[12247] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 5847 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Jun 1 09:07:24 1999
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 99 06:00:20 -0700
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Tue, 1 Jun 1999 Volume: 8 Number: 5847
Today's topics:
Re: Anyone know what is this script line meaning ?? (Sam Holden)
Re: Compiling perl under linux 2.2.9 (David Cantrell)
Extractingg a text in a file... (BXTC)
Re: FAQ 4.16: Does Perl have a year 2000 problem? Is Pe (David Cantrell)
Re: HTTP Upload using CGI.pm <ksiero@sgh.waw.pl>
Re: Is split (surprisingly, amazingly) slow? (Ilya Zakharevich)
Loading modules at run time. Advice on programming styl <jan.van.rensburg@epiuse.com>
Re: open FILE,$path || open FILE,$altpath; <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Perl, Y2K, and idiots <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Perl/CGI/MIME attachments difficulty <max@maxgraphic.com>
Re: problem in perl using the "chroot" command zenin@bawdycaste.org
Re: Problem with IO::Socket <vlad@soft-tronik.ru>
quotewords bug? what the hell? (Ken Williams)
Re: read-accessing hash element implicitely defines has <marian.kelc@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
read-accessing hash element implicitely defines hash, o <loop@entranet.co.uk>
Re: read-accessing hash element implicitely defines has <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Remote return code problem <atodorov@de.oracle.com>
Secure join? <pkotala@logis.cz>
SSL - https - CGI - technical question ! <akarg@iiic.ethz.ch>
User Authentication using .htaccess and perl <yasser@x-unity-x.demon.co.uk>
Re: What's wrong with this hit counter? <matt-news@sergeant.org>
Re: Y2K infected Perl code (Malcolm Ray)
Re: Y2K infected Perl code (David Cantrell)
Re: You can earn $50,000 40686 (Frank v Waveren)
Special: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 12 Dec 98 (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 09:41:52 GMT
From: sholden@pgrad.cs.usyd.edu.au (Sam Holden)
Subject: Re: Anyone know what is this script line meaning ??
Message-Id: <slrn7l7an0.les.sholden@pgrad.cs.usyd.edu.au>
On Tue, 01 Jun 1999 09:20:31 +0200, Nico van der Dussen <info@edoc.co.za> wrote:
>I could figure out hte basics of this staement from the manual, but the { $_
>!~ m/^\./} still beats me.
>
>I figure it means something such as if $_ does not match a '.' at the start
>of the string. But then the manual warns that using $_ will create chaos if
>you do not know what you are doing. I will appreciate it if somebody
>knowledgeable will explain why it can be used in this instance, and when it
>should not be used.
Where in the manual does it give such a warning?
--
Sam
Remember that the P in Perl stands for Practical. The P in Python
doesn't seem to stand for anything.
--Randal Schwartz in <8cemsabtef.fsf@gadget.cscaper.com>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 09:28:32 GMT
From: NukeEmUp@ThePentagon.com (David Cantrell)
Subject: Re: Compiling perl under linux 2.2.9
Message-Id: <3753a746.4340931@news.insnet.net>
On 31 May 1999 01:48:14 -0500, kimoto@lightlink.com (Paul Kimoto)
said:
>In article <374dad8d.178658547@news.iu.net>, jlargent2@juno.com wrote:
>> When I run the Configure script it finds my nsl and crypt libs( says
>> they are cached) but then when it get to where it compiles try.c in
>> the CC dir. it fails with ld unable to load -lnsl and if I change the
>> linking order putting -lnsl last it fails on -lcrypt.
>
> Well, either you have 'em or you don't. The standard places on a
> libc6 (== glibc2) system are /lib/libnsl.so.1 and /lib/libcrypt.so.1.
> If the cache is wrong, delete it (probably config.sh) and start
> afresh. See the file called "INSTALL".
Try running ldconfig (as root, of course) to rebuild your library
cache.
[Copying newsgroup posts to me by mail is considered rude]
--
David Cantrell, part-time Unix/perl/SQL/java techie
full-time chef/musician/homebrewer
http://www.ThePentagon.com/NukeEmUp
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 12:51:22 GMT
From: "(BXTC)" <bxtc@forfree.at>
Subject: Extractingg a text in a file...
Message-Id: <3754E19B.36CB95ED@forfree.at>
I am guessing this should be real easy to do as Perl is pretty much
named for doing this...but i fail to see how. I don't expect exact
answers to this question, as I can do the research myself, but I would
appriciate it if someone could tell me what I should be researching, I
am fairly new to perl, and perldoc is good if you already know what you
are looking for(but I don't).
