Introduction to Perl
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The workshop introduces participants to the Perl language. We will use a combination of lecture and worked examples, concentrating on basic Perl concepts with special attention to the language's relevence to bioinformatics. The workshop is designed for beginners, and topics covered will include: data types, control structures, regular expressions, file parsing, data manipulation, modules. Our aim is to provide the fundamental tools to allow participants to make use of perl to facilitate their research. Problem sets will be developed based on the needs of the participants.

This workshop is suitable for those without prior computer programming experience. This workshop may be considered a prerequisite to our more advanced workshop "Perl for Bioinformatics".

UNIX experience is NOT required.

Organizers: John Major (CBC, MSKCC)

Size: 18

Schedule:

Part 1

• What is programming? What is Perl?
• Understanding editors and the command line
• Basics ("Hello World")
• Scalar variables
• Input/Output
• Control Structures

• Loops
• Arrays
• File reading and writing
• Begin mini-project

• Basic Regular Expressions
• Useful built-in functions
• Hash Tables
• Continue mini-project

• Complete mini-project
• Specific questions ("How do I do ... in Perl?")