Advanced Perl CGI Course

Perl: Advanced is designed to introduce intermediate programmers to general Perl programming practices and problem solving, as well as issues specific to CGI programming and Web application development.

To ensure your success, we recommend you first take the following course or have equivalent knowledge:

• Perl/CGI: Introduction

Students will be expected to know:

• Basic HTML
• Basic CGI concepts
• Basic Perl syntax

Topics covered on the 3 day Advanced Perl CGI course

Literate Programming for Perl

• Literate Programming
• Comments
• Code Formatting Conventions
• Naming Variables & Subroutines
• Documentation

Using Perl Modules

• CPAN: Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
• Using Perl Modules
• Objects & Methods
• Modules Managers
• Installing Modules Manually

References & Nested Variables

• Introduction to References
• Creating References
• Values for References

Useful Perl Functions

• Status Notification Functions
• Evaluation of Perl Code
• Linear Text Processing Functions
• Array Processing Functions
• Hashes
• Random Number Generation

Advanced Command Structure Topics

• Next & Last in Loops
• Establishing Default Input with $_
• Advanced Comparison Operations

File & Directory Manipulation for Perl

• File & Directory Manipulation Operators
• Perl File & Directory Functions
• Locking a File

Database Concepts

• Database Products
• Basic Database Concepts
• Perl Interface & Drivers
• Using SQL in Your Script
• Database Design
• Advanced SQL

Web Concepts

• CGI.pm
• Sessions & Cookies

E-Commerce

• Online Order Forms
• Shopping Basket
• Downloading Orders
• Realtime Credit Card Processing

Using Perl to Send E-mail

• Using a Mail Server from Perl
• Net::SMTP
• Automated E-mail Tasks

Using HTML Templates

• Simple HTML Templates
• HTML::Template

Creating Subroutines

• Strategies for Code Re-use
• Subroutines
• Scope
• Passing Parameters to Subroutines
• Returning Results from Subroutines
• Recursive Subroutines

Perl Libraries & Modules

• Perl Libraries
• Modules

Command Line Environment for Perl

• Standardizing Command-line Syntax
• Perl Flags

Debugging Code

• Getting Better Debugging Information
• Perl Debugger

Interacting with Outside Programs

• Invoking Operating System Commands
• Pipes

Platform Considerations

• Installing Perl
• Cross-platform Issues