Cool-Man's Perl Page

I've been learning Perl.  Here's what I've written:

• A script to automagically upload a FrontPage web, minus the annoying _vti_cnf and other such folders.
• A script that selects a random shortcut from a directory (or a set of directories with associated weights, loaded in from a configuration file) and uploads it to a specified location.  This is how I upload the random cat picture of the hour.
• A (naively written) script that recursively builds Java source files and slaps them into a destination directory, making multiple passes until complete.  I wrote this before I knew much about how Java builds files.

It occurred to me that Win32 people (the people who might actually use this stuff) might want to know how to get Perl (a predominantly Unix-based scripting language) installed on their machines.  Fortunately, it's not hard.  Learning Perl is the hard part, and it's not even too bad if you have exposure to a couple of other languages and aren't mired in, say, a C frame of mind.

Good references for Perl in general exist at www.cpan.org and www.perl.com .  The Win32 distribution for Perl is free and can be downloaded from www.ActiveState.com .  The folks there have been kind enough to provide a free port, plus some commercial tools to enhance Perl to the quality (or at least the style) of programming that Win32 folks expect.  Personally, I haven't yet used them, but if you're considering Perl for commercial work or for a big project, I'd recommend what they have to offer.

At any rate, the ActivePerl distribution is easy to install with an InstallShield-based installer.  One caveat (which it warns you about):  Your Perl directory must be in a directory without spaces at any level--no putting it under Program Files.  Aside from that, it's cake.

My scripts use a couple of extra modules.  There are several places to get some of these--you can find links from www.cpan.org if you try.  However, for the most part ActiveState has it, and it's conveniently accessible using ppm.  Look for ppm (I believe the batch file runs the pl file with some added value) and run it.  Then type "help".  To install a package over the net from ActiveState, type "install pkg" on the package you need.  You can also build many packages with the traditional make process, but ppm is easier and quicker to use, and manually-built packages won't show up later when you use ppm.  (At least, the one I installed manually didn't.)

Back to my home page