=for story  
 
Sally was walking along a path when she came to a very large 
hole. She filled the hole with sand 
 
=cut 
 
$hole = 'sand'; 
 
=for story 
 
As she walked across the hole, she realized she might get lost if 
she didn't put down some stones to find her way back. 
 
She put down a red stone, a blue stone and a white stone: 
 
=cut 
 
@stone = qw(red blue white); 
 
=for story 
 
No sooner had she put down the stones than she arrived at a 3-way 
intersection.  
 
Here is the Perl, you tell the story: 
 
=cut 
 
%directions = ( 
  left     => 'Yorkshire', 
  right    => 'Birmingham', 
  straight => 'Nottamun' 
 ); 
 
%distance = ( 
  Yorkshire  => '5 miles', 
  Birmingham => '1.5 miles', 
  Nattamun   => '2.2 miles' 
 ); 
 
=for story 
 
Did you tell the story? I'm sure you figured it out. However, let's 
have Perl   
tell it for us: 
 
=cut 
    while (my ($direction, $location) = each %directions) { 
      print "if she takes the $direction path, she will walk for  
$distance{$location} before arriving at $location.\n"; 
    } 
 
=for story 
 
Ok, now we have ended the first lesson in our Perl storybook. We 
have learned many things in just one lesson:  
 
HOLES: 
 
We learned how to fill in holes. Whenever we want to fill in a 
hole, we just put something in it. The hole is anything that you 
want to hold a value.  
Here is one more example: 
 
Today is Saturday 
 
$today = 'Saturday'; 
 
BEADS: 
 
When Sally put down the stones on the path, she was storing a 
series of things to help her later. Whenever you have a list of 
things you want to keep together, you put them down together, just 
like putting beads on a necklace. 
 
Let's create a list of grocery items: 
 
my @shopping_list = qw(oranges apples bananas); 
 
DICTIONARIES: 
 
You know what a dictionary is right, you look up a key and you get 
a value. Let's create a dictionary of magic terms: 
 
%magic = ( 
 
  spell  => 'something you cast on someone', 
  rabbit => 'something you pull out of a hat', 
  wand   => 'the thing you wave to cast a spell'   
 
) 
 
Now let's get something out of our dictionary: 
 
 
 
=cut 

print $magic{wand}