Effective Perl programming : ways to write better, more idiomatic Perl

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
Foreword......Page 12
Preface......Page 14
Acknowledgments......Page 18
About the Authors......Page 20
Introduction......Page 22
 Item 1. Find the documentation for Perl and its modules.......Page 30
 Item 2. Enable new Perl features when you need them.......Page 33
 Item 3. Enable strictures to promote better coding.......Page 35
 Item 4. Understand what sigils are telling you.......Page 38
 Item 5. Know your variable namespaces.......Page 40
 Item 6. Know the difference between string and numeric comparisons.......Page 42
 Item 7. Know which values are false and test them accordingly.......Page 44
 Item 8. Understand conversions between strings and numbers.......Page 48
 Item 9. Know the difference between lists and arrays.......Page 52
 Item 10. Don’t assign undef when you want an empty array.......Page 55
 Item 11. Avoid a slice when you want an element.......Page 58
 Item 12. Understand context and how it affects operations.......Page 62
 Item 13. Use arrays or hashes to group data.......Page 66
 Item 14. Handle big numbers with bignum.......Page 68
Chapter 2 Idiomatic Perl......Page 72
 Item 15. Use $_ for elegance and brevity.......Page 74
 Item 16. Know Perl’s other default arguments.......Page 77
 Item 17. Know common shorthand and syntax quirks.......Page 81
 Item 18. Avoid excessive punctuation.......Page 87
 Item 19. Format lists for easy maintenance.......Page 89
 Item 20. Use foreach, map, and grep as appropriate.......Page 91
 Item 21. Know the different ways to quote strings.......Page 94
 Item 22. Learn the myriad ways of sorting.......Page 98
 Item 23. Make work easier with smart matching.......Page 105
 Item 24. Use given-when to make a switch statement.......Page 107
 Item 25. Use do {} to create inline subroutines.......Page 111
 Item 26. Use List::Util and List::MoreUtils for easy list manipulation.......Page 113
 Item 27. Use autodie to simplify error handling.......Page 117
 Item 28. Know the precedence of regular expression operators.......Page 120
 Item 29. Use regular expression captures.......Page 124
 Item 30. Use more precise whitespace character classes.......Page 131
 Item 31. Use named captures to label matches.......Page 135
 Item 32. Use noncapturing parentheses when you need only grouping.......Page 137
 Item 33. Watch out for the match variables.......Page 138
 Item 34. Avoid greed when parsimony is best.......Page 140
 Item 35. Use zero-width assertions to match positions in a string.......Page 142
 Item 36. Avoid using regular expressions for simple string operations.......Page 146
 Item 37. Make regular expressions readable.......Page 150
 Item 38. Avoid unnecessary backtracking.......Page 153
 Item 39. Compile regexes only once.......Page 158
 Item 40. Pre-compile regular expressions.......Page 159
 Item 41. Benchmark your regular expressions.......Page 160
 Item 42. Don’t reinvent the regex.......Page 163
 Item 43. Understand the difference between my and local.......Page 166
 Item 44. Avoid using @_ directly unless you have to.......Page 175
 Item 45. Use wantarray to write subroutines returning lists.......Page 178
 Item 46. Pass references instead of copies.......Page 181
 Item 47. Use hashes to pass named parameters.......Page 185
 Item 48. Use prototypes to get special argument parsing.......Page 189
 Item 49. Create closures to lock in data.......Page 192
 Item 50. Create new subroutines with subroutines.......Page 197
 Item 51. Don’t ignore the file test operators.......Page 200
 Item 52. Always use the three-argument open.......Page 203
 Item 53. Consider different ways of reading from a stream.......Page 204
 Item 54. Open filehandles to and from strings.......Page 207
 Item 55. Make flexible output.......Page 210
 Item 56. Use File::Spec or Path::Class to work with paths.......Page 213
 Item 57. Leave most of the data on disk to save memory.......Page 216
 Item 58. Understand references and reference syntax.......Page 222
 Item 59. Compare reference types to prototypes.......Page 230
 Item 60. Create arrays of arrays with references.......Page 232
 Item 61. Don’t confuse anonymous arrays with list literals.......Page 235
 Item 62. Build C-style structs with anonymous hashes.......Page 237
