Internet Technology

Prof. Indranil Sengupta

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Lecture No #21
PERL – Part I

Earlier we had seen or we have told or talked about that the language PERL is very important
in the context of developing interactive web pages on the internet. So in the next few lectures
would be looking at the various features and syntax and semantics of PERL language with
particular emphasis on how you can use this language to develop interactive web pages to
develop cgi scripts and the like.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:16)

So we start with some basic background about the language PERL. The PERL the full form
of this acronym is Practical Report and Extraction Language. Now PERL is an interpreted
language. Interpreted language means that you do not have to compile a PERL program into a
machine code and then execute it. There are two ways you can run a program. The
conventional way you write a program in C compile it in to an object code or machine code
then execute the machine code. The second way is that the way languages like Java or PERL
works or operates. You write the program in some language well of course in java we have to
compile. In PERL we do not have to compile it at all. The program remains in the PERL’s
source code form.

There is an interpreter program PERL interpreter which takes the source program directly and
executes the PERL code. This is how an interpreter works it takes the source code directly
and statement by statement it tries to interpret and execute. And PERL is a language which
has been optimised for scanning text files, extracting information from them and printing
reports which are the main requirements and needs for web based applications. In particular
you will see PERL has very powerful string handling features. String handling means string

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comparisons string replacements and a number of other related features and this is available
on all platforms. You can have PERL installed on a machine without any problem.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:19)

The main advantages of PERL are several. First is of course is speed of development. Since
PERL is interpretive you need not have to compile a program every time you make some
modifications. You can simply type the means type and enter the program and simply run it
through the interpreter. There is no additional overhead required for compilation. As I said it
is very powerful for some application domains. There is something called regular expressions
in PERL which will shall see later. It is an extremely powerful feature and this lends the main
advantage of PERL which regards to the string handling capability. It uses sophisticated
pattern matching techniques to scan large amount of data very quickly.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:13)

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PERL is portable, it is a standard language. All implementations are based on this standard. It
is available on all platforms; Windows, UNIX, Linux, Macintosh, everywhere and the second
most important thing is that this is the language you need not have to purchase. It is available
for free on the internet. You can download the PERL interpreter on a machine and you can
start using or writing a PERL programs. For creating PERL programs you do not need any
specialized editor. You do not need any sophisticated editor. You can use any simple text
editor like Notepad in Windows or vi under Unix or Linux to create PERL programs.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:05)

Flexibility is another thing. The way PERL is defined, PERL does not limit the size of the
data which means I am giving an example in PERL, and you can define a string. Now a string
can be one word, it can be one line. The entire content of a file can also be regarded as string
and it can be stored in a string variable. PERL does not impose any limit to the max size. You
may be having 50 Megabyte long file that entire file content you can assign it to a single
string variable. As long as you have sufficient memory available, virtual memory is sufficient
PERL will not create any problem for you. This is what I have said and this because of this
flexibility you can write some program to perform very complex task without worrying about
memory availability and other problems.

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(Refer Slide Time: 06:07)

Now the next question is how to run PERL? As I said PERL can be downloaded from the
internet, there are number of websites available. And versions are available to run on almost
all platforms. Now one of the examples that we have shown here that is will show the
inherent assumptions are, well if you are trying to run PERL under the Windows operating
system, then I am assuming that you are running them from the command prompt. Command
prompt comes whenever you go to the start button on the left bottom you select run and then
you enter cmd or command depending on your Windows version and a command prompt
window comes you type the commands directly on that window.

So here all the examples that I have shown we are assumed that you are typing the commands
directly on the command window. And if you are a doing it on a UNIX or Linux system, then
the commands you are typing directly from the shell prompt. So we have made this
assumption because of both the cases the appearance will be similar. We have windows
where you directly typing the commands and getting back your results. This is unlike the
most other windows application where you have very fancy menus and buttons. You click on
the menus using mouse select something. No here we are not assuming Windows here we
will be creating the files in text editors. We will be giving command on the so called
command prompt line and we will be getting the result from there directly.

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(Refer Slide Time: 08:00)

Let us take a small example and see how we can go through this example and run, run it
execute it. These are the recommended steps because some of the steps are optional. But it is
always a good practice to do this. For example the first step it is always good to create a
separate directory or folder where you will be storing the PERL files. Otherwise your PERL
files will get mixed up with a rather different kind of files. So it is always good to have a
separate folder where in which all the PERL files will be stored. Now using any text editor
you create a file. For example give the name as test.pl which will contain these two lines.
Print within double-quotes, something print within double-quotes something.

