There are three types of data types in Perl.

  • Scalar
  • List or Array
  • Hash or also called associative Array.

What are the Perl data types?

Perl has three types of data types.

  • Scalars : It stores Single units of items. Variables of these types are declared with the $ prefix. These can be single values of the string, number, floating, and references. An example is $variable

  • List or Array:

    It is used to store the same type of scalar type and order.

    An example is @variable

  • Hashes Stores keys and values without any order. An example is %variable

Scalars in Perl

Scalar types are used to store a single unit of data.

Data can be numbers, floating values, strings, and characters.

$id = 11;             # An integer assignment
$name = "Eric";   # A string
$marks = 45.50;     # A floating point

print "Age = $age\n";
print "Name = $name\n";
print "Salary = $salary\n";

Array type in Perl

The array is a collection of Scalar items with insertion order.

Arrays in Perl declared with variable name prefixed with @

Here is an example

@numbers = (20, 40, 10);
@words = ("one", "two", "three");

Hashs data type in Perl

Hashes are also called associate arrays in Perl.

It contains key and value pairs.

Hashes variable declared with % symbol.

Data can be retrieved using $hashes.

\# Perl example on Hashes

%countries = ('India', 'IND', 'United States Of America', 'USA', 'Canada', "CAN");