Perl: getting input from the user with STDIN

Tutoring, you often straddle a couple of generations.  The tutor reaches back to an old programming tradition….

When I was a kid in the early 80s, computers were very new to have around.  To make them more appealing to the home market – where they were suddenly available and even affordable – computers were given programs that allowed them to interact with the user.  You’d see such situations as this:

Computer screen:  Hello!  What’s your name?

The user would type in: Gerald

Now the computer would reply:

Hello, Gerald! I’m so glad to meet you!

How did our predecessors manage that feat – and how can we do the same?

In Perl, you can do the following:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print “Hello. What is your name?\n\n”;
$usrname=<STDIN>;
chop $usrname;
print “\nHello, $usrname! I’m so glad to meet you!”;

<STDIN> means for the computer to gather input from the standard source; ie, the console.

Chop removes the newline (the ENTER stroke) Gerald pressed to “enter” his name.

Part of tutoring is continuing traditions:)

Source: Robert’s Perl Tutorial

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.

Tagged with: , ,

Leave a Reply