examples/prompt.pl

use strict;
use warnings;

print "Your name please: ";
my $name = <STDIN>;
chomp $name;

print "Your name is '$name'\n";

After including the safety net in the form of use strict; use warnings; we call the print function that will display the text after it on the screen. As we have not included \n (the sign representing the newline) in our string the blinking cursor will be shown on the same line where the text was printed.

When we run the script at this point it will wait for the user to type in some stuff and press ENTER.

Once the user has done this the code will continue to run and he stuff the user typed in, including the character representing the ENTER will be assigned to the $name variable on the left hand side of the = assignment operator.

The my operator at the beginning of the line declares this variable. This is the way we tell Perl that would like to use this variable called $name.

Once we have the input in $name we call the chomp function which has the sole purpose of removing the trailing newline (the ENTER) from the given string.

Finally, just to give some feedback, we call print again displaying the content the user has typed in.

IO::Prompter

This was a very simple solution using only the core language and providing a very simple way to prompt for some input. For more complex and robust solution check out one of the modules on CPAN. For example IO::Prompter.

Secure input

You can also prompt for a password without the user, or someone behind their shoulders, seeing what is being typed.