By using perl as a scripting language instead of a “traditional” shell, you can use much more C-like syntax without sacrificing functionality.

To see how associative arrays work, we’re going to look at both the Korn shell and Perl, though only the newest version of the Korn shell (referred to as “korn93”) supports associative arrays.

Scripting languages are the hot technology today for application and Web development -- no longer the backwater afterthought of the early days running in a pokey interpreter. Nor are scripting ...