Perl is a programming language developed by Larry Wall, especially designed for processing text.
Because of its strong text processing abilities, Perl has become one of the most popular languages for writing web scripts.
Perl is an interpretive language, which makes it easy to build and test simple programs.
It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from
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.
Useful Resources
CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), which contains hundreds of modules (program libraries).
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 as the “Swiss Army chainsaw” of programming.