review by
Roger Walker, February 2009

I'm fresh off reviewing the 'Perl Hacks' book by chromatic, et al. And as I finish reading the 'Perl Cookbook,' my head is spinning! I counted 414 recipes in 22 chapters, and the cover indicates that this edition updates over 100 recipes, and adds 80 more over the previous edition, all in 900 pages.

For me, the lines are blurring between the 'Hacks' and 'Cookbook' series. Both seem to present the same kind of specific problem solving information in a slightly different format. I can't say I prefer one over the other. Like other books in both series, I find it both easy to locate and implement a specific solution, or browse for new ideas.

Just a sampling of the categories for which you will find solutions include the basics (strings, numbers, arrays, and hashes), regex, modules, IPC, database, security, LWP, web, and much more.

I will soon be making some major improvements to one of my Perl projects, and this book will be kept handy to the keyboard. I highly recommend this book both for solutions and ideas.