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/9781430227939
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/9781590590188
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
154 =item I<Automating System Administration with Perl>
156 by David N. Blank-Edelman
157 ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
158 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396
160 =item I<Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl>
163 ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
164 http://www.apress.com/9781590590973
168 =head2 Special Topics
172 =item I<Regular Expressions Cookbook>
174 by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
175 ISBN 978-0-596-52069-4 [May 2009]
176 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520694
178 =item I<Programming the Perl DBI>
180 by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
181 ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
182 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998
184 =item I<Perl Best Practices>
187 ISBN: 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
188 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735
190 =item I<Higher-Order Perl>
192 by Mark-Jason Dominus
193 ISBN: 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
194 http://hop.perl.plover.com/
196 =item I<Mastering Regular Expressions>
198 by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
199 ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
200 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126
202 =item I<Network Programming with Perl>
205 ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
206 http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page
208 =item I<Perl Template Toolkit>
210 by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
211 ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
212 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767
214 =item I<Object Oriented Perl>
217 with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
218 ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
219 http://www.manning.com/conway/
221 =item I<Data Munging with Perl>
224 ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
225 http://www.manning.com/cross
227 =item I<Mastering Perl/Tk>
229 by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
230 ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
231 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162
233 =item I<Extending and Embedding Perl>
235 by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
236 ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
237 http://www.manning.com/jenness
239 =item I<Pro Perl Debugging>
241 by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
242 ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005]
243 http://www.apress.com/9781590594544
247 =head2 Free (as in beer) books
249 Some of these books are available as free downloads.
251 I<Higher-Order Perl>: http://hop.perl.plover.com/
253 =head2 Other interesting, non-Perl books
255 You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of
256 ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major
257 Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
261 =item I<Programming Pearls>
264 ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
266 =item I<More Programming Pearls>
269 ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
273 =head2 A note on freshness
275 Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at
276 the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book
277 lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list
278 was included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest
279 released version at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html .
281 Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet
282 scale, but we've included those books because they still describe the
283 current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day.
284 Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and
285 techniques that are still valid today. In general though, we try to
286 limit this list to books published in the past five years.
288 =head2 Get your book listed
290 If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know.