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Tinkering with Perl
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In Unix, the characters "#!" at the beginning of a file tell the computer what program to use to figure out what to do with it. This is referred to as the shebang notation.
In order to tell the computer that your files are Perl programs, you should put the following line at the beginning of every Perl program, exactly as it is typed here:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
or
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
(Which one should you use? One of them will work, and the other won't. Try it.)
If you don't do that, the computer will be very confused when you tell it to run your programs.
Unix preliminaries - Files - Editors - Permissions
Tinkering with Perl is a free book that provides an introduction to programming in Perl, as well as a basic reference for things like foreach in Perl, if-then, and if-then-else, in addition to providing a glossary where you can find definitions for concatenate and other terms.
Tinkering with Perl may be one of the most popular offerings on this site, but it's not the only attraction. You can read a tongue-in-cheek Game Review: Meatspace, read an even more offbeat customer service survey (whether or not you actually fill it out), and spend a few minutes wishing your boss would read, The Administrator Who Cried, "Important!" (Not to mention that there are other things you can read here besides tech stuff, from Janra Ball: The Headache to The Spectacles.)
Jonathan's Corner
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Tinkering with Perl
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