Now if you look at these two lines I think this is. This is absolutely self-explanatory. First one
prints the character string and the \ n like in C. This means a new line character. So good day
will be printed, and then on the next line “This is my first PERL Program” will be printed
then on the next line will get printed. Now this program can be typed. It can be saved in a file
text.pl and you can execute the program directly by typing this particular command on the
command prompt PERL test.pl. PERL will be PERL is the name of the PERL interpreter
when you give the PERL command, PERL interpreter will start running test.pl is the input
program to the PERL interpreter. PERL interpreter will be reading the commands. From there
it will be executing it directly. So executing PERL program is as simple as that.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:56)

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Well if you are working on UNIX or Linux, you need one additional line at the beginning.
This tells you in which directory the PERL interpreter is stored. So as you can see this syntax,
this is hash the exclamation sign, then the path name. Say for example I have given usr bin
PERL this is the complete path name for the PERL interpreter. So in UNIX or Linux you
normally require this so that when you execute, this kind of program you need not invoke the
PERL interpreter directory. You can directly run this program and the first line of the
program will tell you which program to call it, will be called automatically and that program
will be taking the other commands and executing them this is exactly the same as executing
shell script from a UNIX command prompt because in a shell script you typically give
something like usr bin sh where sh is the name of the shell interpreter. Here instead of sh you
are giving Perl. So using this you can execute the programs.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:27)

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Now let us come to the details of this language. Some of the constructs we start with the
concept of variables in Perl. Now in Perl, broadly there are three kinds of variables Scalar,
array and hash. The second two we would be looking at later for the time be look at
something called Scalar variables. Scalar variables as the name implies it can hold a single
value. So as I said array and hash are associative these will be considered later. The way of
defining a variable is that a $ sign before the name indicates that, this is a variable for
example $xyz is a variable. It is a Scalar variable $ indicates it is a Scalar. If you give $xyz is
= 20, it means you are assigning a value 20 to this Scalar variable $xyz.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:41)

Some more examples $a =10. $name = within double-quotes, this is string Indranil Sen
Gupta, $average = “28.37”. Now you can see from these examples so may you must wonder
and is in fact true that in PERL variables do not have any fixed types. There is nothing like
this variable is integer variable. This is character, this is floating point. Well when you store
something in a variable name everything is stored as string. When you process them as you
the need requirements it can be treated as a number. If we are using a variable in an
arithmetic expression, then the content of the variable is treated as a number or otherwise it
will be treated as string. So the context in which you are using a variable will determine its
type how it is interpreted explicitly. The user is not specifying which variable is holding
which type of data. Variables can be printed like this, will talk about this later. Print within
double-quotes “My name is $name the average temperature is $average”. There will be a
closing quote here. So just like php I took the same example. If this $name appears within
double-quote it will replace by its value. Similarly here, so exactly what we printed is “My
name is Indranil Sen Gupta the average temperature is “28.37”. This is what we printed. This
is what we have mentioned.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:37)

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Perl does not specify the type of variables. That is why it is sometimes called loosely typed
language to distinguish it from languages which are so called strongly typed. Strongly typed
means they have very strong type declaration syntax or rules in Java or C each and every
variable must be assigned or defined with a type and it must abide by that type at all. Time
that particular type at all points of time you cannot change the type of a variable in between.
But in PERL you can in general.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:20)

Variable interpolation I had just shown, it as an example. Earlier a couple of slides back. But
let us look at it. More formally, this is very powerful feature in Perl. This says that variable
names where ever you use them they will be automatically be replaced by their corresponding
values whenever they appear in double-quoted strings. This means if you have a string
enclosed in double-quotes and within this string a variable appears. Then that variable will be
replaced by the contents of that variable whenever, that string is processed, you may be
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printing that string you may be doing something else with the string also. They may similarly
counting the number of characters in the string, for example the value will be replaced and
then the processing of the string will start.

