Perl is a widely used programming language for building CGI applications for the web. Perl is an acronym for Practical Extracting and Reporting Language, which indicates that it is a very practical programming language for extracting information from text files and generating reports from the content of the files.

It is a free language to use, that means it is free. Before it was closely associated with the Uníx platform, but today it is available in other operating systems such as Linux and Windows.

This is an interpreted programming language, like many other Internet languages ​​such as Javascript or ASP. This means that the code of the PerlScripts is not compiled but that each time it is to be executed the code is read and it starts interpreting what is written. It is also extensible from other languages, since from Perl we can make calls to subprograms written in other languages. Also from other languages ​​we can execute PerlCode.

Perl is inspired by languages ​​like C, sh, awk and sed (some coming from Unix systems), but it is focused on being more practical and easier than the latter. That is why a programmer who has worked with the C language and the others will have less trouble understanding and using it quickly.

Also takes characteristics of shell programming. All variables are marked with a preceding Sigil. Sigils uniquely identify variable names, allowing Perl to have rich syntax. Notably, sigils allow variables to be interpolated directly within strings. Like shells, Perl has many built-in functions for common tasks and for accessing system resources.

Perl takes lists from Lisp, hash (associative memory) from AWK and regular expressions from sed. All of this simplifies and facilitates all forms of parsing, text handling, and data management tasks.

If we want to work with Perl, it will be necessary to have the language interpreter installed. From that moment on we can run CGIs on our web servers. The process to achieve this may vary from one server to another, but they are usually placed in a special directory on the server called cgi-bin where we have placed the corresponding CGI permissions. Furthermore, the files with the code must also have execute permission.

PERL Applications

It has many and varied applications, thanks to the availability of many standard and third-party modules.

It has been used since the early days of the Web to write CGI scripts. It is one of the “three P’s” (Perl, Python, and PHP), which are the most popular languages ​​for creating Web applications, and is an integral component of the popular LAMP solution for web development. Great projects written in Perl are Slash, IMDb9, and UseModWiki, a Wiki engine. Many high traffic websites such as Amazon and Ticketmaster use Perl extensively.

Perl is often used as a “glue language”, binding systems and interfaces that were not specifically designed to interoperate; and for “data scrabbling”, converting or processing large amounts of data for tasks such as creating reports.

Perl is also widely used in finance and bioinformatics, where it is appreciated for its rapid development, both of applications and deployment, as well as its ability to handle large volumes of data.

Perl is also pre-installed on the most popular GNU / Linux distributions including Gentoo, Slackware, Mandriva, Debian, RedHat, and SUSE.


Un comentario en «PERL – What you should know about it»
  1. […] These vulnerabilities can be exploited with network access and do not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have low attack complexity. It has the highest possible exploitability rating of 3.9 and the potential impact of an exploitation of this vulnerability is considered critical since this vulnerability has a high impact on confidentiality, integrity with a rating of 9.8.See also:Issues and vulnerabilities faced by PythonPERL – What you should know about it […]

Deja un comentario

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *