Pro Perl Debugging

by Andy Lester, Richard Foley

Overview

Combining the best features of C, UNIX utilities, and regular expressions, Perl has grown as one of the most powerful and popular scripting languages. The valuable Perl is often used for system administration, text processing and Web programming. It is even being used for more exotic areas, like bioinformatics. Perl is supported by all of the most prominent operating systems, including Windows, Unix, OS/2, Amiga, and others.

Pro Perl Debugging steps in to help resolve the dilemma of application testing and debugging—one of the biggest time commitments in a programmers daily routine. What this book will do is rescue you from substandard application testing practices. The book commences with several chapters that overview the debuggers basic features, then covers common debugging scenarios. The concluding portion examines debugger customization, alternative debugging utilities, and debugging best practices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590594544
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	07/28/2005
Series:	Pro: from Professional to Expert Series
Edition description:	1st ed.
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Andy Lester has been a professional programmer for 19 years and Perl evangelist for a decade. As one of the core Perl developers, Andy's interests in Perl focus on quality assurance. He maintains eight testing modules on the CPAN, as well as the Perl QA Web site. Andy is a frequent speaker at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, YAPC and Perl Monger meetings around the country. He's spoken on a variety of programming topics including automated testing, Perl security, Web agent automation, project management and effective job searching for programmers. Andy has written or edited a dozen books. Three of his articles on his popular WWW::Mechanize module are included in O'Reilly's Spidering Hacks. Andy has also written articles for every single Perl magazine published in the US (all two of them). By day, Andy manages a crack squad of Web programmers for Follett Library Resources in McHenry, Illinois. He lives with his wife, Amy, daughter Quinn, and Baxter, the world's neediest dog.

Table of Contents

Inspecting Variables and Getting Help.- Controlling Program Execution.- Debugging a Simple Command Line Program.- Tracing Execution.- Debugging Modules.- Debugging Object-Oriented Perl.- Using the Debugger As a Shell.- Debugging a CGI Program.- Perl Threads and Forked Processes.- Debugging Regular Expressions.- Debugger Customization.- Optimization and Performance Hints and Tips.- Command Line and GUI Debuggers.- Comprehensive Command Reference.- Book References and URLs.