Now another small example, the first line here is assigns a string Rupak to a variable $stud.
Second line assigns a number 75 to a variable $marks. There are two print statements which
are very similarly it say “Marks obtained by $stud is $marks” with a new line \n. The only
difference is the first print statement uses double-quotes, while the second print statement
uses single-quotes. This is the only difference. But in terms of semantics of the meaning this
single quote and double quote really makes some difference here. Here we are talking about
variable interpolation where a variable is replaced by a value this interpolation occurs only
when you are using double-quotes.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:35)

Like for the previous example, the first print statement will give an output. Marks obtained
by Rupak is 75. The second one will give an output Marks obtained by $stud is $marks which
means the replacement of variables by their values have not taken place. They are taken the 4
names of the variables are regarded as strings. Let us just go back to the program once more.
To see Marks obtained by $stud is $marks in the first one $stud is replaced by Rupak. This is
replaced by 75. But in second one it does not. So in a string if we need to do variable
interpolation, we use double quotes otherwise use single quotes.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:31)

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But if it is simple sting, without any embedded variable, then single or double quote does not
make any difference. You can use either of them.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:42)

This is a particular example where string contains the currency symbol $100. Now here we
have to use single quote. Because if we use double quote $100 like this, then the PERL
interpreter will be misled. PERL interpreter will regard $100 as a name of a variable and try
to replace the value of the variable which is not true. Since this is not a variable at all, it is
always safe to enclose it within single quote and not confuse the PERL interpreter. And when
you are printing the content “The expenditure is $expense” within double quotes, so actually
what will be printed is “The expenditure is $100” because $100 is the contents of this
variable. So this tells you when you want to use or means when you need to use double quote
and when you need to use single quote.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:55)

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So let us now look at how expressions can be written down in Scalar variables while syntax is
very similar to C. So I am not spending much time on this. I am just giving a few examples to
illustrate. What all things you can do? $abc is a variable, $abc is = 10. You have auto
increment and auto decrement $abc++ $total--. Here exponentiation is indicated double star
$b** 10 means this variable raised to the power of 10. This gets assigned to dollar. A %
means modulus $b % 10 means you divide b by 10 and the remainder whatever is coming
that is assigned to that is the modulus. $Balance = $balance + $deposit or you can also write
in the convention C short form. $Balance += $deposit. So almost all the things which you can
do in C you can do in PERL as well the syntax is all most the same.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:15)

Talking about strings, there are few additional operations you can do on strings which are
convenient. Like let us take an example. See there are three strings we have defined good,
blank day and new line \n. These are the three strings we can carry out string concatenation
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using the dot operator. You can write $total, $a dot, $b dot, $c. So the three strings get
concatenated and will get a single string good day with a new line which is assigned to total.
Well if you look at this statement, this says $a dot = this dot = means dollar. This is the short
form $a = $a . “day \n”. This also creates the same string $a contain good. Good is
concatenated with day new line. So good day new line is assigned to the same variable $a,
this is doing this.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:41)

So we sometimes do arithmetic operations in strings but of course very rarely but PERL
supports it. Let us see what it means in terms of semantics. Say there is a string $a, which we
have assigned a value bat b a t bat to it. Then you give a statement dollar, $b is = $a +. $a +
one is an arithmetic addition you want to do. That means you asking to add one to a string
now. Now means actually what will happen here is that this fellow one will be added to the
ANCII covalent of the number number represented by a string. So actually if you add this
one, this well b a t will become not really cat. Cat will be done. If you add to the first one it
will actually become b a u.

The last one to make it b a t you have to compute the corresponding number that you will
have to make an addition here because ultimately b a t will get stored as three ASCII
characters. So to make bat into cat you have to add one to the first nibble and 00. Here it will
be 1 and 00, so accordingly you have to find out the number to be added so that the first byte
gets incremented. So these operations are based on ASCII but usually we do not use this
because this kind of arithmetic operations on strings are not very meaningful and it also
sometimes misleads the designer or reader of the program. So it is not a good practice to use
this.

