What is perl?

Perl is a compiled scripting language written by Larry Wall. It is particularly useful for text processing and file conversion, Unix system administration and utilities, web forms, and report generation.
The syntax of Perl combines features of C, sed, awk, and sh, and its design philosophy is to place as few restrictions as possible on the programmer. Perl's ability to perform pattern matching on strings is particularly powerful, and it includes commands for using dbm format databases and report templates. Perl also allows convenient file access and interaction with Unix commands and environment information.