Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. In addition to CGI, Perl is used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications but remains most popular as a scripting tool for web applications. The OS/2 implementation of Perl 5 has a rather neat module called OS2:REXX that allows you to call DLLs that follow the REXX calling convention enabling Perl users to use any REXX extensions in their programs.

Libraries

• Apache Xerces Perl - Perl API for Xerces C++ XML parser

Programmer's utilities

• Exuberant ctags - Creates index files out of Perl source files

DOS Perl

While not officially supported Perl can be compiled and used with DOS using the 4.x branch, at this point in time 5.x branch is not supported.

• XAV's Active State DOS Perl archive - Instructions on how to compile Perl for DOS
• Perl 3.0 for MS-DOS A native DOS port of version 3, outdated but better native support than the later versions

DOS text & programmers editors with Perl support

• Boxer - Perl syntax highlighting support built in
• Elvis - Perl syntax support included by default
• FTE - Has support for syntax highlighting, code folding and syntax-aware autoindent.

Version

• 5.14.2 (2012-01-05)
• 5.16.1
• OS/2: 5.32.0 (2020-08-29)

Articles

• Heiko Korsawe: An Introduction to Perl - Translated to English by Thomas Klein

Publications

• Nigel Chapman: PERL - The Programmer's Companion - Wiley 1997, ISBN 0-471-97563-X
• Michael McMillan: PERL from the Ground Up - Osborne 1998, ISBN 0-07-882404-4
• Alligator Descartes; Tim Bunce: Programming the Perl DBI: Database programming with Perl - O'Reilly Media 2000, ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8

Licence

• Perl is open source software distributed under either the Artistic License or the GNU General Public License.
• Original author: Larry Wall
• Japanese NLS: Yasushi Saito
• OS/2 16-bit port: Raymond Chen
• OS/2 32-bit port: Kai-Uwe Rommel, Andreas Kaiser, Ilya Zakharevich, Paul Smedley
• Hirofumi Watanabe (Japanese OS/2 port & patches to the main code)

Links

• Paul Smedley's Perl port (Current)
• Ilya Zakharevich's Perl archive - Outdated but contains a lot of OS/2 and generic scripts, some who never made it to Hobbes, et al.