My situation is that I have a config file that has entries like this:
209.195.11.
$ftphostpigseye.kennesaw.edu
$ftppasswd56ld562
$pageindex.html
And I need to be able to read the file and extract '56ld562' and assign
it to the string $ftppasswd. And the same with the others besides the
initial, partial IP. So when I ran my program I could make $ftppasswd =
"56ld562" by reading from a config file. And if it maters I am using
linux. I appriciate all the help that this NG has given me,
--
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto
unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln
(BXTC) ICQ# 23289202
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 09:48:09 GMT
From: NukeEmUp@ThePentagon.com (David Cantrell)
Subject: Re: FAQ 4.16: Does Perl have a year 2000 problem? Is Perl Y2K compliant?
Message-Id: <3756ac4a.5624537@news.insnet.net>
On 30 May 1999 00:16:54 -0000, Jonathan Stowe
<gellyfish@gellyfish.com> said:
>taurocoproloquy
LOL! Really!
[Copying newsgroup posts to me by mail is considered rude]
--
David Cantrell, part-time Unix/perl/SQL/java techie
full-time chef/musician/homebrewer
http://www.ThePentagon.com/NukeEmUp
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:01:40 +0200
From: Krzysztof Sierota <ksiero@sgh.waw.pl>
To: Bill Jones <bill@fccj.org>
Subject: Re: HTTP Upload using CGI.pm
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.05.9906011059470.21791-100000@akson.sgh.waw.pl>
Hello there
I was watching this thread and here is my question:
Has anyone written a script that would accually upload files to
the server. A client to upload not a server. I would like to have
that very much .
I have played with LWP a bit , but no success so far.
Have anyone seen such a script ??
Thank you in advance
On Sat, 29 May 1999, Bill Jones wrote:
> In article <7imf97$orc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, johnand@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>
> > In article <374C7CE9.1CEEA742@csd.sdl.usu.edu>,
> > Neal Barney <nbarney@csd.sdl.usu.edu> wrote:
> <snip>
> >> 2. Is there anyway using CGI.pm (or any other perl module) to create
> > a
> >> file upload progress box, similar to the browser download progress
> > box?
> >> Or must I use JavaScript to accomplish this?
> >>
> >
> > Again, this is a browser issue;
> <snip>
>
> This is way off topic now, but the TCL plug-in would
> allow you to upload a file and generate a
> progress bar until the file upload was finished.
>
>
> /^Pretty sure$/
> -Sneex- :]
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Bill Jones Data Security Specialist http://www.fccj.org/cgi/mail?dss
> Need to get started in Perl? See http://jacksonville.pm.org/Letter.cgi
>
>
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 07:33:48 GMT
From: ilya@math.ohio-state.edu (Ilya Zakharevich)
Subject: Re: Is split (surprisingly, amazingly) slow?
Message-Id: <7j02cs$42$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>
[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to Mark-Jason Dominus
<mjd@plover.com>],
who wrote in article <19990601004424.6986.qmail@plover.com>:
> 3. There's probably a nice ecological niche for someone to write an
> XS module that provides a super-duper optimized version of split
> that only splits on static strings. Then you'd say
>
> use SSplit;
> while (<>) {
> @fields = ssplit '|';
> # ...
> }
>
> and performance would probably be at least as good as in Java.
Nope. Split is already super-duper optimized if the string is
static. You still need to produce all those SVs to put on stack (and
increase stack if needed etc).
Ilya
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 12:31:55 +0200
From: Jan van Rensburg <jan.van.rensburg@epiuse.com>
Subject: Loading modules at run time. Advice on programming style
Message-Id: <3753B69B.F68EC179@epiuse.com>
hi,
i'm trying to write a modular perl "engine" and need some advice on
programming style.
all the engine does is read configuration information from a text file,
creates new objects and call certain object methods. i wrote an object
class called "Worker". my Worker::new function looks something like
this:
sub new
{
my ($this,
$exec_function,
@parameters
) = @_;
my $class = ref($this) || $this;
my $self = {};
my ($parameter_ref);
bless($self, $class);
$self->{"exec_function"} = $exec_function;
$parameter_ref = \@parameters;
$self->{"parameters"} = $parameter_ref;
return($self);
}
a new object is created by doing something equivalent to this in the
engine:
$new_object = Worker->new(ModuleName::function, "parameter1",
"parameter2");
now what i want to do is create a class method called Worker::run, that
can be called from the engine, which will do the equivalent of:
use ModuleName qw(function);
ModuleName::function(@parameters);
i don't know if this is possible though, since the name of that module
will only be known during run time (it's read from a configuration
file).
i've read through some docs and it looks like AutoLoader might solve my
problem, but i'm not sure, and don't want to stroll down that path for
nothing.
any advice appreciated.
