In Perl, a scalar is synonymous with a variable. Regardless if you use the label scalar or variable, you are probably referencing the same thing. A scalar/variable is identified by the $ character, and the scalar/variable contains data, such as an integer (numbers), text, special characters, or even an entire file. In this example, $foo is the scaler the text "Hello World" would be the data in the scaler/variable.

One of the nice things about Perl is that unlike some other languages, such as Java, you do not need to specify the scalar/variable type. For example, in Java, when creating a variable in Java, you would need to specify the variable as an int (integer). You do not need to worry about this in Perl, which is nice.

my $foo = "Hello World";

Variables can be printed using the print operator.

print $foo;

In this example, print $foo; will produce the following result.

Hello World

Variables in a string

Let's consider an example where you need to print a variable in a string.

print aaa$foobbb;

The above example will produce only aaa, since the variable will be interpreted as $foobbb. To resolve this, use curly braces.

print aaa${foo}bbb;