Categories
Development
System and Utilities
Version
5.42.2-1
(2026-03-31)
Size
12.7
MiB
Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier.
Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed. The language provides powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix tools, facilitating easy manipulation of text files.
In addition to CGI, Perl is used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications. Perl is nicknamed 'the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages' because of its flexibility and power, and possibly also because of its perceived 'ugliness'.
Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed. The language provides powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix tools, facilitating easy manipulation of text files.
In addition to CGI, Perl is used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications. Perl is nicknamed 'the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages' because of its flexibility and power, and possibly also because of its perceived 'ugliness'.
- Homepage
-
Licenses:
Artistic,GNU GPL v1 - Download HPKG file