3 perlbook - Books about and related to Perl
7 There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are
8 good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. There is a list
9 of these books, some with extensive reviews, at http://books.perl.org/
10 . We list some of the books here, and while listing a book implies our
11 endorsement, don't think that not including a book means anything.
13 Most of these books are available online through Safari Books Online
14 ( http://safaribooksonline.com/ ).
16 =head2 The most popular books
18 The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is
23 =item I<Programming Perl> (the "Camel Book"):
25 by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
26 ISBN 978-0-596-00027-1 [3rd edition July 2000]
27 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596000271/
31 The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to
32 accomplish specific tasks:
36 =item I<The Perl Cookbook> (the "Ram Book"):
38 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
39 with Foreword by Larry Wall
40 ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
41 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/
45 If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the
46 Llama book, which assumes that you already know a little about
51 =item I<Learning Perl> (the "Llama Book")
53 by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
54 ISBN 978-0-596-52011-3 [5th edition June 2008]
55 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520113
59 The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which
60 introduces the intermediate features of references, data structures,
61 object-oriented programming, and modules:
65 =item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book")
67 by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
68 foreword by Damian Conway
69 ISBN 978-0-596-00478-1 [1st edition March 2006]
70 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004781/
76 You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard:
80 =item I<Perl 5 Pocket Reference>
83 ISBN 978-0-596-00374-6 [4th edition July 2002]
84 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003746/
86 =item I<Perl Debugger Pocket Reference>
89 ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004]
90 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005030/
92 =item I<Regular Expression Pocket Reference>
95 ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [July 2007]
96 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514273/
104 =item I<Beginning Perl>
107 ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010]
108 http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430227931
110 =item I<Learning Perl>
112 by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
113 ISBN 978-0-596-52010-6 [5th edition June 2008]
114 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106
116 =item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book")
118 by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
119 foreword by Damian Conway
120 ISBN 0-596-10206-2 [1st edition March 2006]
121 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102067
123 =item I<Mastering Perl>
126 ISBN 978-0-596-10206-7 [1st edition July 2007]
127 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242
129 =item I<Effective Perl Programming>
131 by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy
132 ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010]
133 http://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/
141 =item I<Writing Perl Modules for CPAN>
144 ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002]
145 http://www.apress.com/book/view/159059018X
147 =item I<The Perl Cookbook>
149 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
150 with foreword by Larry Wall
151 ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [2nd edition August 2003]
152 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135
155 =item I<Automating System Administration with Perl>
157 by David N. Blank-Edelman
158 ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
159 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396
161 =item I<Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl>
164 ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
165 http://www.apress.com/book/view/159059097X
169 =head2 Special Topics
173 =item I<Regular Expressions Cookbook>
175 by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
176 ISBN 978-0-596-52069-4 [May 2009]
177 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520694
179 =item I<Programming the Perl DBI>
181 by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
182 ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
183 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998
185 =item I<Perl Best Practices>
188 ISBN: 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
189 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735
191 =item I<Higher-Order Perl>
193 by Mark-Jason Dominus
194 ISBN: 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
195 http://hop.perl.plover.com/
197 =item I<Mastering Regular Expressions>
199 by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
200 ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
201 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126
203 =item I<Network Programming with Perl>
206 ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
207 http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page
209 =item I<Perl Template Toolkit>
211 by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
212 ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
213 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767
215 =item I<Object Oriented Perl>
218 with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
219 ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
220 http://www.manning.com/conway/
222 =item I<Data Munging with Perl>
225 ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
226 http://www.manning.com/cross
228 =item I<Mastering Perl/Tk>
230 by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
231 ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
232 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162
234 =item I<Extending and Embedding Perl>
236 by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
237 ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
238 http://www.manning.com/jenness
240 =item I<Pro Perl Debugging>
242 by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
243 ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005]
244 http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590594541
248 =head2 Free (as in beer) books
250 Some of these books are available as free downloads.
252 I<Higher-Order Perl>: http://hop.perl.plover.com/
254 I<Writing Perl Modules for CPAN>: http://www.apress.com/resource/freeebook/9781590590188
256 =head2 Other interesting, non-Perl books
258 You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of
259 ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major
260 Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
264 =item I<Programming Pearls>
267 ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
269 =item I<More Programming Pearls>
272 ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
276 =head2 A note on freshness
278 Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at
279 the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book
280 lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list
281 was included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest
282 released version at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html .
284 Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet
285 scale, but we've included those books because they still describe the
286 current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day.
287 Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and
288 techniques that are still valid today. In general though, we try to
289 limit this list to books published in the past five years.
291 =head2 Get your book listed
293 If you're Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know.