Jan van Rensburg
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 04:46:48 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: open FILE,$path || open FILE,$altpath;
Message-Id: <3753ba18@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
Wolfgang =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=F6tzinger?= <wolfgang.goetzinger@siemens.at> writes:
:open FILE,$path || open FILE,$altpath;
open(FILE,$path) || open(FILE,$altpath) || die("Can't open $path or $altpath: $!");
--tom
--
"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise."
--Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com>
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 04:36:50 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Perl, Y2K, and idiots
Message-Id: <3753b7c2@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, Tom Phoenix <rootbeer@redcat.com> writes:
:I _think_ that the advice to check $@ after s///ee only applies to
:5.005(?) and later - my experiments with 5.004 (the most recent I have
:available at the moment) don't show that s///ee puts anything useful into
:$@, unless I've goofed somewhere (which is quite possible).
% perl5.002 -le 's/^/1+2 . "*"/ee; print $@'
syntax error at (eval 1) line 2, near "*
;"
% perl5.00307 -le 's/^/1+2 . "*"/ee; print $@'
syntax error at (eval 1) line 2, near "*
;"
% perl5.00404 -le 's/^/1+2 . "*"/ee; print $@'
syntax error at (eval 1) line 2, at EOF
% perl5.00557 -le 's/^/1+2 . "*"/ee; print $@'
syntax error at (eval 1) line 2, at EOF
--tom
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for you are crunchy and
go well with milk.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 04:51:08 -0700
From: Max Pinton <max@maxgraphic.com>
Subject: Perl/CGI/MIME attachments difficulty
Message-Id: <010619990451089942%max@maxgraphic.com>
I've written a little Perl script that accepts a form's input and
(surprise!) e-mails it to someone. The data is in two distinct parts,
so I thought it might be nice to encode it as an attachment. I looked
around a little for MIME information, and ended up with this kind of
format:
To: blah
...
Content-type: multipart-mixed;
boundary="MIME_Part"
--MIME_Part
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
part one
--MIME_Part
Content-type: text/plain; name="results.txt"
Content-disposition: attachment
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
part two
--MIME_Part
This almost works - Outlook Express 4.5 Mac shows an attachment and the
"part one" text fine, and it all looks fine when I Show Source. But
when I save the attachment, OE assumes that it's base64 encoded, and
"decodes" into an mangled mess. Is this an Outlook problem, or am I
doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance. Please e-mail me too.
Max
max@maxgraphic.com
------------------------------
Date: 01 Jun 1999 09:01:44 GMT
From: zenin@bawdycaste.org
Subject: Re: problem in perl using the "chroot" command
Message-Id: <928227869.70012@localhost>
Vincent Rodts <vincent.rodts@cern.ch> wrote:
: I have to use the chroot command in a perl script, but when using it, most
: of the commands concerning files do not work anymore. The following
: program shows this strange behaviour :
:
: #!/usr/local/bin/perl5
: chroot ("/root");
: exec("ls");
:
: Without chroot, the ls command works, but with chroot, ls can't find any
: files. The script is run as root, and this behaviour happens on different
: systems. Is there an error in the way I use the chroot command ?
Of course nothing is found, your root is now different. If you've
chroot()ed to /root, it will be looking for "ls" in /root/bin/ls or
similar. That's what chroot is *for*, to disable any and all access
to any files higher then the directory you chroot to.
Are you sure you didn't really want chdir()?
BTW, check your return values:
chroot '/root' or die "chroot(/root): $!";
chdir '/root' or die "chdir(/root): $!";
--
-Zenin (zenin@archive.rhps.org) Caffeine...for the mind.
Pizza......for the body.
Sushi......for the soul.
-- User Friendly
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:30:59 +0400
From: "Vladimir Rybintsev" <vlad@soft-tronik.ru>
Subject: Re: Problem with IO::Socket
Message-Id: <7j0g01$2enc$1@storm.comstar.ru>
This is a script to send message to UDP socket port 7.
