A quick primer on Perl programs connecting to the MySQL database. It’s another set of coding examples for the AlmaLinux instance that I’m building for students. This one demonstrates basic Perl programs, connecting to MySQL, returning data sets by reference and position, dynamic queries, and input parameters to dynamic queries.

1. Naturally, a hello.pl is a great place to start:

   #!/usr/bin/perl
   
   # Hello World program.
   print "Hello World!\n";
   

   After setting the permissions to -rwxr-xr-x. with this command:

   chmod 755 hello.pl
   

   You call it like this from the Command-Line Interface (CLI):

   ./hello.pl
   

   It prints:

   Hello World!
   

2. Next, a connect.pl program lets us test the Perl::DBI connection to the MySQL database.

   #!/usr/bin/perl
   
   # Import libraries.
   use strict;
   use warnings;
   use v5.10;     # for …

Configuring Perl to work with MySQL is the last part creating a complete Fedora Linux LAMP stack for my students. Perl is already installed on Fedora Linux.

I’ve also shown how to use PHP, Python, and Ruby languages to query a MySQL database on Linux. After installing this additional Perl DBI library, my students will have the opportunity to choose how they implement their LAMP solution.

You can find the Perl version with the following version.pl program:

1
2
3
4

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Print the version.
print "Perl ".$]."\n";