Why Choose Perl?
To convince you that Perl is good and PHP is bad, we will compare the two languages, and at the end of this text, I hope you will consider Perl, instead of PHP, the next time you start a project involving anything.
The following problems of PHP are taken from “PHP in contrast to Perl”:
Arguments and return values are extremely inconsistent: it is impossible not to be confused. I have experienced similar confusion with many PHP functions. Sometimes the order is $array, $element, other times it’s the other way around.
PHP has seperate functions for case insensitive operations: this adds to the confusion. It’s hard to remember all the functions just because there are so many differently named variants of them. Perl, on the other hand, solves this more elegantly and the two solutions are global, so it’s never more than two things to remember.
Perl: $foo cmp $bar lc $foo cmp lc $bar
PHP: strcmp($foo, $bar) strcasecmp($foo, $bar)
Perl: index($foo, $bar) index(lc $foo, lc $bar)
PHP: strpos($foo, $bar) stripos($foo, $bar)
Perl: $foo =~ s/foo/bar/ $foo =~ s/foo/bar/i
PHP: $foo = str_replace('foo', 'bar', $foo) $foo = str_ireplace(...)
PHP: $foo = ereg_replace('foo', 'bar' ,$foo) $foo = eregi_replace(...)
PHP has inconsistent function naming: even more confusion. There seems to be no logic for naming functions:
- Case insensitive functions have the
i or case at different positions in their names.
- There is no apparent system in underscore(s) versus no underscore(s). Perl has no core function names with underscores, whereas in PHP:
UNDERSCORE NO UNDERSCORE:
stream_get_line readline
disk_free_space diskfreespace
is_object isset
mcal_day_of_week jddayofweek
set_error_handler setlocale
snmp_get_quick_print snmpget
get_browser getallheaders
base64_encode urlencode
image_type_to_mime_type imagetypes
msql_num_fields mysql_numfields
php_uname phpversion
strip_tags stripslashes
bind_textdomain_codeset bindtextdomain
cal_to_jd gregoriantojd
str_rot13 strpos
- PHP has
unlink, link and rename (system calls), but touch (the system call is utime, not touch).
- And they can't decide on word order:
Object verb: base64_decode, iptcparse, str_shuffle, var_dump
Verb object: create_function, recode_string
Perl core functions are all “verb object” except the superseded dbm* functions. (Note that sys is a prefix, not an object. And that flock and lstat were named after the system calls. shm* and msg* are library calls.)
PHP has no lexical scope: Perl has lexical scope and dynamic scope, none of which PHP has. For an explanation of why lexical scope is important, see Coping with Scoping
PHP has too many functions in the main namespace: PHP has 3079 main functions, whereas Perl only has 206. The mean PHP function name length is 13.67, whereas the mean Perl function name length is only 6.22. The reason for Perl having fewer functions is, that Perl has short syntax equivalents for some functions, and another reason we’ll get to shortly.
readpipe('ls -l') ==> `ls -l`
glob('*.txt') ==> <*.txt>
readline($fh) ==> <$fh>
quotemeta($foo) ==> "\Q$foo"
lcfirst($foo) ==> "\l$foo" (lc is \L)
ucfirst($foo) ==> "\u$foo" (uc is \U)
PHP lacks abstraction and takes TIMTOWTDI to bad extremes: The other reason for the low function count in Perl is, that PHP usually has several functions that are very similar. In Perl, you have to know and remember less. Perl also makes extensive use of modules, especially the DBI module which provides support for SQL databases, instead of bloating the core like PHP with features that occupy memory but are rarely used.
* Escaping:
* PHP: (14)
dbx_escape_string, escapeshellarg, escapeshellcmd, pg_escape_bytea,
pg_escape_string, pg_unescape_bytea, addslashes, addcslashes, preg_quote,
quotemeta, mysql_escape_string, mysql_real_escape_string,
mysqli_real_escape_string, sqlite_escape_string
* Perl: (2) [1]
quotemeta, $dbh->quote
* Sorting:
* PHP: (16)
sort, arsort, asort, krsort, ksort, natsort, natcasesort, rsort, usort,
array_multisort, uasort, uksort, dbx_sort, imap_sort, ldap_sort, yaz_sort
* Perl: (1)
sort
* Walking a list
* PHP: (10)
array_filter, preg_grep, array_search, array_unique, in_array, array_map,
array_walk, array_count_values, array_change_key_case, array_sum
* Perl: (2)
map, grep
* Splitting:
* PHP: (8)
split, explode, strtok, spliti, chunk_split, mb_split, preg_split,
str_split
* Perl: (1)
split
* Matching:
* Strings:
* PHP: (11)
strstr, strchr, stristr, strpos, strrchr, stripos, mb_strpos,
mb_strrpos, strrpos, strripos, substr
* Perl: (3)
index, rindex, substr
* Regular expressions:
* PHP: (6)
ereg, eregi, mb_ereg, mb_eregi, preg_match, preg_match_all
* Perl: (1)
m//
* Substituting a matched part:
* PHP: (12)
ereg_replace, eregi_replace, mb_ereg_replace, mb_eregi_replace,
preg_replace, str_ireplace, str_replace, ltrim, rtrim, trim, nl2br
* Perl: (1)
s///
* Connecting to an SQL database:
* PHP: (17)
dbx_connect, fbsql_connect, ibase_connect, msql_connect, msql_pconnect,
mssql_connect, mysql_connect, odbc_connect, pg_connect, pg_pconnect,
sesam_connect, ifx_pconnect, ifx_connect, sqlite_open, sqlite_popen,
mysqli_connect, mysqli_pconnect
* Perl: (2)
DBI->connect, DBI->connect_cached
* Opening:
* PHP: (5)
dio_open, fopen, proc_open, popen, gzopen[2]
* Perl: (2)
open, sysopen
* Reading/receiving:
* PHP: (12)
dio_read, fread, gzread[2], socket_read, socket_recv, socket_recvfrom,
socket_recvmsg, readline, fgetc, fgets, stream_get_line, file
* Perl: (5)
read, readline, sysread, recv, getc
* Printing/writing:
* PHP: (14)
print, echo, printf, fprintf, vprintf, dio_write, fwrite, fputs,
gzwrite[2], socket_send, socket_sendmsg, socket_sendto, socket_write,
socket_writev
* Perl: (5)
print, printf, syswrite, send, write
* Closing:
* PHP: (7)
closelog, dio_close, fclose, gzclose[2], pclose, socket_close,
proc_close
* Perl: (1)
close
* Miscellaneous:
* PHP:
array_combine, array_fill, array_merge, list, range, count,
create_function, strtr, pow, putenv, getenv, getmygid, getmypid, getmyuid
* Perl:
syntax or magic variables
[1] Because of system LIST syntax and DBI's placeholders, explicit escaping is usually not even needed.
[2] Handled in Perl by a PerlIO layer
But what about PHP 5? I recommend tnx.nl's document “PHP 5: not even close” on the subject.
Support Perl Over PHP? Extend the list! (GitHub account needed.)
To be added:
- CGI website templates for easy deployment
I’m convinced—where do I start?
To begin, read O’Reilly’s A Beginner’s Introduction to Perl Web Programming. Then return here in a few weeks for more information and templates to help you with your Perl web programming.
We’re glad to have you on board!
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