Perl Functions by Category

Perl Functions by Category

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I described on my site some of the most important buit-in functions. They are presented here grouped by categories. Stay tuned for more.

Perl String Functions

chomp	removes trailing newlines and returns the number of characters removed
chop	removes and returns the last character from a string
chr	converts ASCII or Unicode values into their corresponding characters
crypt	allows you to store passwords or other sensitive data using ASCII characters as encrypted strings
hex	converts a hex string into the numerical corresponding value
index	returns the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string
lc	converts all the characters of a string in lowercase and returns the new string
lcfirst	converts the first character of a string in lowercase and returns the new string
length	returns the number of bytes/characters in a string
oct	converts an octal string into the numerical corresponding value
ord	converts a character into its ASCII/Unicode corresponding value
pack	converts a list into a string, according to a user-defined template (ex. a binary representation of a list)
q	singly quote a string
qq	doubly quote a string
reverse	in scalar context, concatenates the elements of a list and returns a string value with all characters in the opposite order
rindex	is similar to index, but returns the position of the last occurrence of a substring in a string
sprintf	emulates the C sprintf function
substr	extracts a substring from a string and returns it
tr	transliterate a string
uc	converts all the characters of a string in uppercases and returns the new string
ucfirst	converts the first character of a string in uppercase and returns the new string

Check my new How To Tutorial eBooks (PDF format):
"Perl Statements - How To Tutorial"
"Perl Scalar and String Functions - How To Tutorial"

to see a lot of fully commented examples that help you use the Perl statements and the Perl built-in functions in your scripts.

Perl Array Functions

pop	removes and returns the last element of an array; the size of the array decreases by 1
push	appends the elements of a list to an array; the size of the array increases by the size of the list
shift	removes and returns the first element of an array, reducing the number of the array elements by one
splice	removes a subarray from an array and eventually replaces it with another array
unshift	inserts a value or a list of values at the beginning of an array and returns the new total number of the array’s elements

Perl List Functions

grep	is used as a filter to extract those elements of a list for which an expression (or a regular expression) is evaluated true; it returns the sublist of the elements that passed the filter test
join	with this function you can merge any number of strings you want; you can specify with what token you want to delimitate the strings; in other words you can concatenate all the string elements of a list into a string, using a separator
map	takes a list and evaluates an expression or block on each element of the list; it returns a list with the results
pack	converts a list of values into a template string, enabling you to write data in a format that would be compatible with other program languages such as C; practically, it packs the list of values into a binary structure that will be returned as a string
qw	this 'quote word' function is used to generate a list of words and returns the list containing the words; it automatically quotes the strings for you
reverse	in a scalar context, it concatenates the elements of a list in a string and returns the string with all the characters in an opposite order; in a list context, it returns the list in the reversed order
sort	sorts a list in a specific order and returns the sorted list
split	converts a string into a list and returns that list; the words of the string must be delimitated by a separator

Perl Hash Functions

delete	removes a key-value pair from a hash; you can delete an individual element of a hash or a hash slice.
each	returns a two-element list that contains a (key, value) pair from a hash or a (index, value) pair from an array

Perl Miscellaneous Functions

defined	it tests whether a value, variable or function is defined; using it on an entire array reports if the array has ever been allocated
scalar	enables you to evaluate an expression in a scalar context and returns the value of that expression
undef	it removes a variable or function definition; if you use it for an entire array, this function will clear the array and free up the system memory allocated for it

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Don't forget to check my new How To Tutorial eBooks (PDF format):
"Perl Statements - How To Tutorial"
"Perl Scalar and String Functions - How To Tutorial"

to see a lot of fully commented examples that help you use the Perl statements and the Perl built-in functions in your scripts.

NEW!!!

Do you want more information about the basic Perl topics?

Check my new "Perl How To" Tutorial eBooks page where I'll answer the most frequent questions regarding some topics :

Perl How To Tutorial eBooks

Table of Contents:

A Perl Script
Install Perl
Running Perl
Perl Data Types
Perl Variables
Perl Operators
Perl Lists
Perl Arrays
    Array Size
    Array Length
Perl Hashes
Perl Statements
    Perl if
    Perl unless
    Perl switch
    Perl while
    Perl do-while
    Perl until
    Perl do-until
    Perl for
    Perl foreach
Built-in Perl Functions
    Functions by Category
        String Functions
        List Functions
        Array Functions
        Hash Functions
        Miscellaneous Functions
    Functions in alphabetical order
        chomp
        chop
        chr
        crypt
        defined
        delete
        each
        grep
        hex
        index
        join
        lc
        lcfirst
        length
        map
        oct
        ord
        pack
        pop
        push
        q
        qq
        qw
        reverse
        rindex
        scalar
        shift
        sort
        splice
        split
        sprintf
        substr
        tr
        uc
        ucfirst
        undef
        unshift

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