in reply to pattern matching

While the Perl Cookbook is invaluable, there is no better resource than Saint Larry's Progamming Perl. I would also recommend Mastering Regular Expressions.

If you have the bucks, it's worth picking up The Perl CD Bookshelf. It contains Perl in a Nutshell, Learning Perl, Programming Perl, The Perl Cookbook, Perl & XML, Perl & LWP, and Mastering Perl/Tk all in cd format, complete with source code listings.

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."