(Refer Slide Time: 24: 37)

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There is another interesting string operator this is called the string repetition operator x. Well
you can repeat a string by a number of times following x. Like you take this example, $a = $b
x3. X3 means $b, whatever is the content of this will be repeated, three times. This will
concatenate three copies of b and assign it to a take this specific example print within double
quotes Ba, then concatenation then n a repeated twice. So actually it will be printing the
string bana of course this b would be capital it will be printing this string banana. This n a
will be appearing twice. So many we may need to do this kind of string repetition. We can
use this x operator for the purpose.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:40)

Now string sometimes can be represented or evaluated as a number also in terms of an

arithmetic expression. Now if it is a full fledged arithmetic expression other than simple
increment of decrement, the question arises if it is string. How do we evaluate the value?
There are some very different rules before using it in a full-fledged arithmetic expression.
PERL converts the string to a number. When converting it to a number PERL will take in the
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beginning if there are any spaces it will consider that. If there is optional minus sign at the
beginning it will also consider that and as many digits it can find with a possible decimal
point at the beginning. But after that it will ignore everything else. For example if it is
“23.54” it will take the whole thing “23.54” as a number. If it is 123 Hello 25, then it will
scan from the left. It will get 123 and after that there is some non-numeric character. So it
will stop here. It will take the value as 123. If it is banana there is no numeric character. So
the value will be taken as 0. So these are the results or these are the rules using which a string
if used in an arithmetic expression can be converted in to a number.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:18)

Now sometimes when you are defining strings we need to have escape sequences because
sometimes special characters in PERL there are number of escape characters. There are
number of special characters. So $ @ # \ is also there. There are many such special characters
which are there in Perl. So if you want such special characters to come as a part of a string,
then we need to use an escape sequence. Now in PERL the reverse slash character is used as
the escape sequence. Like you take this example, first one $num = 20. Print Value of \$num
is $num. You see you have double quotes. So you need variable interpolation, but what you
require in the output is the output you want that is should come as value of $num is 20.

So in one case you are replacing it by its value in the other case you are not. So when you do
not want to replace it or do not want the $to be treated as special character precede it by a
slash. So this is treated as a normal $as part of the string and will be printed as Value of $num
is num. And suppose you want to print a path the path name will be like this C : \PERL\.
Slash is a special character, again so in a string if you want to write this string, then this
reverse slash has to be escaped by proceeding with the escape character reverse slash. So
there will be double reverse slash at the end again double reverse slash. So in a string
whenever you use some special character which you want to be treated as an ordinary
character. It is better to use or you must use an extra reverse slash at the beginning.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:48)

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Now there is something interesting. Here there is something called Line Oriented Quoting
which simplifies writing something in PERL sometimes will see an example here. Here
actually what we are talking about is we are talking about specification of string. Normally in
PERL when you specify a string we specify by enclosing it with either double quotes or
single quotes. Now if it is very long string, then enclosing it in quotes like this becomes
inconvenient. Long string means a string with spanning ten hundred thousand lines very big
string. So there is a mechanism which is called Line Oriented Quoting. This uses the marker
double less than. Double less than the way its use is like this. You give a print comm sup.
Suppose I want to print a very long string, you give a print command give, this double slash
follow it up with a string.

Say here I have chosen a string called terminator some word. After this I can write down the
lines composed comprising my string one by one. Finally whenever this particular string
terminator appears again the string is treated as being finished. So the same thing I could
have written as print within quote “Hello, how are you” within quote good day with a reverse
slash at the end. So if there are 100 lines, you would have written the word print 100 times.
But using this double less than mechanism, using this kind of Line Oriented Quoting we can
give the print only once followed by the string itself without any quotes or anything. With a
delimiting marker at the end, this is a very convenient way of specifying a string.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:15)

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I am giving an example in the particular context of designing cgi scripts. Look at this small
PERL program snippet. PERL is trying to output some very small HTML document using
print with double quotes HTML. New line print HEAD TITLE Test Page end TITLE end
HEAD, new line print body, new line print H2. This is a test document H2 new line print
BODY HTML new line. This you can understand what it is doing. PERL is generating an
output of very small HTML document. Now here we have to write so many statements. We
have to write some quotes. At the end of each line you have to write a new line \n; so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:22)

So if you look at the alternate version of this same specification which uses the double less
than construct. Print double less than some marker EOM. We choose here EOM is
somewhere here between that I have straight away written the HTML page as if it is a normal
text without any quotes or anything. This entire thing will be treated as a string and it will
print. As you can see in the context of writing cgi scripts this kind of a thing will occur
frequently will be having lot of lines to get printed. Verbatim and if we have a mechanism
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like this, your program looks much more neater and if you also need to type lot less and the
chances of errors are also less quotes, double quotes semi colon you may be missing
something in between. Now let us talk about something called Lists and Arrays in Perl. Now
we have so far talked about Scalar variables where a variable can hold a single value. Now
that single value can be a number the single value can be a string can be anything. But lists
and arrays we shall see it is some sort of collection of scalars, a number of such Scalar
quantities if you combine together. You can call it a List or Array.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:03)

