Perl | Data Types
Data types specify the type of data that a valid Perl variable can hold. Perl is a loosely typed language. There is no need to specify a type for the data while using in the Perl program. The Perl interpreter will choose the type based on the context of the data itself.
There are 3 data types in Perl as follows:
- Scalars
- Arrays
- Hashes(Associative Arrays)
1. Scalars:
It is a single unit of data that can be an integer number, floating-point, a character, a string, a paragraph, or an entire web page. To know more about scalars please refer to Scalars in Perl.
Example:
Perl
# Perl Program to demonstrate the # Scalars data types# An integer assignment$age = 1; # A string $name = "ABC";# A floating point $salary = 21.5; # displaying resultprint "Age = $age\n";print "Name = $name\n";print "Salary = $salary\n"; |
Output:
Age = 1 Name = ABC Salary = 21.5
Scalar Operations: There are many operations that can be performed on the scalar data types like addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.
Example:
Perl
# Perl Program to demonstrate # the Scalars operations#!/usr/bin/perl# Concatenates strings$str = "GFG" . " is the best";# adds two numbers $num = 1 + 0; # multiplies two numbers $mul = 4 * 9; # concatenates string and number $mix = $str . $num; # displaying resultprint "str = $str\n";print "num = $num\n";print "mul = $mul\n";print "mix = $mix\n"; |
Output:
str = GFG is the best num = 1 mul = 36 mix = GFG is the best1
2. Arrays:
An array is a variable that stores the value of the same data type in the form of a list. To declare an array in Perl, we use ‘@’ sign in front of the variable name.
@age=(10, 20, 30)
It will create an array of integers that contains the values 10, 20, and 30. To access a single element of an array, we use the ‘$’ sign.
$age[0]
It will produce an output of 10. To know more about arrays please refer to Arrays in Perl
Example:
Perl
# Perl Program to demonstrate # the Arrays data type#!/usr/bin/perl# creation of arrays@ages = (33, 31, 27); @names = ("Geeks", "for", "Geeks");# displaying resultprint "\$ages[0] = $ages[0]\n";print "\$ages[1] = $ages[1]\n";print "\$ages[2] = $ages[2]\n";print "\$names[0] = $names[0]\n";print "\$names[1] = $names[1]\n";print "\$names[2] = $names[2]\n"; |
Output:
$ages[0] = 33 $ages[1] = 31 $ages[2] = 27 $names[0] = Geeks $names[1] = for $names[2] = Geeks
3. Hashes(Associative Arrays):
It is a set of key-value pair. It is also termed the Associative Arrays. To declare a hash in Perl, we use the ‘%’ sign. To access the particular value, we use the ‘$’ symbol which is followed by the key in braces.
Example:
Perl
# Perl Program to demonstrate the# Hashes data type# Hashes%data = ('GFG', 7, 'for', 4, 'Geeks', 11);#displaying resultprint "\$data{'GFG'} = $data{'GFG'}\n";print "\$data{'for'} = $data{'for'}\n";print "\$data{'Geeks'} = $data{'Geeks'}\n"; |
Output:
$data{'GFG'} = 7
$data{'for'} = 4
$data{'Geeks'} = 11
