I started using Perl about 10 years ago in my job as a Solaris systems administrator. Naturally, a lot of what I have written is in the line of simple utility scripts to make the job easier but there have been a few more complex tasks over the years.

• A script to emulate tar in order to rescue some data archived from a PrimOS box supposedly in tar format. Unfortunately, all the filenames had been truncated to 14 characters in the archive which meant that many filenames were identical and files were being overwritten when extracted using /usr/bin/tar. This was my first *big* script.

• A script to find duplicate files in multiple directories recursively.

• A GUI script using Tk to check my lottery tickets. The script works much better than the tickets, sadly ;-(

• A script to synchronize a partition between two machines using FTP.

• A module to replace File::Find by something with a nicer interface. Seems to work ok on Solaris and Linux, will try and get it working on Windoze one day.

• Various ad hoc scripts to help people out of difficulties. They are usually amazed at how quickly Perl can solve the problem, (most work in house is Java).

Having started with Fortran IV and Cobol, moving on through PDP-11 assembler then C and Fortran 77, I am still amazed after ten years how Perl can cover so many bases and make my life so much easier and more enjoyable.

Cheers,

JohnGG

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