Worked good. Write it as file, chmod to executable, and run:
./filename hostaddress message
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
# udpmsg - send a message to the udpquotd server
my($sock, $server_host, $msg, $port, $ipaddr, $hishost,
$MAXLEN, $PORTNO, $TIMEOUT, );
use IO::Socket; use strict;
$MAXLEN = 1024; $PORTNO = 7; $TIMEOUT = 5;
$server_host = shift; $msg = "@ARGV";
$sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(Proto => 'udp',
PeerPort => $PORTNO,
PeerAddr => $server_host,);
$sock->send($msg) || die "send: $!";
eval { $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm time out" }; alarm
$TIMEOUT;
$sock->recv($msg, $MAXLEN) || die "recv: $!"; alarm 0;
1; # return value from eval on normalcy
} || die "recv from $server_host timed out after $TIMEOUT seconds.\n";
($port, $ipaddr) = sockaddr_in($sock->peername);
$hishost = gethostbyaddr($ipaddr, AF_INET);
print "Server $hishost responded ``$msg''\n";
lamj@softhome.net wrote in <7ise04$d20$1@nnrp1.deja.com> ...
>I am having a problem with IO::Socket, it seems that no perl script that
>I wrote can work with IO::Socket. It just freeze there.
>
>I was trying with some of my scripts and one at Linux Journal issue 60
>which looks like this.
>
>
>#!/usr/bin/perl -w
># clientIO.pl - a simple client using
># IO::Socket
>use strict;
>use IO::Socket;
>my $host = shift || 'server.onsight.com';
>my $port = shift || 7890;
>my $sock = new IO::Socket::INET(
> PeerAddr => $host,
> PeerPort => $port,
> Proto => 'tcp');
>$sock or die "no socket :$!";
>foreach my $i (1..10) {
> print $sock "hello, world: $i\n";
>}
>close $sock;
>
>The program run and then freeze there waiting for something.
>
>Anyone have ideas on how to fix this? Does perl comes with that module
>by default? I didn't install any special module for it....
>
>Jason Lam
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 06:45:27 GMT
From: tekkin@hotmail.com (Ken Williams)
Subject: quotewords bug? what the hell?
Message-Id: <375381a1.0@news.cgocable.net>
I'm using perl version 5.005_02 built for i586-linux-thread
The following works fine.
use Text::ParseWords;
$list = "test1:test2:test3:test4";
@alist = quotewords(":", 0, $list);
print "@alist";
The output is like "test1 test2 test3 test4". Thats fine.
use Text::ParseWords;
$list = "test1\r\ntest2\r\ntest3\r\ntest4";
@alist = quotewords("\r\n", 0, $list);
print "@alist";
The output is absolutely nothing. It worked fine under perl 5.004 on my older
slackware machine. But now I get no output at all...
Perl wizards - why?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 14:40:36 +0200
From: Marian Kelc <marian.kelc@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
Subject: Re: read-accessing hash element implicitely defines hash, or I found a bug?
Message-Id: <3753D4C3.511A4100@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
1> warn "ok:$Self->{Session}\n";
2> warn "weird: $Self->{Session}->{'s'}\n";
3> warn ("not ok:$Self->{'Session'}\n");
>
> ok:
> weird:
> not ok:HASH(0x89e08c)
>
> This is with perl 5.004 running under mod_perl/apache
>
> Am I missing out something? is this normal behaviour?
Yes, this is completely normal, because your code uses $Self->{Session}
as a hashreference in line 2. In Perl it is so: when you use a thingy
like a reference to
something, perl will create this "something" automatically:
my $a;
$a->{one}[2]{three}++;
now $a is a reference to a hash, that contains a reference to an array
that contains
a reference to another hash :-)
marian
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 14:25:11 +0100
From: Luca de Marinis <loop@entranet.co.uk>
Subject: read-accessing hash element implicitely defines hash, or I found a bug?
Message-Id: <3753DF37.EA9ADA73@entranet.co.uk>
Hello,
I have a question which may as well be very stupid, but is puzzling me.
As the subject says, I have this piece of code:
warn "ok:$Self->{Session}\n";
warn "weird: $Self->{Session}->{'s'}\n";
warn ("not ok:$Self->{'Session'}\n");
ok:
weird:
not ok:HASH(0x89e08c)
This is with perl 5.004 running under mod_perl/apache
Am I missing out something? is this normal behaviour?
