Designed to give readers fast knowledge of the Perl language and an understanding of the Perl interpreter, this book provides a learning path that enable the reader to learn the essentials of Perl in less than three days. All the fundamentals of Perl programming are here, including the basic grammar of Perl, syntax, data manipulation and transformation. There's also coverage of Perl modules, functions, regular expressions, CGI programming and programming the SQL database interface via the DBI Perl module. The CD-ROM includes all the code and auxiliary files for the sample programs, pre and post-assessment software to evaluate the reader's progress, and other value-added software.