Let us try to understand the basic difference between a List and an Array. List is an ordered
list of scalars. Suppose if you have a List of scalar variables say 1, 2, 3, 4, this is a list. Array
is a variable that holds the list. Just try to understand the difference list is the contents.
Certain numbers arranged in an ordered fashion ordered fashion means I can say this is the
first element. This is the second element, this is the third element, certain items arranged in
an ordered fashion. That is a List and a List can be stored as a variable as a special variable
called an Array variable. So array represents a variable which can store or hold a List and a
list is an ordered collection of Scalars. So as I said each element of an array is a scalar. Now
like C the index of an array starts with 0 and an array in the, you can say in the lowest case
can have zero elements. This is the smallest array or an empty array in the maximal case.
There is no specific limit that PERL imposes. You can have an array with one million entries,
you can have an array with one billion entries, and you can go on doing this as long as the
virtual memory of the system supports it. PERL does not impose any restriction on this. So
the size of the array lower limit is zero, upper limit there is nothing that PERL imposes.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:01)

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Here are some examples. Some examples of list literals or constants. First one defines a list
with four elements 1, 20, 50, 100. Second one red, blue, green. So as you can see these are
simple strings does not matter whether I include them within single quote or within double
quote it does not matter. Now a list can contain any mixer of strings and numbers. Here is a
list with five elements. There are some other notations. This one, this is also a list where the
first element of the list is the content of the scalar variable $a. The second element of this is
12. Here this is an empty list, if we give the two brackets without anything between, just like
this represents an empty list. But we can use the dot dot operator as a list constructor, 10.. 20
actually means 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 up to 20. So instead of writing all these numbers
separated by comma, I can straight away write 10.. 20, this will mean that there 11 elements
in the array in the list. Similarly I can do the same for the characters, A.. Z means all the
characters from A to Z. All 26 letters, so if you have this kind of regular values that you want
to assign to the elements of a list. You can use this kind of constructed operators using dot
dot operation.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:05)

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Now this is how you can define a list. Now let us come to array variables that said an array
variable can hold a list. Now PERL uses a special character to uniquely identify an array. So
any variable which starts with at the rate symbol is regarded as an array variable. This at the
rate months this denotes an array. This array can have many elements. Now the individual
elements of the array, they will obviously be scalars because array is a list. When I talk about
the first element, second element, third element of the array, they are individually scalars,
they are not arrays. So when we talk about the individual elements of the arrays the way we
refer the indices is very similar to C within square bracket. The index number and index
number start with zero just like C. But the point to note is that when I want to refer to first
element of the array, I start it with a $because although ampere, this means at the rate months
is an array $months zero is a scalar. Because when you are talking about the first element it is
a scalar and in PERL any scalar value or any reference to scalar quantity must precede with a
dollar. So if it denotes one element of an array it has to precede with a $to indicate that this is
a scalar quantity.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:57)

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So now let us see or let us look at some of the simple operations on an array that how you can
initialize an array with some known values. Broadly there are two ways. First way is to
specify values separated by commas. For example at the rate colour = red, green, blue, black,
again for some cases you can use single quote. For some cases we can use double quote, no
problem. This can also contain numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever you want this is the first way
of representing or specifying the value. But one problem is that you have to type a lot. So
many quotes, so many commas, there is a more convenient way using the quote words of qw
function. This quote words or qw is used more conveniently when you are specify an array.
But elements are of string type single word string. That is why it is called words. Multi word
strings are not allowed here. Well you can use it like this. Color this array, color = qw within
bracket you simply write down. The values of the array elements separated by spaces red,
green, blue, black. So the element number zero will get red, element number one will get
green, element number two will get blue and the last one will get black. So these are the two
ways in which you can initialize the value of an array.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:36)

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Now some array assignment just like you can assign something to a scalar. You can also
assign something to an array like at numbers = in bracket 1, 2, 3. This is a list, so this list will
be assigned to this array. So the new value of numbers will be 1, 2, 3. Similarly colours = red,
green, blue. You can assign the contents of one array to another at array. One = at array two,
you can also assign something using the qw function, qw something = or you can use any
combination of the above. Like as this example suggests you see at all colors equal within
bracket, you are specifying the list first and the third elements are scalar while the second
element is an array. So before being assigned this array will be expanded. This at colours
means, for example red, green and blue. So actually what will be assigned? It will a five
element list white red, green, blue, brown. So when you are assigning, you can specify an
existing array so that all the values of that array will also go in to the new array along with
the new values as this example showed.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:03)

