Perl Archive began as a reference for people writing Perl, and this section keeps that heritage alive. Below is a maintained set of practical guides — accurate for modern Perl 5 — covering the things people actually reach for: getting started, text processing, regular expressions, files and I/O, and data structures.
If you landed here from an old link, welcome back. The material has been rebuilt and updated, and we’re extending it alongside our newer, lightly-technical writing for people who build.
Start here
New to Perl? Read Getting Started with Perl first, then work through the beginner tutorial.
Perl remains one of the most capable languages for text manipulation, system administration, and quick automation. CPAN — the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network — is one of the largest and oldest package ecosystems in software, and Perl ships by default on virtually every Unix-like system. For log processing, one-off data munging, and glue code, it’s still hard to beat.
Building something and need the business side too? Browse our Product & Building playbooks, or the full Perl Archive for founders who build.