Part I: Getting Started with Perl.

Chapter 1: Perl’s Place in the Programming World.

Chapter 2: Running Perl on Your Computer.

Chapter 3: Diving into the Guts of Perl.

Chapter 4: A Perl Program Tour, Times Two.

Part II: The Basic Perl Programming Ingredients.

Chapter 5: Terrific Text.

Chapter 6: Nifty Numbers.

Chapter 7: Learning to Love Lists and Hashes.

Chapter 8: Creating Cool Conditionals and Lovely Loops.

Chapter 9: Doing Advanced Stuff with Operators and Functions.

Part III: The Nuts and Bolts of Perl.

Chapter 10: The Files Go In, The Files Go Out.

Chapter 11: Beyond File and Directory Basics.

Chapter 12: Stringing Along: Pattern Matching and Regular Expressions.

Chapter 13: Looking Like a Pro: Subroutines, Imported Code, and Graceful Exits.

Part IV: Advanced Perl Demystified.

Chapter 14: Perl and CGI: Web Server Programs Demystified.

Chapter 15: Perl Gets Cozy with the Web, E-Mail, and the Rest of the Internet.

Chapter 16: Using Perl as a Gateway to XML and Web Services.

Chapter 17: Dancing with Databases.

Chapter 18: Controlling Your Computer from Perl.

Chapter 19: Object-Oriented Perl.

Part V: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 20: Ten Guidelines for Programming with Style.

Chapter 21: Ten Really Short, Really Useful Perl Programs.

Part VI: Appendix.

Appendix: The Great Perl Reference.

Index.