Chapter 8. MySQL and Perl

Long before PHP came along as a major player in Web development, programmers were using Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) for system management and Web applications alike. Perl was developed by Larry Wall over 20 years ago and since then has become a popular language for writing CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts for dynamically handling Web content.

This chapter is for several different types of users. The first would be the Perl user who has not yet worked with MySQL. The second is the Perl user who has worked with MySQL but needs a refresher on the basics. Finally, this chapter could be read by non-Perl developers who would like to see how readily Perl interacts with MySQL (especially compared with, say, PHP or Java).

Perl can be used on nearly any operating system, including Unix, Windows, and Macintosh. While you can create CGI scripts with Perl, all of the examples in the chapter will be run as simple Perl scripts on the computer, without using a Web server. I will demonstrate how to install the extra Perl modules to support MySQL, but it will be assumed that you have at least version 5.6.1 or higher of Perl already.