1PERLBOOK(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLBOOK(1)
2
6 perlbook - Books about and related to Perl
7
9 There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are good,
10 some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. There is a list of these
11 books, some with extensive reviews, at
12 <https://www.perl.org/books/library.html> . We list some of the books
13 here, and while listing a book implies our endorsement, don't think
14 that not including a book means anything.
15 Most of these books are available online through Safari Books Online (
17 <http://safaribooksonline.com/> ).
18 The most popular books
20 The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is
21 Programming Perl:
22 Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
24 by Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall with Jon Orwant
25 ISBN 978-0-596-00492-7 [4th edition February 2012]
26 ISBN 978-1-4493-9890-3 [ebook]
27 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004927
28 The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to
30 accomplish specific tasks:
31 The Perl Cookbook (the "Ram Book"):
33 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
34 with Foreword by Larry Wall
35 ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
36 ISBN 978-0-596-15888-0 [ebook]
37 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/
38 If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the Llama
40 book, which assumes that you already know a little about programming:
41 Learning Perl (the "Llama Book")
43 by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
44 ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011]
45 ISBN 978-1-4493-0458-4 [ebook]
46 https://www.learning-perl.com/
47 The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which
49 introduces the intermediate features of references, data structures,
50 object-oriented programming, and modules:
51 Intermediate Perl (the "Alpaca Book")
53 by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
54 foreword by Damian Conway
55 ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
56 ISBN 978-1-4493-0459-1 [ebook]
57 https://www.intermediateperl.com/
58 References
60 You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard:
61 Perl 5 Pocket Reference
63 by Johan Vromans
64 ISBN 978-1-4493-0370-9 [5th edition July 2011]
65 ISBN 978-1-4493-0813-1 [ebook]
66 https://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018476/
67 Perl Debugger Pocket Reference
69 by Richard Foley
70 ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004]
71 ISBN 978-0-596-55625-9 [ebook]
72 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005030/
73 Regular Expression Pocket Reference
75 by Tony Stubblebine
76 ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [2nd edition July 2007]
77 ISBN 978-0-596-55782-9 [ebook]
78 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514273/
79 Tutorials
81 Beginning Perl
82 (There are 2 books with this title)
83 by Curtis 'Ovid' Poe
85 ISBN 978-1-118-01384-7
86 http://www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-1118013840.html
87 by James Lee
89 ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010 & ebook]
90 https://www.apress.com/9781430227939
91 Learning Perl (the "Llama Book")
93 by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
94 ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011]
95 ISBN 978-1-4493-0458-4 [ebook]
96 https://www.learning-perl.com/
97 Intermediate Perl (the "Alpaca Book")
99 by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
100 foreword by Damian Conway
101 ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
102 ISBN 978-1-4493-0459-1 [ebook]
103 https://www.intermediateperl.com/
104 Mastering Perl
106 by brian d foy
107 ISBN 9978-1-4493-9311-3 [2st edition January 2014]
108 ISBN 978-1-4493-6487-8 [ebook]
109 https://www.masteringperl.org/
110 Effective Perl Programming
112 by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy
113 ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010]
114 https://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/
115 Task-Oriented
117 Writing Perl Modules for CPAN
118 by Sam Tregar
119 ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002 & ebook]
120 https://www.apress.com/9781590590188
121 The Perl Cookbook
123 by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
124 with Foreword by Larry Wall
125 ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
126 ISBN 978-0-596-15888-0 [ebook]
127 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/
128 Automating System Administration with Perl
130 by David N. Blank-Edelman
131 ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
132 ISBN 978-0-596-80251-6 [ebook]
133 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396
134 Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl
136 by Linchi Shea
137 ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003 & ebook]
138 https://www.apress.com/9781590590973
139 Special Topics
141 Regular Expressions Cookbook
142 by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
143 ISBN 978-1-4493-1943-4 [2nd edition August 2012]
144 ISBN 978-1-4493-2747-7 [ebook]
145 https://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023630.do
146 Programming the Perl DBI
148 by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
149 ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
150 ISBN 978-1-4493-8670-2 [ebook]
151 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998
152 Perl Best Practices
154 by Damian Conway
155 ISBN 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
156 ISBN 978-0-596-15900-9 [ebook]
157 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735
158 Higher-Order Perl
160 by Mark-Jason Dominus
161 ISBN 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
162 free ebook https://hop.perl.plover.com/book/
163 https://hop.perl.plover.com/
164 Mastering Regular Expressions
166 by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
167 ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
168 ISBN 978-0-596-55899-4 [ebook]
169 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126
170 Network Programming with Perl
172 by Lincoln Stein
173 ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
174 https://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page
175 Perl Template Toolkit
177 by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
178 ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
179 ISBN 978-1-4493-8647-4 [ebook]
180 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767
181 Object Oriented Perl
183 by Damian Conway
184 with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
185 ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999 & ebook]
186 https://www.manning.com/conway/
187 Data Munging with Perl
189 by Dave Cross
190 ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001 & ebook]
191 https://www.manning.com/cross
192 Mastering Perl/Tk
194 by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
195 ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
196 ISBN 978-0-596-10344-6 [ebook]
197 https://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162
198 Extending and Embedding Perl
200 by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
201 ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002 & ebook]
202 https://www.manning.com/jenness
203 Pro Perl Debugging
205 by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
206 ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005 & ebook]
207 https://www.apress.com/9781590594544
208 Free (as in beer) books
210 Some of these books are available as free downloads.
211 Higher-Order Perl: <https://hop.perl.plover.com/>
213 Modern Perl: <http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/>
215 Other interesting, non-Perl books
217 You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of
218 ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major
219 Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
220 Programming Pearls
222 by Jon Bentley
223 ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
224 More Programming Pearls
226 by Jon Bentley
227 ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
228 A note on freshness
230 Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at
231 the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book
232 lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list was
233 included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest released
234 version at <https://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html> .
235 Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet scale,
237 but we've included those books because they still describe the current
238 way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day. Many of
239 the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and techniques
240 that are still valid today. In general though, we try to limit this
241 list to books published in the past five years.
242 Get your book listed
244 If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know.
245 <mailto:perl5-porters@perl.org>
246perl v5.38.2 2023-11-30 PERLBOOK(1)