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Perl @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
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Perl Index - Perl Book :
Data Munging with Perl
by David Cross Paperback: 300 pages Dimensions (in inches): 0.65 x 9.23 x 7.36 Publisher: Manning Publications Company ISBN: 1930110006; 1st edition (January 15, 2001) "Munging" is a computer term referring to the process of data conversion. Perl is particularly well suited to data munging and this programmer's guide provides advice on how to most efficiently manipulate data using Perl. After the manipulation of unstructured, record-oriented, fixed-width, and binary data is explored, the work moves into the realms of hierarchical data structures and parsers such as HTML and XML parsing tools. Finally, a demonstration of how to write one's own parsers for data structures is provided. Web Techniques Magazine: the chapters are concise, the coverage is comprehensive, and the examples are plentiful and relevant. Book Description: The Perl language is well suited for use with "data munging" tasks: those that involve transforming and massaging data. While Perl is commonly used for such tasks, there has been no book focused on the topic of munging. This book covers the basic paradigms of programming and discusses the many techniques that are specific to Perl. It also examines standard data formats such as text, binary, HTML, and XML before giving tips on creating and parsing new structured data formats. Source code downloads and technical support from the authors are available on publisher's Web site. Book Info: (Manning Publications Co.) A text showing how to productively process data with Perl, manipulating it for use in another computer system. Teaches systematic and powerful techniques, showing how to build personal parcers for processing complex data. Also shows how to decouple the stages of munging programs and design data structures. DLC: Perl (Computer program language). About the Author: David Cross is the owner and managing director of Magnum Solutions, Ltd., an Internet and database consulting firm. He is also a regular columnist for Perlmonth, the online Perl magazine. Customer Reviews Reviewer: Robert J. Monn from NY,NY USA After reading this book I rewrote a pretty massive postscript pasrsing and munging system that I was having a lot of trouble with and felt like I did it the _right_ way. If you follow the author through his examples and actually read the book (which I was able to read almost straight through) I think that you will find yourself with a more long-view approach. And I think that makes this book valuable. And admit it, every time you read throgh a regex chapter you get a little more in the old noggin... Reviewer: Goldin Evgeny from Israel It's a guide. David takes you through the different "data munging" tasks ( record oriented data ? binary data ? fixed-width data ? XML ? ) and shows you his proper ways of dealing with them ( or, at least, thinking about them ). It's not an encyclopedia of "data munging", the book is 300 pages and many of them ( too many, may be ) are detailed descriptions of useful CPAN modules ( which I wasn't reading as careful as the rest of the book, since POD was always enough ), so it covers only a usual data processing tasks letting you to go deeper by yourself for more advanced topics. After you'll finish it much less "data sources" will scare you - the solutions and references are inside. As I said, it may be good for data-processing beginners, but Perl experts will hardly find lot's of new information in it. P.S. I trust him and therefore follow his advices in every script I start to think of ( especially the one about "UNIX filter model" ). Reviewer: A reader from New Jersey I was hoping this book would provide some valuable routines for processing data, but instead it has proved virtually useless in my day to day job as a UNIX data center adminstrator. I work with XML a great deal (as well as relational databases), but the author's coverage of XML is week (2 pages on the DOM)-- and no coverage of dealing with record sets. This is a good text if you have reams of old fashioned columnar data that you need to text process. Hmm, I did that 7 years ago. Reviewer: buzzcutbuddha from Lebanon, PA United States This book, written by Perlmonk (www.perlmonks.org) David Cross, is an excellent, easy to read, and easy to follow guide into what Perl does best: Data Munging. For those who don't know, Munging Data means taking data from one format and putting it into another. Perl excels at this, and the author shows you the how and the why. The author gives you enough information, and background to start working with the more advanced Perl functions like map, grep, pack, unpack, etc. It is possible to write Perl without ever having to use these modules, but David Cross shows you how they are more effective, more powerful. This book will expand your Perl vocabulary by leaps and bounds. I know that some people would say that the book is too thin, and it is thinner than many computer books today, but the thickness of a book does not determine it's merit. Effective Perl Programming by Joseph Hall and Randal Schwartz is often cited as one of the best Perl books ever and it's thinner than this one. If you are a junior to intermediate level programmer, and you want to improve your Perl skills, pick up this book. You won't be disappointed. |
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