Thanks and Bye...
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 06:41:00 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: read-accessing hash element implicitely defines hash, or I found a bug?
Message-Id: <3753d4dc@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, Luca de Marinis <loop@entranet.co.uk> writes:
:Am I missing out something? is this normal behaviour?
This is a well-known, albeit not universally well-loved behaviour.
Here's how it works. The arrow operator for dereferencing always
autovivifies an "lvaluable" (assignable) left-hand operand when that
operand is undefined and used to dereference data, irrespective of
whether the ultimate value is to be read from or written to.
undef $r;
$i = $r->[23];
print "$r\n";
ARRAY(0x80d3f8c)
undef $r;
$i = $r->{"fred"};
print "$r\n";
HASH(0x80d3f8c)
This does not happen if you don't use the arrow. Instead,
it is lvalue sensitive, meaning that read requests don't
autovivify:
undef $r;
$i = $$r;
print "$r\n";
(empty line)
But write accesses do:
undef $r;
$$r = 23;
print "$r\n";
SCALAR(0x80d3f8c)
--tom
--
"It was a brilliant idea before it didn't work. Then it was lame-brained."
- Rachael Hixon (via Max Rible)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 14:04:44 +0200
From: Alexander Todorovic <atodorov@de.oracle.com>
Subject: Remote return code problem
Message-Id: <3753CC5C.8E989FEE@de.oracle.com>
Hello,
We are trying to find a Perl equivalent to the UNIX shell command 'test'
. (ex. test -d)
The problem is that we need to verify if a directory exists on a remote
machine before attempting to copy files. We need, in other words, to get
back a return code in the script using rsh before we attempt an rcp.
print system ("rsh","-l", "$user",
"$remotehost","test","-d","$destdirectory");
How can we get the exit status from a command like this on the admin
machine from the remote or target machine?
Alexander Todorovic
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:42:38 +0200
From: "Pavel Kotala" <pkotala@logis.cz>
Subject: Secure join?
Message-Id: <928230218.736915@gate.logis.cz>
I use DBD - oracle. Sometimes I receive rows with NULL (in Perl undefined)
values.
Then in this line:
print RR join( ",", @$row) . "\n";
I receive message:
Use of uninitialized value at ...
When I try to print initialized fields print $$row[1], everything is OK.
Where is an error? I using join bad (then exists any secure join function,
that replaces undefined to "")?
Thank You
Pavel Kotala
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:53:41 +0200
From: "Alexander Karg" <akarg@iiic.ethz.ch>
Subject: SSL - https - CGI - technical question !
Message-Id: <3753bbb5.0@pfaff.ethz.ch>
Hallo
Im technical administrator of a new e-commerce website and I got a technical
question:
- Supposed there is no SSL-connection yet, than the client writes something
like the following URL as a request to my server:
https://www.something.com/blabla.exe?parameters Will the parameters in the
above query be transmited over the net encrypted or in plain text ?
Thank You
Alex
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:36:01 +0100
From: "Yasser Nabi" <yasser@x-unity-x.demon.co.uk>
Subject: User Authentication using .htaccess and perl
Message-Id: <928240427.157.0.nnrp-12.c1edd835@news.demon.co.uk>
Hi,
I am very new to perl, and have come across a problem....
A friend has a web page which is protected with .htacces and he asked me if
i could write a perl script which basicaly replaced the dialog box which is
produced. So what I would like to know is how can I read and verify users
from the .htpasswd and then say to the server that the users have been
authenticated.
I thankyou in advanced for any help :)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 12:31:01 +0100
From: Matt Sergeant <matt-news@sergeant.org>
Subject: Re: What's wrong with this hit counter?
Message-Id: <3753C475.EA3A96E6@sergeant.org>
Greg Bacon wrote:
>
> In article <m1so8ijvgg.fsf@halfdome.holdit.com>,
> merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
> : The number is MEANINGLESS. Get it? MEANINGLESS! MEA-NING-LESS!
>
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
> RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD! RELOAD!
:)
In the argument I mailed directly back to Randall, I stated that a dumb
counter is useless, however modern counters like fxweb's provide much
more detail. The result of RELOAD RELOAD RELOAD etc is the same on your
web server's log as it is to a hit counter. So - do you also advocate
not doing any log analysis? I don't think so - I've seen articles by
both Randall and Lincoln Stein about log analysis, so I'm not sure of
why they are so against people without access logs doing log analysis
(albeit in a limited way). FXWeb's counter provides info about repeat
visits (via persistent cookies), browser breakdown, OS breakdown and
country of origin. OK, so it doesn't give me a full log file to look at
- much as I wish it would, but for people that don't have access to an
access_log this information is almost as useful as log analysis. (except
it obviously doesn't help you about which pages are being viewed most).
