4  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [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  (13  Mar  01)  [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) 
 
 
 
  From  V.E.R.A.  --  Virtual  Entity  of  Relevant  Acronyms  13  March  2001  [vera]: 
 
  PERL 
  Pathologically  Eclectic  Rubbish  Lister  (slang) 
 
 
 
  From  V.E.R.A.  --  Virtual  Entity  of  Relevant  Acronyms  13  March  2001  [vera]: 
 
  PERL 
  Practical  Extraction  and  Report  Language  (PERL) 
 
 

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