Perl Programming

[inventsekar_1]

still i like to post this:
HTH leslie and others too.
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When not to use shell scripts


Resource-intensive tasks, especially where speed is a factor (sorting, hashing, etc.)

Procedures involving heavy-duty math operations, especially floating point arithmetic, arbitrary precision calculations, or complex numbers (use C++ or FORTRAN instead)

Cross-platform portability required (use C or Java instead)

Complex applications, where structured programming is a necessity (need type-checking of variables, function prototypes, etc.)

Mission-critical applications upon which you are betting the ranch, or the future of the company

Situations where security is important, where you need to guarantee the integrity of your system and protect against intrusion, cracking, and vandalism

Project consists of subcomponents with interlocking dependencies

Extensive file operations required (Bash is limited to serial file access, and that only in a particularly clumsy and inefficient line-by-line fashion)

Need native support for multi-dimensional arrays

Need data structures, such as linked lists or trees

Need to generate or manipulate graphics or GUIs

Need direct access to system hardware

Need port or socket I/O

Need to use libraries or interface with legacy code

Proprietary, closed-source applications (shell scripts put the source code right out in the open for all the world to see)


If any of the above applies, consider a more powerful scripting language -- perhaps Perl, Tcl, Python, Ruby -- or possibly a high-level compiled language such as C, C++, or Java. Even then, prototyping the application as a shell script might still be a useful development step.

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/why-shell.html