Updated March 6, 2023
Difference Between Perl and PHP
Perl is a dynamic, high level and general-purpose programming language where it is not having any official acronym such as Practical Extraction and Reporting Language and few others without any standard forms. Perl was first released in the year 1987, which was 30 years ago. The latest stable release version of Perl is 5.28.0. Perl’s latest preview release version is 5.29.4, which was released in the month of October 2018. It was purely developed and implemented using a C programming language. It is having a pure dynamic type of discipline. It was designed by the author Larry Wall. It supports the cross-platform operating system. It was licensed under GNU general public license. It has different filename extensions such as .pm, .pl, .pod, .t etc. It has flexibility and powerful features to be used in many applications.
PHP is called as Hypertext Pre-processor, which is a type of server-side scripting language. It was developed and designed for web development purposes. It was designed by Rasmus Lerdorf which was appeared first in the year 1994. It is a kind of and can be used as a general-purpose programming. Rasmus Lerdorf is called as Father of PHP. Hack and Falcon influenced it. It was influenced by different programming languages such as Perl, C++, C, Tcl, and Java. It was primarily developed and implemented using the C programming language and some features of the C++ programming language. PHP supports different cross-platform operating systems such as Windows and UNIX like systems.
Head To Head Comparison Between Perl and PHP (Infographics)
Below is the top 9 difference between Perl vs PHP:
Key Differences Between Perl and PHP
Both are recommended options in the business. Let us examine some of the key difference:
- Perl is a general-purpose programming language that is used to perform data manipulations and many other development and administration features, whereas PHP is used to develop web applications which are also used as a server-side scripting language.
- Perl provides integration features with different several third-party databases and many other tools, whereas PHP can be integrated with several databases such as Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL etc.
- Perl supports different features such as Unicode characters, Procedural and object-oriented programming, which is extensible and can also be embedded into several other systems, whereas PHP supports several protocols features such as IMAP, POP3, LDAP etc. and also added support to the Java and other distributed architectures.
- Perl has features of encryption over the web and transaction management and database integrations, whereas PHP has several characteristics such as Efficiency, Simplicity, Security, Familiarity, and Flexibility.
- Perl is interpreted in a strict manner where the compiled code will be converted into bytecode before being executed, whereas PHP has different important components to be installed before using the system, such as a database, server, and parser for the PHP.
- Perl supports several platforms such as Unix, Macintosh, Windows, Symbian etc., whereas PHP has different tags and syntax styles and coding standards to be followed while developing an application.
- Perl has several features which were influenced and derived from different other languages such as C, Lisp, Smalltalk, and Bourne Shell etc., whereas PHP has different types of data types to be declared in the code such as Doubles, Integers, Booleans, NULL, Strings, Objects, Arrays, Resources etc.
- Perl has different types of basic data such as Arrays, Hashes, and Scalar to declare simple variables, numbers, strings or any references and any ordered or unordered lists, whereas PHP has different data types along with constants and variables.
- Perl has different operators like Equality Operators, Arithmetic Operators, Assignment Operators, Logical Operators, Bitwise Operators, Quote-like Operators, Logical Operators, and few other Miscellaneous Operators whereas PHP has different operators such as Arithmetic Operators, Conditional (ternary) Operators, Logical (Relational) Operators, Comparison Operators, and Assignment Operators.
- Perl has Subroutines feature to call subprograms or processes while running a different program while the process of execution, whereas PHP has a different browser or client-related HTTP methods or browser features to be used in web development.
Perl vs PHP Comparison Table
Let’s look at the top Comparison between Perl vs PHP –
| The basis of comparison |
Perl |
PHP |
| Definition | It is an object-oriented, functional, Multi-paradigm, reflective, procedural, imperative and event-driven programming language. | PHP is an Imperative, reflective, object-oriented, functional and procedural programming language. |
| License | It was licensed under Artistic License GNU General Public License. | It was licensed under Unix-like, Windows License PHP License (Zend Engine License) |
| Integration
with |
Perl is mostly used as general-purpose functioning model applications. | It is mostly integrated with web development applications. |
| Supporting
Features |
Perl cannot be embedded into HTML | It has free server-side scripting features which are easier to use and can be embedded into HTML. |
| Generality | Will be rendered from the Server-side using servlet technology | Available in major browsers in client and server-side environment |
| Maintenance | Maintained by Perl Family of different versions | Maintained by PHP Zend engine group |
| Built-in facilities | It requires more coding and configuration | It requires less configuration and coding |
| Ease of use | It is a bit difficult to use. | It is easier to use and can be easily embedded into an HTML web page |
| Flexibility | It is not flexible to be integrated with cross-technology applications | It is easier and flexible to be integrated with different applications. |
Conclusion
Perl is a general-purpose programming language that is used to develop generic applications, and PHP is a scripting language that can be used to develop web applications. Perl’s typing discipline is dynamic and strong, whereas PHPs typing discipline is dynamic and weak. Perl’s regular expression functions can be used as an extension in PHP. The Perl language initially inspired PHP programming.
PHP can be used along with different frameworks to develop web pages and be integrated with different web frameworks. PHP provides different options to develop web pages. Compared to Perl vs PHP, PHP is preferred over Perl as PHP options are more compared to the development options for different requirements based on the project and its complexity level. PHP is easier to use, start development and deployment.
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This has been a guide to the top difference between Perl vs PHP. Here we also discuss the key differences with infographics and comparison table. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more.
