Coding 101 21: Perl: Getting Started

Hosts: Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ and Shannon Morse
Guest: Patrick Delahanty
Ivory Tower
Control Structures
The structure of Perl is more like C# than Python
-- While Python uses whitespace to delineate lines of code, Perl uses ";" a semicolon
-- Also like C#, Perl uses "{}" Curly brackets to create BLOCKS of code
Variables
Much like Python, Perl doesn't require you to declare variables seperately from expressions.
You can declare variable WITHIN the expression.
Perl offers three types of variables: Scalars, Arays and Associative Arrays
We're going to show you the first two: Scalars and Arrays
Printing in Perl
Printing in Perl works much in the same way as printing in Python
You can print numbers, strings, variables, and combinations thereof.
Scalars
These are either numbers or strings
Perl doesn't require you to mark a variable as either a number or a string... it all looks the same to Perl
Perl also doesn't require you to differerentiate between integers and real numbers
Usage of Scalars:
You declare a scalar variable by using "$" right befofe the name of the variable
$Var1 = 28 Creates a variable named "Var1" containing the integer "4"
$Var2 = "Coding 101" Crates a variable named "Var2" containing the string "Coding 101"
$Var3 = 3.14 Creates a variable named "Var3" containing the decimal number "4.5"
Arrays
An array is a ONE-DIMENSIONAL indexed list of Scalar variables
Usage of Arrays
You declare an array by using "@" right before the name of the array
Individual scalar variables within the array can be accessed by pointing to their index with the SCALAR identifier
@C101 = ("Padre", "Snubs", "Bryan") Creates an array named "C101" and fills it with the strings, "Padre", "Snubs" and "Bryan"
@coding = @c101 Creates an array called, "coding" and fills it with the values from the array "c101"
$C101[2] = "Cranky Hippo" Changes the value in the third item in the array "C101" from "Bryan" to "Cranky Hippo"
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Running time: 42:03