PERL for dummy

[garvey]

Thanks,

I've been perusing the web to find help.

My main reason for wanting to learn PERL is based on
my assumption that this is a good, general, powerful UNIX
based tool.
I repeatedly wish I had the know how to streamline activities in UNIX
environment.
My current contract involves lots of Oracle / Solaris work.
I want to be able to search through huge log files for specific results and
I'd also like to be able to launch sql acripts in "fire and forget" mode so I
can go get the train and then pick up results at home.

I find myself in Solaris environments often. I assume this will persist now that Oracle owns SUN.

I'm assuming that PERL is the best tool.

I could use a much better handle on shell scripting as well, but I wanted to
get the best return on my time.

[t8burst]

b

Originally Posted by garvey

Thanks,

I've been perusing the web to find help.

My main reason for wanting to learn PERL is based on
my assumption that this is a good, general, powerful UNIX
based tool.

It is. You wont find a better tool to process logs.

I repeatedly wish I had the know how to streamline activities in UNIX
environment.
My current contract involves lots of Oracle / Solaris work.
I want to be able to search through huge log files for specific results and
I'd also like to be able to launch sql acripts in "fire and forget" mode so I
can go get the train and then pick up results at home.

It is easy to connect to Oracle and run sql commands or stored procedures.

I find myself in Solaris environments often. I assume this will persist now that Oracle owns SUN.

I'm assuming that PERL is the best tool.

I could use a much better handle on shell scripting as well, but I wanted to
get the best return on my time.

If all you are doing is parsing log files, storing/fetching data from oracle it really doesn't matter what the OS is if you are using perl. You could switch to linux or even windows and the same perl scripts would run. Well, windows may take a little work

The other parsing route, shell scripts with awk and/or sed requires a much steeper learning curve in my experience and dont really get you much compared to perl unless your log files are really massive. I really only use shell scripting for things like cron tasks or tasks that start/stop things or do backups. For tasks that require actual programming perl is what you want.

[garvey]

Thanks -
looks like I just need to dive into it and experiment.