Logo of the Pike scripting language.  A stylised fish.

Pike: An Introduction

H. William Welliver and Martin Bähr, editors

About Pike: an Introduction

Pike is a dynamic, object-oriented programming language. Applications for Pike range from network servers, to the world of multimedia, to environments where your shell could use some spicy text processing or system administration tools. Your imagination sets the limit, but Pike will probably extended it far beyond what you previously considered within your reach. Pike scripts and applications are portable across multiple platforms, including all major Unix systems, Windows 2000/XP and MacOS X.

Pike: an Introduction is an excellent first step for the programmer interested in learning Pike. Written by members of the Pike development team, this book is the definitive tutorial for this dynamic language. Each chapter is filled with example code, and is capped off with a set of programming exercises. Suggested solutions for the programs are included, making this book an ideal text for classroom use.

This book provides a description of the core language elements: syntax, data types, expressions, functions, classes and modules. In addition, the book also provides an introduction to a number of commonly used modules, such as SQL access, cryptography, I/O and image processing.

From simple scripts to Internet, database or scientific applications, Pike can get your idea off the drawing board and into action in record time. With Pike: an Introduction, programmers can learn to use Pike quickly and easily.