So meaningless only applies to meaningless counters. More meaningfull
counters do exist and should be used if you don't have access to a
server log.
Matt.
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1999 10:04:43 GMT
From: M.Ray@ulcc.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray)
Subject: Re: Y2K infected Perl code
Message-Id: <slrn7l7c1r.d36.M.Ray@carlova.ulcc.ac.uk>
On 31 May 1999 23:14:20 -0400, Uri Guttman <uri@sysarch.com> wrote:
>another bad aspect is that all the newbies who want to do cgi find these
>scripts and think this is the way to do cgi. so the cut and paste their
>way to cgi heaven and their bosses (or more likely themselves) think it
>is cool. the fact that they will break under load (no locking), do cgi
>incorrectly (wait till they try to do a complex form), etc. is not even
>known to them. if the sites were to have disclaimers which say this code
>is old and rotten and use at your own risk, it would help a little. or
>some sort of reviews by people who know perl, on which scripts are
>decent would be nice. just archiving them all without judging them is a
>waste. some sites i have seen just do that, collect cgi scripts and
>don't care about what is in them. i would love to find cgi.pm used in
>ANY of those public scripts. but i can't grep them nor do i want to
>download the whole site (though that might be an interesting project for
>research and writing to the authors that their code sux).
I've wondered about reviews myself. Trouble is, of course, it's a
huge task, and there's no guarantee the intended audience will even
see the reviews ("Matt, please include a prominent link to this bunch
of reviews telling everyone how much your stuff sucks").
I'm more interested in understanding the learning process which
gives rise to poor CGI code, and whether there's anything we can do
to help impart extra clues early in the process. For example: what
proportion of beginning CGI programmers start by copying and modifying
existing code? How many of these do so because they've tried and
failed to find online tutorial documentation pitched at their level?
If such a learner found that the first script they studied contained a
comment pointing to good introductory documentation, plus a suggestion
that they copy this comment into any code that they produce, could
this become a meme which would raise the standard?
--
Malcolm Ray University of London Computer Centre
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 10:20:40 GMT
From: NukeEmUp@ThePentagon.com (David Cantrell)
Subject: Re: Y2K infected Perl code
Message-Id: <3757b388.7478603@news.insnet.net>
On Fri, 28 May 1999 18:41:46 GMT, docdwarf@clark.net () said:
>Please be so kind, then, as to address the situation posed and not my
>responses to it... what happens if a person writing code is not a 'retard'
>but the specs demand the adherance to certain standards?
If standards say "thou shalt write buggy code" then anyone who is
still working to those standards is a "retard". If they knew better
they would either have got the standards changed or gone elsewhere.
It's not as if there is an unemployment problem for perl programmers.
[Copying newsgroup posts to me by mail is considered rude]
--
David Cantrell, part-time Unix/perl/SQL/java techie
full-time chef/musician/homebrewer
http://www.ThePentagon.com/NukeEmUp
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 13:12:07 GMT
From: fvw@chello.nl (Frank v Waveren)
Subject: Re: You can earn $50,000 40686
Message-Id: <H_Q43.75$jy6.20005@amsnews.chello.com>
In article <7iuvt0$qb1$1@kopp.stud.ntnu.no>,
"Kent Dahl" <MenThal@bigfoot.com> writes:
> send a reply, filling their e-mail-boxes as they do with ours.... Now, where
> is that virtual memory file and how do I attach it to outgoing e-mail? ;-))
Wouldn't you prefer something that *doesn't* contain all your private info? :-)
How about everybody send them the trailer of the phantom menace? :-)
--
Frank v Waveren
fvw@chello.nl
ICQ# 10074100
------------------------------
Date: 12 Dec 98 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Special: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 12 Dec 98)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
Well, after 6 months, here's the answer to the quiz: what do we do about
comp.lang.perl.moderated. Answer: nothing.
]From: Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>
]Date: 21 Sep 1998 19:53:43 -0700
]Subject: comp.lang.perl.moderated available via e-mail
]
]It is possible to subscribe to comp.lang.perl.moderated as a mailing list.
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 5847
**************************************
