Description #
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted programming language known for its text processing power, regular expressions, and flexibility. Dubbed the “Swiss Army chainsaw” of scripting languages, Perl excels in system administration, web development, and automation tasks.
History #
Perl was created in 1987 by Larry Wall, originally as a Unix scripting language for report processing. It gained popularity in the 1990s for CGI web development and system administration. The language evolved rapidly, with Perl 5 (1994) becoming the widely adopted version. Although its popularity declined with the rise of Python and Ruby, it remains valued in legacy systems and bioinformatics.
Key milestones:
- Perl 1 released in 1987
- Perl 5 introduced object-oriented features in 1994
- CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) launched in 1995
- Perl 6 (now Raku) split from Perl in the 2000s
- Still maintained today, with modern improvements to Perl 5
Hello World Code #
print "Hello, World!\n";
How to Run #
On any system with Perl: #
- Save as
hello.pl - Run with:
perl hello.pl
Inline via terminal: #
perl -e 'print "Hello, World!\n";'
Try Online: #
Key Concepts #
print— outputs to the screen- Powerful regular expressions
- Uses scalar, array, and hash variables
- Variables begin with
$,@,%respectively - Context-aware (scalar vs list context)
- Built-in file handling and text parsing
- Rich CPAN ecosystem of libraries
- Flexible syntax (many ways to do the same task)
- Supports object-oriented and functional styles
- Interpreted and portable across systems
Try It Online #
🔗 TIO.run – Perl
🔗 Replit – Perl
🔗 Online Perl Compiler (JDoodle)
Fun Facts #
- Perl’s motto: “There’s more than one way to do it” (TMTOWTDI)
- Larry Wall was a linguist before becoming a programmer
- Perl scripts were behind some of the first dynamic websites
- Raku (formerly Perl 6) is a new language inspired by Perl
- Used extensively in bioinformatics and network automation
