This book is about a clever little programming language called Perl and how you can use it to make the most of your World Wide Web server.

The book tells you what Perl is, how it works, and how to write Perl programs. Much of this material will be useful even if you never do any Web server work. The book also deals with some general Web server issues, such as security. But at heart, this book is about Perl programming applied to Web development.. - excerpt from the Introduction.

About the Authors

Mìcheàl Ò Foghlù works at the University College of Galway, Ireland, in its Computer Services Department. He spent his student years in England, graduating from the University of Keele with a BA in English and Computer Science. Later, Micheal was awarded an MPhil in Computer Speech and Natural Language Processing from the University of Cambridge. He also received an MPhil in Knowledge Acquisition for Expert Systems from the University of Central Lancashire. His main computing interests include language processing, WWW programming, and UNIX systems programming.

David Harlan's degree in American History and five years of experience in a security department at a small university may make him seem to be an unlikely author for a high-end programming book. But computers have always been a key part of his day-to-day activities. He learned programming (and was just short of a Computer Science degree) at the University of Puget Sound. After graduation, he stayed on at Puget Sound as assistant director of security for five years before joining Canyon Online Media in Seattle, where he helped develop the company's commercial Web site. Currently, he is a member of the Web development team at White Horse Studios in Portland, Oregon.

Shelley Powers is an incorporated independent contractor who has her own company, YASD. She works in and out of Portland, Oregon, and has worked with some of the leading companies in the Northwest. Shelley has worked with UNIX- and Windows-based client/server applications for several years; now she is working with Web application and development for both environments. She has written books on PowerBuilder 5.0 and on JavaScript. YASD's Web site is at http://www.yasd.com.

Matthew D. Healy performs a variety of tasks, ranging from UNIX system administration and database administration to building WWW front ends on top of Sybase, Msql, and Illustra relational databases at the Yale Center for Medical Informatics. He contributed to Special Edition Using CGI, also published by Que Corporation. Before joining YCMI, he was an engineer, a graduate student, a teaching assistant, and a LAN administrator[md]and always a rabid SF fan. Along the way, he earned a BS in Engineering from Purdue and a PhD in Zoology from Duke. He'd love to get e-mail at Matthew.Healy@yale.edu, and his home page (http://ycmi.med.yale.edu/~healy) always welcomes visitors. Scientific and technical prose constitutes something of a family affair for him[md]his wife edits medical journals, and his brother is a technical writer for a large software company.

Electronic Book Information

David Medinets

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Que Corporation
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Copyright Information

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Making copies of any part of this book for any purpose other than your own personal use is a violation of United States copyright laws. For information, address Que Corporation, 201 W. 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290. You may reach Que's direct sales line by calling 1-800-428-5331.

Library of Congress Catalog No.: 96-69614

ISBN: 0-7897-0659-8

This book is sold as is, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, respecting the contents of this book, including but not limited to implied warranties for the book's quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. Neither Que Corporation nor its dealers or distributors shall be liable to the purchaser or any other person or entity with respect to any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

98 97 96 6 5 4 3 2 1

Interpretation of the printing code: the rightmost double-digit number is the year of the book's printing; the rightmost single-digit number, the number of the book's printing. For example, a printing code of 96-1 shows that the first printing of the book occurred in 1996.

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Que cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.

Screen reproductions in this book were created using Collage Plus from Inner Media, Inc., Hollis, NH.

NetWare is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Apple, AppleTalk, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

Credits

Copyright ©1996, Que Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Making copies of any part of this book for any purpose other than your own personal use is a violation of United States copyright laws. For information, address Que Corporation, 201 West 103^rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290.

Notice: This material is excerpted from Special Edition, Using Netware 4.1, Second Edition, ISBN: 0-7897-0810-8. The electronic version of this material has not been through the final proof reading stage that the book goes through before being published in printed form. Some errors may exist here that are corrected before the book is published. This material is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind.