Book Image

Perl 6 Deep Dive

By : Andrew Shitov
Book Image

Perl 6 Deep Dive

By: Andrew Shitov

Overview of this book

Perl is a family of high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages consisting of Perl 5 and Perl 6. Perl 6 helps developers write concise and declarative code that is easy to maintain. This book is an end-to-end guide that will help non-Perl developers get to grips with the language and use it to solve real-world problems. Beginning with a brief introduction to Perl 6, the first module in the book will teach you how to write and execute basic programs. The second module delves into language constructs, where you will learn about the built-in data types, variables, operators, modules, subroutines, and so on available in Perl 6. Here the book also delves deeply into data manipulation (for example, strings and text files) and you will learn how to create safe and correct Perl 6 modules. You will learn to create software in Perl by following the Object Oriented Paradigm. The final module explains in detail the incredible concurrency support provided by Perl 6. Here you will also learn about regexes, functional programming, and reactive programming in Perl 6. By the end of the book, with the help of a number of examples that you can follow and immediately run, modify, and use in practice, you will be fully conversant with the benefits of Perl 6.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Summary

Subroutines, or subs, are one of the keystones of Perl 6. In this chapter, you learned how to create and use subroutines. We examined in detail the properties of the sub's parameters, such as passing parameters by copy, allowing read-and-write parameters, defining the default value, or providing parameters that are optional. You looked at the slurpy parameters and flattening arrays, learned how to constrain the type of both the arguments, and then return value.

On top of that, other applications of the subroutines were discussed. Namely, we talked about overloading subs with the multi keyword, looked at how new operators can be created and embedded in the language, and how to pass functions to other functions. And, finally, we took a brief look at anonymous functions and pointy code blocks.

In the next chapter, we'll talk about modules, which are the next level...