A.P. Lawrence

Advanced Perl Programming

• Sriram Srinivasan
• O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
• ISBN: 1-56592-220-4

Order (or just read more about) Advanced Perl from Amazon.com

This is an excellent adjunct to the "Camel" book ("Programming Perl"). I never really understood "bless", or the difference between "require" and "use", before reading this book.

Two things make this book special: Sriram has a good sense of humor, and he regularly offers comparisons with similar functions in other languages (Tcl, Python, C/C++, and Java). Unlike the Camel book, which often leaves you bewildered by a curt example that is only understandable months later, Sriram peppers each chapter with fully documented examples.

On the other hand, you can't do without the Camel book or some other book on basic Perl. Sriram assumes you know the basics, but the basics really are basics: you wouldn't bother to read this if you didn't already understand the guts of Perl.

One of the most useful parts of the book is Appendix B, which is simply a short (7 page) syntax summary that succinctly reminds you how to write what you mean to write.

For those who want to understand how Perl itself works under the covers, Sriram provides the answers in 53 pages devoted to Perl Internals. You want to call perl from a C program? Sriram's got the technique.

Sriram covers database access, networking, and user interfaces. His examples are clear and useful. This is not a beginners book, but it is an excellent second book for those who are using Perl for serious work.

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