and then you need the "driver" or the DBD file for the specific database. A few are DBD::mysql for MySQL, DBD:

g for PostgreSQL, and DBD::Informix for Informix databases. And on the Windows side there is a DBD::ODBC that I have only actually used once.

**genlee** · 06-16-2003

It also has modules for oracle, sysbase, MSSQL, Msql, and db2. There is about 30 other modules for rdbm's. You can view the list on cpan.

**andutt** · 06-16-2003

Yes you can later run you perlscripts on windows if you want, but if you want that you have to install Active Perl for windows which acts as the interpreter.

I have written some both for Oracle and Sqlserver (on MS) which worked OK...but if you are planning to interact with os-commands linux is deffenetly better!! Windows dos-commands are pretty weak theese days.

Regards

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