Perl Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Name Spaces and Perl Module Files

∟CalendarModule.pm - A Sample Perl Module

This section provides a tutorial sample Perl module, CalendarModule.pm, which hold some calendar elements of the current date and time. It also provides a subroutine, isLeapYear().

I think I am ready to write simple modules now. Here is one that provides calendar elements as scalars, and offers one subroutine to determine if the current year is a leap year: 

#- CalendarModule.pm
#- Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
   package CalendarModule;
   sub BEGIN {
      $author = "Dr. Herong Yang";
      ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$b) = localtime();
      ($swday,$smon,$smday,$stime,$syear) = split(' ',localtime());
   }
   sub isLeapYear {
      local $day59 = time() - ($yday-59)*24*60*60;
      local ($0,$1,$2,$3,$m,$5,$6,$7,$8) = localtime($day59);
      $m = 0 unless $m==1;
      return $m;
   }
1;

Here is the testing program: 

#- CalendarTest.pl
#- Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
#
   require CalendarModule;
   print("Date: $CalendarModule::smon");
   print(" $CalendarModule::smday");
   print(" $CalendarModule::syear\n");
   print("Leap year? ",&CalendarModule::isLeapYear(), "\n");
   exit;

When running the above Perl script with Perl 5.18 in 2019, I got an error message: 

herong> perl CalendarTest.pl
Date: Jun 1 2019
Modification of a read-only value attempted at CalendarModule.pm line 12.

But the same script gave me no issue with older versions of Perl. Here is the output I got in 1995: 

herong> perl CalendarTest.pl
Date: Aug 13 1995
Leap year? 0

The error is caused by my local variables, $0, $1, $2, ..., used in CalendarModule.pm. They are read-only special variables reserved by Perl now. You can replace that statement with the following to avoid the error: 

      local $m = (localtime($day59))[4];

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Perl on Linux Systems

 ActivePerl on Windows Systems

 Data Types: Values and Variables

 Expressions, Operations and Simple Statements

 User Defined Subroutines

 Perl Built-in Debugger

►Name Spaces and Perl Module Files

 Including Script Codes from Other Files

 do() Function - Including Script Files

 require() Function - Including Script Files

 "package" Statement - Switching Name Space

 BEGIN(), CHECK(), INIT() and END() Functions

 Defining Your Own Perl Module

►CalendarModule.pm - A Sample Perl Module

 Symbolic (or Soft) References

 Hard References - Addresses of Memory Objects

 Objects (or References) and Classes (or Packages)

 Typeglob and Importing Identifiers from Other Packages

 String Built-in Functions and Performance

 File Handles and Data Input/Output

 Open Files in Binary Mode

 Open Directories and Read File Names

 File System Functions and Operations

 Image and Picture Processing

 Using DBM Database Files

 Using MySQL Database Server

 Socket Communication Over the Internet

 XML::Simple Module - XML Parser and Generator

 XML Communication Model

 SOAP::Lite - SOAP Server-Client Communication Module

 Perl Programs as IIS Server CGI Scripts

 CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

 XML-RPC - Remote Procedure Call with XML and HTTP

 RPC::XML - Perl Implementation of XML-RPC

 Integrating Perl with Apache Web Server

 CGI.pm Module for Building Web Pages

 LWP::UserAgent and Web Site Testing

 Converting Perl Script to Executable Binary

 Managing Perl Engine and Modules on macOS

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB