Scalars

scalar:

A single value, either numeric or a character string.

identifier:

A "variable name." It is composed of upper or lower case letters, numbers, and the underscore '_'. Identifiers are case sensitive (like all of perl).

 
	$scalar = expression; 

Example

 
        ... 
        ################################################################ 
        # Configuration parameters 
        ################################################################ 
        # this program's name 
        $progname = "mailform"; 

1. The '$' determines that progname is a scalar.
2. the '=' determines that this an assignment.
3. The double quotes (") define the string.
4. All statements end with a semi-colon ';'.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

johnsonb@ncsa.uiuc.edu

Last modified: June 19, 1997