This book provides comprehensive coverage of the Perl language. It covers the fundamentals of data types and file handling through advanced features like regular expressions, object-oriented programming, threads, internationalization, and integrating Perl with the C programming language. The latest version, Perl 5.6, is used throughout, with commentary for those with earlier versions. Both aspiring and experienced Perl programmers will benefit from the expertise in this book, whether they are looking to develop serious applications, improve their productivity, or simply learn a more powerful and portable replacement for shell scripts.