In Perl, primitive types refer to the most basic data types that are built into the language itself. There are four primitive types in Perl:
1. Scalars - Scalars are basic variables that can hold a single value at a time. They can be represented by any of the three "sigils" - $, @, or %.
example:
- $name = "Alex";
- $age = 25;
2. Arrays - Arrays are collections of variables which can hold multiple values at the same time. They are represented by the "@" sigil.
example:
- @numbers = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
3. Hashes - Hashes are collections of key-value pairs. They are represented by the "%" sigil.
example:
- %person = ("name", "Alex", "age", 25);
4. References - References are a way to refer to another variable or data structure. They are represented by the "\" sigil.
example:
- $array_ref = \@numbers;
These are the basic and essential primitive types in Perl programming language.