Perl is an interpreted programming language used for text manipulation and generating reports from text files. It has powerful string handling and pattern matching capabilities. Perl programs can be written and run without a compiler on all platforms. Perl is useful for tasks like extracting information from files, transforming it, and generating reports. It allows writing simple programs to perform complex tasks. Perl variables do not have fixed types and can hold different data types. Perl supports scalar variables, arrays, and lists to organize data. Arrays allow storing multiple values in an indexed list.