# The PERL Programming Language: A Modern Guide for System Administrators and Automation Engineers

## Table of Contents

### Part I: Foundations
- **Chapter 1**: Why Perl Still Matters in 2025
- **Chapter 2**: Getting Started - Modern Perl Setup
- **Chapter 3**: Perl Fundamentals - Variables and Data Types
- **Chapter 4**: Control Flow and Subroutines
- **Chapter 5**: Regular Expressions - Perl's Superpower

### Part II: Text Processing and File Operations
- **Chapter 6**: File I/O and Directory Operations
- **Chapter 7**: Advanced Text Processing
- **Chapter 8**: Working with CSV, JSON, and XML
- **Chapter 9**: Log File Analysis and Monitoring

### Part III: System Administration
- **Chapter 10**: Process Management and System Commands
- **Chapter 11**: Network Programming and Web Scraping
- **Chapter 12**: Database Operations with DBI
- **Chapter 13**: Configuration Management and Templating

### Part IV: Modern Perl Development
- **Chapter 14**: CPAN - The Treasure Trove
- **Chapter 15**: Object-Oriented Perl
- **Chapter 16**: Testing and Debugging
- **Chapter 17**: Performance and Optimization

### Part V: Real-World Applications
- **Chapter 18**: Building Command-Line Tools
- **Chapter 19**: System Monitoring and Alerting Scripts
- **Chapter 20**: Automation Workflows and Cron Jobs
- **Chapter 21**: RESTful APIs and Web Services
- **Chapter 22**: Security Best Practices

### Appendices
- **Appendix A**: Perl One-Liners Cookbook
- **Appendix B**: Common Gotchas and Solutions
- **Appendix C**: Resources and Community