Getting Started with Perl

Install Perl
Running Perl
- OS X
- Windows
- Linux
Setup your text editor
Create your first program

Install Perl

You need to install Perl \(\geq\) 5.10 on your machine.

For OS X and Linux, Perl is already installed. Head to the next section.

For Windows, you can install one of these free packages:

Strawberry Perl (the portable edition is great for your lab machine)
ActiveState Perl Community Edition

Running Perl

Type perl -v on your computer to ensure it works.

OS X

Hit Cmd+SPC and enter "Terminal" in Spotlight, or open Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
Enter perl -v and press RET

./mac-perl.png

Windows

If you installed the portable edition, navigate to the extracted folder and double-click portableshell.bat (if you installed the full edition, find portableshell in your Start menu)
Enter perl -v and press ENTER

./win-perl.png

Linux

Open your terminal (i.e., xterm, terminator, GNOME Terminal, etc.)
Enter perl -v and press RET

Setup your text editor

You need a plain-text editor to edit Perl files. Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or TextEdit will not work. Here are some suggestions, but feel free to use other text editors (Google "free text editor +Windows")

Windows: SciTE, Notepad++, GNU Emacs
Mac: TextWrangler, Tincta, Aquamacs
Linux: Kate (KDE), gEdit (GNOME), GNU Emacs

Create your first program

In your new text editor, create a new file called hello.pl
Paste the following contents in: print "Hello, World!\n";
Save the file to your desktop
Open your terminal/shell and change to the folder containing your script. Use the cd ("change directory") command for this:

OS X and Linux
cd ~/Desktop

Windows
cd %UserProfile%\Desktop
Run the script: perl hello.pl

./hello-world.png