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Some other examples, first one element 2, 3, 4 and 5 will go. Second one see this is
interesting. In the first case the array value will be 2, 3, 4 and 5. Second one, we are trying to
assign a list to the same array xyz. The list starts with a number or scalar one followed by the
array xyz. So the first element will be one followed by xyz. Whatever it had xyz was 2, 3, 4
and 5. So this will be the new value of the array. You can say this is a way to insert a new
element at the beginning of the array. This one has been inserted at the beginning. Similarly
the last example inserts a 6 at the end of the array. So six will get inserted after xyz right. So
this way you can simply do some insertion at the beginning or end of the array.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:06)

Multiple Assignments. Using a single statement you can have multiple assignments 10 to x,
20 to y, 30 to y, again so the final value of y will be 30. You can swap two elements using a
single line y will go to x, x will go to y and this will be simultaneous. That is why swapping
will actually takes place if you write an assignment like this, $a comma an array. So the first
one is the scalar, second one is an array and there is a list on the right hand side. Since the
first one is scalar a single value can go in to it. That is why $a will get the value of red and
whatever remains will go in to this array col. So col will get the remaining which is green,
blue. This is how multiple assignments will be taken. This is an interesting example take this
one. First one is a scalar, second one is an array, third one is a scalar. You are assigning 1, 2,
3, 4, since the first one is a scalar, the first element will be assigned. So first will get the value
one. Second one is an array. An array can take as much as you can give. So it will gobble up
the remaining 2, 3, 4, whole of it. Last there is nothing to assign to, so last will remain
undefined right. This is what will have here.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:59)

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Number of Elements in Array. This if you want to in a particular program, there are two
ways. One is a function called scalar or an operator called scalar. If you precede the array
name by scalar it will return the number of elements or you can simply drop this keyword
scalar and write a scalar = an array. An array cannot be assigned to a scalar, but if you write a
statement like this, what will happen is that the number of elements in the array will be
assigned to this scalar which is the size of the array. So there are number of ways in which
two certain things in PERL as we can see, but you need to under understand the basic
mechanism. To know that why these various alternatives work or they can be used, this
alternative construct we shall see later because there are certain things you need to understand
in order to appreciate its working. How it works? Why it works? These kinds of questions.

(Refer Slide Time: 48:10)

Now talking about accessing elements in the array, suppose I have an array called list
containing elements 1, 2, 3, 4, I can simply access elements like this. List zero means the first
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element which is one third means the fourth element which is 4. list[3]. List[1]++ means the
one first element of the list, first means one that means the second one which is two. This will
get incremented by one. So now the new list will be 1, 3, 3, 4. If you have a statement like
this, where you are accessing an element which is out of bound, so it cannot return a value.
So x will get the value undefined. Now this undef u n d e f is a special keyword which is used
to indicate undefined values. So undef is it is like a constant or it is like a literal which is used
to indicate undefined. If we give list[2]= a string “Go”, then list[2] is third element. So this
string will replace the third element it will be 1, 2, Go and 4.

(Refer Slide Time: 49:31)

There is a special marker indicated by $hash. $hash represents the index of the last element of
the array. Suppose you have an array value which contains 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You can use $hash
like this. $hash followed by the name of the array without this at the rate this will return the
value 4 which is the index of the last element of the array because index will be 0, 1, 2, 3 and
4. 4 is the last index, so 4 will be written. If the array is empty there will be no elements. If
the array is just an empty array and if you give this $hash, name of the array, name of the
array then it will return minus 1. Minus 1 indicates that the array is empty, zero means it has
only one element because zero is the index of the last element.

(Refer Slide Time: 50:37)

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There are some additional operations on arrays. Shift and unshift; given an array if you regard
an array like this shift and unshift work. At the beginning of the array shift removes the first
element of the array and unshift replaces the element at the start of array. Let us see how it
will work.

(Refer Slide Time: 51:08)

Take an example like this. If you give a shift like this, shift at color, so the first value red will
get replaced and gets assigned to first and color will be now only blue, green, and black.
Unshift is a function, if you give an array name with a value then white will replace the first
element red, that will be white, blue, green, black.

