Perl for Web Site Management

Organization

Here’s a brief description of what you’ll find in each of this book’s chapters:

Chapter 1

Explains how to evaluate web-hosting providers, log into a Unix shell session, use some basic shell commands, and locate a suitable editor for creating text files.

Chapter 2

Introduces the Perl programming language and explains how to run simple Perl scripts, including an overview of Unix file permissions, Perl variable types, quoting operators, and an explanation of how to run Perl-based CGI scripts.

Chapter 3

Shows how to run a simple CGI script to bundle up the output of an HTML form and email it to an appropriate address.

Chapter 4

Gives an example of some simple Perl programming that can automate repeated editing changes to HTML documents.

Chapter 5

Demonstrates how to use Perl to take arbitrarily formatted source data (in this case, text prepared for publishing via a page layout program) and convert it into an in-memory data structure.

Chapter 6

Continuing the example from Chapter 5, shows how an in-memory data structure can be output as HTML files, producing a web-based directory of tradeshow exhibitors.

Chapter 7

Explains how to use regular expressions to construct patterns for matching and, optionally, changing strings of text.

Chapter 8

Shows how to use regular expressions to extract individual entries from a web server’s access log, incorporating them into an in-memory data structure for later output.

Chapter 9

Continuing the example from Chapter 8, discusses techniques for working with date/time strings inside a program.

Chapter 10

Completing the example begun Chapter 8 and Chapter 9, shows how to output custom reports from a web server’s access logs.

Chapter 11

Demonstrates how to use Perl to create a series of increasingly intelligent tools for identifying broken web links. Includes an explanation of installing and using LWP (libwww-perl), a powerful library for requesting and manipulating web pages from within a Perl script.

Chapter 12

Shows how to create a CGI script that allows web users to post comments in a guestbook file on the server.

Chapter 13

Shows how to use SWISH-E, a free search engine, along with a simple CGI script, to allow full-text search capability on a web site.

Chapter 14

Shows how to use a simple template system to enforce design consistency across a large collection of HTML pages.

Chapter 15

Continuing the example begun in Chapter 14, shows how to construct navigational links that tie a large web site together.

Chapter 16

Continuing the example begun in Chapter 14 and Chapter 15, shows how to construct modules for sharing code between multiple Perl scripts.

Chapter 17

Completes the example begun in Chapter 14, Chapter 15, and Chapter 16, showing how to use a CGI frontend to add well-formed HTML pages to a document collection.

Chapter 18

Shows how to use Perl and the WWW::Search module to automate the checking of a site’s position in the results returned from third-party search engines.

Chapter 19

Begins the presentation of a system for letting users sign themselves up for access to a resource protected by HTTP’s basic authentication, using a user-supplied email address for a verification step.

Chapter 20

Continues the example begun in Chapter 19, showing how DBM files (optionally with the MLDBM Perl module) can be used to store persistent user data on the web server.

Chapter 21

Describes other areas that readers who have finished this book might wish to explore next.