Summary:
This informal article is targeted towards web developers who are not extremely familiar with Perl and would like to know more about how it may be useful to them.

Details or Sample:
Three Great Uses for Perl on the Web

Most people have heard of the Perl scripting language - it is, after all, known as the "duct tape of the Internet." Which is a very apt description - Perl is not only useful as a full blown web development language - but its also extremely handy tool that can be used by web developers to automate or otherwise streamline all sorts of repetitive tasks that tend to litter the to-do lists of web developers all over the Internet.

1.Back up your server

This task is a prime example of how Perl is quite useful for system administration tasks. Theres nothing worse than losing data when something untoward happens to your web server. Your hosting company may offer backups - if youre willing to pay for it. Its easier to whip up a quick Perl script to do it for you.

Heres the key to a Perl backup script - using the system command to let the script run commands on the system. For example, to back up all the files in a directory, you can use system "tar -cf /foo/backup.tar /somedir" - making use of the tar command.

Of course, using a Perl script to just run a tar command is sort of counter-productive. Theres lots of ways you can use standard Perl to add flexibility and functionality - set up an array of directories you want to backup, and then use a foreach loop to step through and backup each one. You could also use the Net::FTP module to have your backup script automatically transfer your backup up files to another computer. You can also backup MySQL databases in similar way by using the mysqldump command.

Then, just set up a cron job and have the backup script run whenever you like!

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