So you've learned Perl, but you're getting frustrated. Perhaps you've taken on a larger project than the ones you're used to. Or you want to add a user interface or a networking component. Or you need to do more complicated error trapping.

Whether your knowledge of Perl is casual or deep, this book will make you a more accomplished programmer. Here you can learn the complex techniques for production-ready Perl programs. This book explains methods for manipulating data and objects that may have looked like magic before. Furthermore, it sets Perl in the context of a larger environment, giving you the background you need for dealing with networks, databases, and GUIs. The discussion of internals helps you program more efficiently and embed Perl within C or C within Perl.

Major topics covered include:

• Practical use of packages and classes (object-oriented programming)
• Complex data structures
• Persistence (e.g., using a database)
• Networking
• Graphical interfaces, using the Tk toolkit
• Interaction with C language functions
• Embedding and extending the Perl interpreter

In addition, the book patiently explains all sorts of language details you've always wanted to know more about, such as the use of references, trapping errors through the eval operator, non-blocking I/O, when closures are helpful, and using ties to trigger actions when data is accessed. You will emerge from this book a better hacker, and a proud master of Perl.