Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. It was designed to enable rapid text processing and report generation, drawing features from C, sed, awk, and shell scripting. Its design emphasizes practicality and flexibility, often summarized by the mantra There’s more than one way to do it (TIMTOWTDI). It runs on a wide range of platforms, from Unix and Linux to Windows and macOS.

Perl provides powerful built-in support for regular expressions, string manipulation, and data extraction, along with rich data types such as scalars, arrays, and hashes. It includes extensive modules and libraries through the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), enabling tasks from web development to bioinformatics. The language supports procedural, object-oriented, and functional styles.

CPAN is a central ecosystem where thousands of downloadable modules are distributed, simplifying tasks like database access, web frameworks, and system administration. Common use cases include scripting, automation, text mining, CGI-era web apps, and network programming.

Perl 5 remains the dominant branch and is actively maintained, with ongoing improvements and compatibility considerations. A sister language originally named Perl 6 was later promoted as Raku. Perl is released under multi-license terms, including the Artistic License and the GNU General Public License.