What is a perl script?

Question

What is a perl script?

Answer 1

A perl script is a file containing a number of commands, written in the Perl language, that accomplish a specific task.



Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. Perl borrows features from a variety of other languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, sed and Lisp. Perl was widely adopted because it provides powerful text processing facilities without arbitrary data length limits, as were present in many Unix tools at the time (from Wikipedia).



Initially designed as a glue language for Unix, Perl has long since spread to most other operating systems. Because it runs nearly everywhere, Perl is one of the most portable programming environments available today (From Programming Perl, 3rd Edition)



My favorite Perl Quote:



Perl code looks like line noise...

Answer 2

A script written in perl. Perl is a interpreted language used mostly for stuff on servers. It's sometimes called the "duct tape of the internet".

Answer 3

For silly historical reasons, a computer PROGRAM written in the Perl language is called a "script".

Answer 4

Haha, well said. If you can execute well planned PHP (or ruby or python or whatever), you shouldn't need it.