(Refer Slide Time: 51:35)

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Similarly there are a pair of functions pop and push which works at the tail of the array. At
the end of the array pop removes the last element of the array while push replaces the last
element of the array.

(Refer Slide Time: 51:53)

Some example again if color is red, blue, green, black, then if you give pop color, the last
element black will get removed. There it will get assigned to color the first this is variable
and the array will become only red, blue, green. But if you push white then this black will
become white last one.

(Refer Slide Time: 52:18)

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So an array can be reversed by using the reverse keywords. Suppose you have an array like
this, you can simply use reverse this array name. The entire array will be reversed, the
elements will get reversed if I use this same name here and here then the original array will
get reversed.

(Refer Slide Time: 52:58)

So printing an array is equally simple. If you have an array like this, you can simply write
print at colors or within double quotes. If you do not, then printing will take without spaces.
That means red, blue, green will come together if you give in double quotes. Then there will
be a space between consecutive elements. So it depends on what do you want to do. Now
with this we come to the end of today’s lecture. Let us have a look at the solutions to last
days lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:16)

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What do you mean by server-side script?
A server is server-side script is a program. This can be standalone or it can be embedded
inside a HTML document which gets executed before sending the document back to the
browser it is executed at the end of the server.
How do I identify ASP script in a file?
First is that the file extension should be dot asp and these tag pairs should be present.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:44)

Explain the usage of the Request_Form function using an example.

Request.Form function as said can be used like this. Just you give the name of form element.
Here the value will be returned.
Where do the outputs of the ASP server-side scripts go?
They go now where; they get embedded in the HTML document in which ASP tags are
embedded. The output get included as part of the HTML file.

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(Refer Slide Time: 54:15)

A form submits the values of username and password. Write as ASP server-side script to
check if the password is = the string akastra.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:25)

The code will be like this. So first you read the values of the name, password, through
Request form. There is an if-statement, if password is = akastra, then “Welcome YourName”
gets printed here within ASP tags “you have logged successfully” else prints a message error
password or “Incorrect password” end if.

(Refer Slide Time: 54:50)

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In PHP how do you access the values of variables in GET and POST?
By using the functions $GET and $POST?
How can you send data to a server-side script through a URL without using a form?
Well you can use it by straight away coding the hyperlink like this. This is the URL you will
be giving, http followed by a question mark, then age = 23, if there are more then you can
give ampersand and give ampersand the other values. If you put the entire thing as a string
then means it will go to server-side. This xyz asp with these values as a GET string. Now the
questions from today’s lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 55:32)

Do you need to compile a PERL program?

When you are writing a PERL program for a UNIX platform what do the first line indicate?
Why PERL is called a loosely typed language?
A string can be enclosed within single quotes or double quotes what is the difference?
How do you concatenate two strings give an example?
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What is the meaning of adding a number to a string?

(Refer Slide Time: 55:59)

What is the convenient construct to point a number of fixed strings?

How do you add a scalar at the beginning of an array?
How do you concatenate two arrays and form a third array?
How do you reverse an array?
How do you print the elements of an array?
With this we come to the end of today’s lecture. In the next lecture we would be continuing
with our discussion on Perl. We will be looking at some more features of the language
conditional and other things. Thank you.

(Refer Slide Time: 56:33)

(Refer Slide Time: 56:35)

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PERL – Part III

We continue with our discussion on the Perl language and its features. If you recall in our last
lecture we were talking about the scalar and the array variables in the Perl. How it can be
used? Today we continue with what we are talking about.

(Refer Slide Time: 57:00)

We look at some of the other facilities or other you can say features that you can have in
association with an array. Let us start with sorting. Perl provides a very simple mechanism to
sort the elements of an array using the sort keyword. Default sorting method is we can sort
the elements lexicographically. Lexicographically means the elements of the array are treated
as character strings and they will be sorted in the order of the dictionary; in the dictionary
order. Dictionary sorting means lexicographic ordering. And the sort command by default
considers that all elements are a string. For example if you write a number 25 it will
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considered as a string 2 and 5. So some example colors = say using the quote word command
you define this array as red, blue, green, black. If you write sort col another array = sort
colors. So the new array sort col will be this, will be sorted black blue green red right.

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