Strings

• Perl excels at processing strings:
  • Input and output is via strings
  • Regular expressions are powerful ways of manipulating strings
  • Functions such as split manipulate strings powerfully
  • Operators such as =~ transform strings easily
  • Strings may even be used as array subscripts in associative arrays
• Use print or printf (formatted) to output to the terminal or to a file. man perlfunc for detailed syntax.
• Concatonating a string means simply to mush different parts together. The . operator is usually used for this:
  print "Dude, it's" . $time . "\n"; (note: how could this be written more easily without concatonation?)
  my $x = $y . $z;
  if ($hour > 12) { $ampm="pm"; } else { $ampm="am"; }
• $first='Greg' ;
  $last='Newby';
  $status{$first . $last} = "faculty";
  print $status{'GregNewby'}
• General tip: when you get input to a string, the LF/CR character often remains. You often want chomp to strip any such characters from the end of a string.