I have recently installed perl-5.16.0 using perlbrew and have begun adding CPAN modules. Here is some of them that I find most useful. Would you add any to the list?
- JSON
- YAML
- List::MoreUtils
- Readonly
- Regexp::Common
- Data::Alias
- Text::CSV
- Text::CSV_XS
Perl's built-in datatype, array, is a multi-purpose tool which can be
used for many things. It's primary purpose is to preserve the order of
data. But it comes with a powerful set of tools to make manipulating it
easy. This article is to show how to use these tools by implementing a
linked list.
Linked lists were originally created for languages like C
which only had simple datatypes. They are a technique for using the
system's memory allocation to create a data structure that allows unlimited
expansion, that is, until it runs out of memory. They use a simple datatype
called a pointer that records a position in memory. Without pointers,
linked list would be impossible.
Perl has a datatype similar to pointers, the reference.
Like pointers, it records a memory location and it can be used link them.
But using references to implement a linked list the same way one would do
in C, needlessly complicates the code. Linked lists can be implemented
using just arrays. Here's how.