(Practical Extraction Report Language) A programming language written by Larry Wall that combines syntax from several Unix utilities and languages. Introduced in 1987, Perl is designed to handle a variety of system administrator functions and provides comprehensive string handling functions. It is widely used to write Web server programs for such tasks as automatically updating user accounts and newsgroup postings, processing removal requests, synchronizing databases and generating reports. Perl has also been adapted to non-Unix platforms. See mod_perl and LWP. See also PURL.