How can I write Perl that doesn't look like C?

Question

My co-workers complain that my Perl looks too much like C, which is natural since I program in C most of the time, and Perl just a bit. Here's my latest effort. I'm interest in Perl that is easy to understand. I'm a bit of a Perl critic, and have little tolerance for cryptic Perl. But with readability in mind, how could the following code be more Perlish?

It's goal is to do a traffic analysis and find which IP addresses are within the ranges given in the file "ips". Here's my effort:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# Process the files named in the arguments, which will contain lists of IP addresses, and see if 
# any of them are in the ranges spelled out in the local file "ip", which has contents of the
# form start-dotted-quad-ip-address,end-dotted-quad-ip_address,stuff_to_be_ignored
use English;


open(IPS,"ips") or die "Can't open 'ips' $OS_ERROR";

# Increment a dotted-quad ip address
# Ignore the fact that part1 could get erroneously large.
sub increment {
    $ip = shift;

    my ($part_1, $part_2, $part_3, $part_4) = split (/\./, $ip);
    $part_4++;
    if ( $part_4 > 255 ) {
        $part_4 = 0;
        ($part_3++);
        if ( $part_3 > 255 ) {
            $part_3 = 0;
            ($part_2++);
            if ( $part_2 > 255 ) {
                $part_2 = 0;
                ($part_1++);
            }
        }
   }   
    return ("$part_1.$part_2.$part_3.$part_4");
}

# Compare two dotted-quad ip addresses.
sub is_less_than {
    $left = shift;
    $right = shift;

    my ($left_part_1, $left_part_2, $left_part_3, $left_part_4)     = split (/\./, $left);
    my ($right_part_1, $right_part_2, $right_part_3, $right_part_4) = split (/\./, $right);


    if  ($left_part_1 != $right_part_1 ) { 
        return ($left_part_1 < $right_part_1);
    }   
    if  ($left_part_2 != $right_part_2 ) { 
        return ($left_part_2 < $right_part_2);
    }   
    if  ($left_part_3 != $right_part_3 ) { 
        return ($left_part_3 < $right_part_3);
    }
    if  ($left_part_4 != $right_part_4 ) {
        return ($left_part_4 < $right_part_4);
    }
    return (false);  # They're equal
}

my %addresses;
# Parse all the ip addresses and record them in a hash.   
while (<IPS>) {
    my ($ip, $end_ip, $junk) = split /,/;
    while (is_less_than($ip, $end_ip) ) {
        $addresses{$ip}=1;
        $ip = increment($ip);
    }
}

# print IP addresses in any of the found ranges

foreach (@ARGV) {
    open(TRAFFIC, $_) or die "Can't open $_ $OS_ERROR";
    while (<TRAFFIC> ) {
        chomp;
        if (defined $addresses{$_}) {
            print "$_\n";
        }
    }
    close (TRAFFIC);

}

Answer 1

From years of seeing Perl code written by C programmers, here's some generic advice:

Use hashes. Use lists. USE HASHES! USE LISTS! Use list operations (map, grep, split, join), especially for small loops. Don't use fancy list algorithms; pop, splice, push, shift and unshift are cheaper. Don't use trees; hashes are cheaper. Hashes are cheap, make them, use them and throw them out! Use the iterator for loop, not the 3-arg one. Don't call things $var1, $var2, $var3; use a list instead. Don't call things $var_foo, $var_bar, $var_baz; use a hash instead. Use $foo ||= "default". Don't use $_ if you have to type it.

Don't use prototypes, IT'S A TRAP!!

Use regexes, not substr() or index(). Love regexes. Use the /x modifier to make them readable.

Write statement if $foo when you want a block-less conditional. There's almost always a better way to write a nested condition: try recursion, try a loop, try a hash.

Declare variables when you need them, not at the top of the subroutine. use strict. use warnings, and fix them all. use diagnostics. Write tests. Write POD.

Use CPAN. Use CPAN! USE CPAN! Someone's probably already done it, better.

Run perlcritic. Run it with --brutal just for kicks. Run perltidy. Think about why you do everything. Change your style.

Use the time not spent fighting the language and debugging memory allocation to improve your code.

Ask questions. Take style commentary on your code graciously. Go to a Perl Mongers meeting. Go onto perlmonks.org. Go to YAPC or a Perl Workshop. Your Perl knowledge will grow by leaps and bounds.