Perl

Updated: 06/30/2019 by Computer Hope

Perl may refer to any of the following:

Perl logo

1. Perl is an interpreted, free, open source programming language developed by Larry Wall in 1987. It is similar in structure to the C language. Perl is a commonly used languages in writing CGI (common gateway interface) scripts and programming for Internet and web page applications. Below is an example of a Perl script that prints "Hello World!".

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Hello World!\n";

Files that include Perl code on a web server may have any file extension, however, commonly they end in .CGI, .PL, or .PLX.

If you're running a Linux distro or macOS, often Perl is already installed on the computer. However, if you're using Microsoft Windows, a Perl client needs to be installed. We recommend Strawberry for Perl or ActiveState, available from the links below.

Note

Perl is not an acronym, but is often referred to the backronym "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language."

2. Perl is also a Linux command. See the perl command page for further information, overview, and syntax of this command.

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