 Item 63. Be careful with circular data structures.......Page 239
 Item 64. Use map and grep to manipulate complex data structures.......Page 242
Chapter 7 CPAN......Page 248
 Item 65. Install CPAN modules without admin privileges.......Page 249
 Item 66. Carry a CPAN with you.......Page 252
 Item 67. Mitigate the risk of public code.......Page 256
 Item 68. Research modules before you install them.......Page 260
 Item 69. Ensure that Perl can find your modules.......Page 263
 Item 70. Contribute to CPAN.......Page 267
 Item 71. Know the commonly used modules.......Page 271
Chapter 8 Unicode......Page 274
 Item 72. Use Unicode in your source code.......Page 275
 Item 73. Tell Perl which encoding to use.......Page 278
 Item 74. Specify Unicode characters by code point or name.......Page 279
 Item 75. Convert octet strings to character strings.......Page 282
 Item 76. Match Unicode characters and properties.......Page 286
 Item 77. Work with graphemes instead of characters.......Page 290
 Item 78. Be careful with Unicode in your databases.......Page 293
 Item 79. Use Module::Build as your distribution builder.......Page 296
 Item 80. Don’t start distributions by hand.......Page 299
 Item 81. Choose a good module name.......Page 304
 Item 82. Embed your documentation with Pod.......Page 308
 Item 83. Limit your distributions to the right platforms.......Page 313
 Item 84. Check your Pod.......Page 316
 Item 85. Inline code for other languages.......Page 319
 Item 86. Use XS for low-level interfaces and speed.......Page 322
Chapter 10 Testing......Page 328
 Item 87. Use prove for flexible test runs.......Page 329
 Item 88. Run tests only when they make sense.......Page 332
 Item 89. Use dependency injection to avoid special test logic.......Page 335
 Item 90. Don’t require more than you need to use in your methods.......Page 338
 Item 91. Write programs as modulinos for easy testing.......Page 341
 Item 92. Mock objects and interfaces to focus tests.......Page 345
 Item 93. Use SQLite to create test databases.......Page 351
 Item 94. Use Test::Class for more structured testing.......Page 353
 Item 95. Start testing at the beginning of your project.......Page 356
 Item 96. Measure your test coverage.......Page 363
 Item 97. Use CPAN Testers as your QA team.......Page 367
 Item 98. Set up a continuous build system.......Page 369
Chapter 11 Warnings......Page 378
 Item 99. Enable warnings to let Perl spot suspicious code.......Page 379
 Item 100. Use lexical warnings to selectively turn on or off complaints.......Page 382
 Item 101. Use die to generate exceptions.......Page 385
 Item 102. Use Carp to get stack traces.......Page 387
 Item 103. Handle exceptions properly.......Page 391
 Item 104. Track dangerous data with taint checking.......Page 393
 Item 105. Start with taint warnings for legacy code.......Page 396
 Item 106. Prepare your SQL statements to reuse work and save time.......Page 398
 Item 107. Use SQL placeholders for automatic value quoting.......Page 403
 Item 108. Bind return columns for faster access to data.......Page 405
 Item 109. Reuse database connections.......Page 407
 Item 110. Compile and install your own perls.......Page 412
 Item 111. Use Perl::Tidy to beautify code.......Page 415
 Item 112. Use Perl Critic.......Page 419
 Item 113. Use Log::Log4perl to record your program’s state.......Page 424
 Item 114. Know when arrays are modified in a loop.......Page 431
 Item 115. Don’t use regular expressions for comma-separated values.......Page 433
 Item 116. Use unpack to process columnar data.......Page 435
 Item 117. Use pack and unpack for data munging.......Page 437
 Item 118. Access the symbol table with typeglobs.......Page 444
 Item 119. Initialize with BEGIN; finish with END.......Page 446
 Item 120. Use Perl one-liners to create mini programs.......Page 449
 Books......Page 456
Appendix B: Map from First to Second Edition......Page 460
 Websites......Page 457
 Getting Help......Page 458
Index......Page 466
 A......Page 467
 B......Page 468
 C......Page 469
 D......Page 472
 E......Page 474
 F......Page 475
 G......Page 476
 I......Page 477
 L......Page 478
 M......Page 480
 N......Page 481
 P......Page 482
 R......Page 485
 S......Page 487
 T......Page 490
 U......Page 492
 W......Page 493
 Z......Page 494