This complete guide to the Perl programming language ranges widely through the Perl programmer's universe, gathering together information about Perl itself and its application to CGI scripts, XML processing, network programming, database interaction, and graphical user interfaces.Th e book is intended as a reference for experienced Perl programmers and beginners alike. In this second edition, the book has been expanded to include the latest version of Perl with information on Unicode processing in Perl, new functions and modules that have been added to the core language, and details on running Perl on the Win32 platform. The book also covers Perl modules for recent technologies such as XML and SOAP. Topics covered include: basic Perl reference; quick reference to built-in functions and standard modules; CGI.pm and mod_perl; XML:modules; DBI, the database-independent API for Perl; sockets programming; LWP, the library for Web programming in Perl; network programming with the Net modules; Perl/Tk, the Tk extension to Perl for graphical interfaces; and modules for interfacing with Win32 systems.