Gabor Szabo Perl trainer and developer

Name "main::x" used only once: possible typo at ...

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-22T13:31:56+00:00

If you see this warning in a Perl script you are in deep trouble.

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The (free) Israeli Perl Workshop on 28th February 2012

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-21T11:38:59+00:00

It starts less than a week from now with a Pre-Workshop Social meeting 27th February at HaMinzar in Tel Aviv. Then, on 28th February, a full day of Perl talks in two tracks. We conclude the event with a dinner after the workshop.

For the full article visit The (free) Israeli Perl Workshop on 28th February 2012

Matching numbers using Perl regex

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-16T16:38:55+00:00

I have a file with lines looking like this: Usage:524944/1000000 messages How can I match the two numbers and extract them so I can process them later?

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How to get feedback?

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-14T11:36:33+00:00

When you write an article or a piece of code, when you submit a grant proposal or if you are running a newsletter about Perl, at one point you'll want to get some feedback. There are two ways to do that.

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DWIM Perl 5.14 for Windows (v7) released

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-12T12:06:01+00:00

Installing CPAN modules is time consuming. Having a Perl distribution that contains every CPAN module you'll ever need can save you lots of hours. Having that on the laterst Perl 5.14.2 is even better.

For the full article visit DWIM Perl 5.14 for Windows (v7) released

Announcing my first Perl e-book

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-10T17:34:41+00:00

I am always afraid releasing something new. What if people will hate it? What if they find mistakes? A lot of them? I always feel it is not ready yet but I can't wait till it is. So I have to go with a different strategy.

For the full article visit Announcing my first Perl e-book

$_ the default variable of Perl

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-09T10:46:07+00:00

There is a strange scalar variable called $_ in Perl which is the default variable or in other words the topic. In Perl, several functions and operators use this variable as a default in case no parameter is explicitly used. In general I'd say you should NOT see $_ in real code. I think the whole point of $_ is that you don't have to write it explicitly. Well, except when you do.

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Automatic string to number conversion or casting in Perl

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-08T12:19:11+00:00

In most of the programming languages the type of the operands defines how an operator behaves. So "adding" two numbers does numerical adding while "adding" two strings together concatenates them. This is also called operator overloading. Perl, mostly works in the opposite way. In Perl the operator is the one that defines how to operands are used. This means if you are using a numerical operation (e.g. addition) then both values are automatically converted to numbers. If you are using a string operation (e.g. concatenation) then both values are automatically converted to strings. C programmers would probably call these conversions "casting" but this is word is not used in the Perl world. Probably because the whole thing is automatic.

For the full article visit Automatic string to number conversion or casting in Perl

Announcing DWIM Perl for Windows

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-06T16:44:00+00:00

Installing CPAN modules is time consuming. Having a Perl distribution that contains every CPAN module you'll ever need can save you lots of hours. It can also help in making sure you always get working versions of the CPAN modules. Even if they are not the absolute latest. That's the idea behind DWIM Perl.

For the full article visit Announcing DWIM Perl for Windows

Debugging Perl scripts

Gabor Szabo — 2012-02-04T22:05:06+00:00

When I studied computer sciences in the university, we learned a lot on how to write programs, but as far as I remember no one told us about debugging. We heard about the nice world of creating new things, but no one told us that most of the time we'll have to spend trying to understand other people's code. It turns out that while we mostly cherish writing the program, we spend a lot more try trying to understand what we (or others) wrote, and why does it misbehave, than the time we spent writing it in the first time.

For the full article visit Debugging Perl scripts