jargon, node: Perl

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Perl

Perl /perl/ /n./ [Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a. Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister] An interpreted language developed by Larry Wall (<lwall@jpl.nasa.gov>, author of `patch(1)' and `rn(1)') and distributed over Usenet. Superficially resembles awk, but is much hairier, including many facilities reminiscent of `sed(1)' and shells and a comprehensive Unix system-call interface. Unix sysadmins, who are almost always incorrigible hackers, increasingly consider it one of the languages of choice. Perl has been described, in a parody of a famous remark about `lex(1)', as the "Swiss-Army chainsaw" of Unix programming. See also Camel Book.

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