Mastering Perl Book

Foreword     xi
Preface     xiii
Introduction: Becoming a Master     1
What It Means to Be a Master     2
Who Should Read This Book     3
How to Read This Book     3
What Should You Know Already?     4
What I Cover     4
What I Don't Cover     5
Advanced Regular Expressions     7
References to Regular Expressions     7
Noncapturing Grouping, (?:PATTERN)     13
Readable Regexes, /x and (?#...)     14
Global Matching     15
Lookarounds     19
Deciphering Regular Expressions     25
Final Thoughts     28
Summary     29
Further Reading     29
Secure Programming Techniques     31
Bad Data Can Ruin Your Day     31
Taint Checking     32
Untainting Data     38
List Forms of system and exec     42
Summary     44
Further Reading     44
Debugging Perl     47
Before You Waste Too Much Time     47
The Best Debugger in the World     48
perl5db.pl     59
AlternativeDebuggers     60
Other Debuggers     64
Summary     66
Further Reading     66
Profiling Perl     69
Finding the Culprit     69
The General Approach     73
Profiling DBI     74
Devel::DProf     83
Writing My Own Profiler     85
Profiling Test Suites     86
Summary     88
Further Reading     88
Benchmarking Perl     91
Benchmarking Theory     91
Benchmarking Time     93
Comparing Code     96
Don't Turn Off Your Thinking Cap     97
Memory Use     102
The perlbench Tool     107
Summary     109
Further Reading     110
Cleaning Up Perl     111
Good Style     111
perltidy     112
De-Obfuscation     114
Perl::Critic     118
Summary     123
Further Reading     123
Symbol Tables and Typeglobs     125
Package and Lexical Variables     125
The Symbol Table     128
Summary     136
Further Reading      136
Dynamic Subroutines     137
Subroutines As Data     137
Creating and Replacing Named Subroutines     141
Symbolic References     143
Iterating Through Subroutine Lists     145
Processing Pipelines     147
Method Lists     147
Subroutines As Arguments     148
Autoloaded Methods     152
Hashes As Objects     154
AutoSplit     154
Summary     155
Further Reading     155
Modifying and Jury-Rigging Modules     157
Choosing the Right Solution     157
Replacing Module Parts     160
Subclassing     162
Wrapping Subroutines     167
Summary     169
Further Reading     170
Configuring Perl Programs     171
Things Not to Do     171
Better Ways     174
Command-Line Switches     177
Configuration Files     183
Scripts with a Different Name     187
Interactive and Noninteractive Programs     188
perl's Config     189
Summary     191
Further Reading      191
Detecting and Reporting Errors     193
Perl Error Basics     193
Reporting Module Errors     199
Exceptions     202
Summary     209
Further Reading     209
Logging     211
Recording Errors and Other Information     211
Log4perl     212
Summary     218
Further Reading     218
Data Persistence     219
Flat Files     219
Storable     228
DBM Files     232
Summary     234
Further Reading     234
Working with Pod     237
The Pod Format     237
Translating Pod     238
Testing Pod     245
Summary     248
Further Reading     249
Working with Bits     251
Binary Numbers     251
Bit Operators     253
Bit Vectors     260
The vec Function     261
Keeping Track of Things     266
Summary     268
Further Reading     268
The Magic of Tied Variables     269
They Look Like Normal Variables     269
At the User Level     270
Behind the Curtain     271
Scalars     272
Arrays     277
Hashes     286
Filehandles     288
Summary     290
Further Reading     291
Modules As Programs     293
The main Thing     293
Backing Up     294
Who's Calling?     294
Testing the Program     295
Distributing the Programs     302
Summary     303
Further Reading     303
Further Reading     305
Brian's Guide to Solving Any Perl Problem     309
Index     315