Perl is a popular programming language, often mentioned in job adverts. It is heavily used for system admin, and for Web development. And it is fun. Compared with Perl, other languages can feel worthy but tedious.

However, few universities use Perl as a teaching language. Hence the need for a self-instruction textbook, like this one.

Beginners need to focus on the core of the language, bypassing features which are not essential in the early stages. This book does that: it covers all you need to write successful Perl programs, while shielding you from confusing inessentials.

1. Introduction
2. Getting started
3. Data types
4. Operators
   1. Number and string operators
   2. Combining operator and assignment
   3. Truth-value operators
5. Flow of control: branches
6. Program layout
7. Built-in functions
8. Flow of control: loops
9. Reading from a file
10. Pattern matching
    1. Matching and substitution
    2. Character classes
    3. Complement classes and indefinite repetition
    4. Capturing subpatterns
    5. Alternatives
    6. Escaping special characters
    7. Greed versus anorexia
    8. Pattern-internal back-reference
    9. Transliteration
11. Writing to a file
    1. Reading, writing, appending
    2. Pattern-matching modifier letters
    3. Generalizing special cases
12. Arrays
    1. Tables with numbered cells
    2. An example
    3. Assigning a list to an array
    4. Adding elements to and removing them from arrays
    5. Other operations on arrays
13. Lists
14. Scalar versus list context
15. Two-dimensional tables
16. User-defined functions
    1. Adapting Perl to our own tasks
    2. The structure of a user-defined function
    3. A second example
    4. Multi-argument functions
    5. Divide and conquer
    6. Returning a list of values
    7. “Subroutines” and “functions”
17. Hash tables
    1. Tables indexed by strings
    2. Creating a hash
    3. Working through a hash table
    4. Advantages of hash tables
    5. Hashes versus references to hashes
18. Formatted printing
19. Built-in variables
20. The debugger
21. Beyond the introduction
22. Endnotes