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Spring 2009
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INF2140: Perl Programming - Syllabus

Course Objectives

Capable system administrators will find ways to automate repetitive, time consuming tasks. Adminstrators often accomplish this by using a scripting language. This course has the following objectives:

Books

Grading

Attendance

You are permitted up to 3 absences. If you have more than 3 absenses then you MUST have a very good excuse for ALL of your absenses or else your grade will suffer.

Topics

Date Topics Readings
Week 1

Installing Linux, intro to Unix command line, working with files and directories, filename substitution (* ? [ABC] [!ABC] ) standard input/output/error, redirection ( > >> 2> < | )

Commands covered: who, echo, ls, cat, wc, cp, mv, rm , man, pwd, cd, ln, rmdir, more, less, ps

Unix Shell Programming: Chapters 1 & 2
Week 2

Using complex pipelines to accomplish amazing things. What is the Shell?, variables, regular expressions.

Commands covered: set, cut, paste, sed, tr, grep, sort, uniq

Unix Shell Programming: Chapters 3 & 4
Week 3

More about variables, filename substitution and variables, command files, arithmetic, quoting (single, double and back quotes)

commands covered: ls -l, chmod, expr

Unix Shell Programming: Chapters 5 & 6
Week 4

Command line arguments, special variable names $#, $*, $0, $1, $2, etc. program exit status, $? variable, if command, test command

commands: shift, test, if

Unix Shell Programming: Chapters 7 & 8
Week 5

Looping with for, and while commands, processes, running programs in the background HOME, PS1, PS2, PATH variables, ctrl-Z, ctrl-d

commands: sleep

Unix Shell Programming: Chapters 9
Week 6

MIDTERM

Introduction to Perl. History of Perl, versions of Perl available, running a perl script of Unix and Windows. Shebang (#!) line, literal scalar data, scalar variables, print, if, chomp, while, undef value, defined function

Learning Perl: chapters 1 & 2
Week 7

Perl lists and arrays. List literals, assignment, interpolating arrays into strings, foreach, scalar and list context, in list context, subroutines, arguments, scoping rules, pragma strict, non-scalar return values

Learning Perl: chapters 3 & 4
Week 8

Perl io, the diamond operator, printf, filehandles, die, hashes, hash functions

Learning Perl: chapters 5 & 6
Week 9

Perl regular expressions.

Learning Perl: chapters 7 & 8
Week 10

Processing text with regular expressions, More control stuctures: unless, until, expression modifiers, naked blocks, autoincrement / autodecrement

Learning Perl: chapters 9 & 10
Week 11

File tests and directory operations

Learning Perl: chapters 11 & 12
Week 12

Strings and sorting, process management.

Learning Perl: chapters 13 & 14
Week 13

Perl modules, grep, map, slices.

Learning Perl: chapters 15 & 16

Computer Resources

http://yrosenthal.com

This website, http://yrosenthal.com , will be the primary source for disseminating course related information. This includes the course syllabus, homework assignments and other course related materials.

YU Email (yums.yu.edu - YUMS stand for YU Mail System)

YU provides an email account (AKA ymail account) for every student and faculty member. I will be communicating with you via your yums accounts. You are ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to check your YU email at least once a day. If you don't want to check your yums accounts regularly then you can forward ymail to any other email account (e.g. to your aol, yahoo or gmail accounts). See instructions on http://yums.yu.edu.

email address
Your email address is generally the first letter of your first name follwed by the first 7 characters of your last name followed by @yu.edu. (e.g. John Rosenbergersteinowitz would be jrosenbe@yu.edu). If you have a middle initial, it might appear after your first initial. To find your email address, you can search the following webpage for your name: http://yu.edu/search
password
If you have never logged into YUMS before then your password should be the first letter of your last name followed by the last 4 digits of your social security number. If you have used YUMS in the past then your password is whatever it was the last time you used YUMS.
Help with YUMS
Direct any problems you have with email to the MIS office on the 13th floor of Belfer Hall (room 1315). You can also call the YU MIS helpdesk at (212)960-5294 or email them at helpdesk@yu.edu.
Forwarding YUMS mail to another email account
See instructions on http://yums.yu.edu

Angel Online Course Management System:

Angel is a web-based course management system in use in many of YU's courses. You WILL need to login to the Angel system in order to submit your HW assignments. However, for the most part, course related information for my courses is posted on http://yrosenthal.com rather than on Angel.

Accessing the Angel website
https://angel.ac.yu.edu/yu/ (You can also get to it by following the link on http://yrosenthal.com or the link in the student section of http://yu.edu)
Angel userid
Your Angel userid is the same as your ymail userid without the @yu.edu (see the ymail section above). For example, if your ymail userid is jdoe@yu.edu then your Angel userid would be jdoe
Password
If you have never logged in before then your password should be the first letter of your last name followed by the last 4 digits in your social security number. If you have used Angel in the past then your password is whatever it was the last time you used Angel. Note: the password is NOT necessarily the same as your ymail password.
Help with Angel
If you have any problems with angel or can't login send an email to angelsupport@yu.edu

YU Network Accounts

Every student and faculty member in YU receives a userid and password that allows them to access the YU network.

Userid
Your YU Network userid is the same as your ymail userid without the @yu.edu (see the "YU Email" section above). For example, if your ymail userid is jdoe@yu.edu then your YU Network userid would be jdoe
Password
If you have never logged in before to the YU network then your password should be the first letter of your last name followed by the last 4 digits in your social security number. If you have used you YU Network account in the past then your password is whatever it was the last time you used Angel. Note: the password is NOT necessarily the same as your ymail password.
Where are the computers?
You can access the YU Network on the Wilf campus from computers in the Gottesman Library and from computers in rooms B1103, B1105 and B1111. On the Beren campus you can use the computers in the public labs or computer equipped classrooms in 245Lex or in 215Lex.
Where can I store my personal files? (MyDocuments, Z: drive, Desktop)
Personal files that you want to store on the YU network can be stored in the MyDocuments folder. This folder is synonymous with the root folder on the Z: drive (ie. Z:\). The Z: drive for every user will contain their own files. You cannot access the Z: drive of any other user. You can also store files and information on your computer's "Desktop". However this is NOT recommended (keep reading). You are limited to approximately 25MB of storage space on the Z: drive and a much smaller amount on the Desktop. This IS NOT A LOT OF SPACE. You will need to occasionally "Clean your profile" to remove unneeded files by following the instructions in the "Cleaning your profile" link found on the desktop. If you run out of space, you will not be able to log off your YU Network Account until you free up some space.
Help with YU network accounts
Direct any problems you have with the YU network accounts to the MIS office on the 13th floor of Belfer Hall (room 1315). You can also call the YU MIS helpdesk at (212)960-5294 or email them at helpdesk@yu.edu.
USB drives / Thumb drives / Jump drives
It is highly recommended that you purchase a "USB" drive (AKA thumb drive or jump drive) to save your files on. You can plug the USB drive into the flat USB port on the computer when you start working. When it is plugged in, the USB drive will appear as a new drive letter under windows. You can remove the USB drive and take it with you when you are done.

Other YU computing services (e.g. accessing the web from your dorm room)

Support for the YU computer systems is handled by two departments (1) the YU MIS department and (2) the YU Academic Computing, Networking and Support Services department. Information for both departments is available at: http://yu.edu/mis/. An all purpose help desk is available (http://www.yu.edu/mis/asp/help_desk.asp). Contact the Help Desk at: (212)960-5294 or e-mail at helpdesk@yu.edu