Beginning Perl Web Development: From Novice to Professional introduces you to the world of Perl Internet application development. This book tackles all areas crucial to developing your first web applications and includes a powerful combination of real-world examples coupled with advice. Topics range from serving and consuming RSS feeds, to monitoring Internet servers, to interfacing with e-mail. You'll learn how to use Perl with ancillary packages like Mason and Nagios.
Though not version specific, this book is an ideal read if you have had some grounding in Perl basics and now want to move into the world of web application development. Author Steve Suehring emphasizes the security implications of Perl, drawing on years of experience teaching readers how to "think safe," avoid common pitfalls, and produce well-planned, secure code.
This is a book about Perl, the programming language. More specifically, this is a book about some aspects of Perl interacting with the Internet. The book includes coverage of CGI through the Perl CGI.pm module, as well as much additional information. You’ll explore such topics as how to send e-mail from a Perl program through Net::SMTP, how to use Net::DNS, and even how to use Net::Ping. You’ll learn how to build a templated web site two different ways, one with the help of HTML::Mason and the other with the Template Toolkit. You’ll learn how to consume SOAP web services, how to read and write RSS, and how to work with XML, all through Perl.
This book attempts to give readers who have learned some Perl a grasp of the concepts and considerations for programming for the Web or creating a Perl program that interacts with the network. This book is fairly Linux-centric. That’s not to say that these programs won’t run on aWindows platform—they will, with very little tweaking.
The book is divided into five parts. The first part covers what comes to mind for many people when they think of Perl and web development—namely, CGI development and database interaction. The CGI module is examined, and I present tips for programming CGIs, such as the Carp module for debugging. The second part of the book widens the focus into Internet interaction with Perl. The Net:: family of modules is covered, along with the LWP for retrieving web pages through Perl. Coverage of XML and RSS make up the third part of the book, where you’ll learn about XML parsing through Perl, consumption of SOAP web services, and RSS feeds. The fourth part of the book looks at mod_perl for development. The fifth and final part of the book examines templating through the Template Toolkit and HTML::Mason.
About the Author
STEVE SUEHRING is a technology architect with a diverse set of skills. Steve works with a wide array of technologies, from mainframe OS/390 to Microsoft Windows to several distributions of Linux. Steve has written a book on MySQL, a book on Linux firewalls, and numerous magazine articles. During his tenure as an editor for LinuxWorld Magazine, Steve focused on advocacy of Linux and open-source software, as well as computer security. Among the articles Steve wrote for LinuxWorld Magazine is a cover story featuring the WilliamsF1 team’s use of Linux to design their Formula 1 car. Steve is also a Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP).
