[12407] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 6007 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Jun 15 19:07:19 1999
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 99 16:00:24 -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, 15 Jun 1999 Volume: 8 Number: 6007
Today's topics:
$_ and $@ - What are they? <streaking_pyro@my-deja.com>
Re: $_ and $@ - What are they? <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K! <flavell@mail.cern.ch>
Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K! (David H. Adler)
Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K! (Greg Bacon)
Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K! <rra@stanford.edu>
Re: Can't make a perl NT <jgnzalez@swbell.net>
Clear screen function in Perl? jan@ude.org
Re: Clear screen function in Perl? <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Errors attempting to use ftp.pl package (David H. Adler)
FEAR FAD <sean_whitestone@my-deja.com>
Re: Get last execution time for a cron job <nolanj00@mh.us.sbphrd.com>
Re: Help needed !!!!!!! (brian d foy)
How to communicate with Serial port??? <seongbae@students.uiuc.edu>
How to communicate with Serial port??? <seongbae@students.uiuc.edu>
Re: How to communicate with Serial port??? (Greg Bacon)
Inept Newsmanglers (was: taint checking setuid error me <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Is it better perl than awk ? <cgutierr@firstcom.cl>
Re: Is it better perl than awk ? <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
net::ftp rach55@my-deja.com
newbie learning "my" declarations aaronp@removeme-shore.net
Special: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 12 Dec 98 (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 20:40:35 GMT
From: R.Joseph <streaking_pyro@my-deja.com>
Subject: $_ and $@ - What are they?
Message-Id: <7k6do0$17b$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
I have been seeing the two varibles $_ and $@ in alot of scripts that I
have been reading lately, and I was wondering what they are and what
they do? Are they related? Thanks for any help!
--
R.Joseph
http://www.24-7design.com
http://bowdown.to
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 16:25:46 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: $_ and $@ - What are they?
Message-Id: <3766d2ea@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, R.Joseph <streaking_pyro@my-deja.com> writes:
:I have been seeing the two varibles $_ and $@ in alot of scripts that I
:have been reading lately, and I was wondering what they are and what
:they do? Are they related? Thanks for any help!
Was there some portion of the standard perlvar manpage included with
every single perl distribution which is unclear about this?
--tom
--
I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of
a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm
perfectly capable of changing my mind next week... :-) --lwall
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 23:03:38 +0200
From: "Alan J. Flavell" <flavell@mail.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K!
Message-Id: <Pine.HPP.3.95a.990615230103.3550B-100000@hpplus01.cern.ch>
On 15 Jun 1999, Tom Christiansen wrote:
> [courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
>
> In comp.lang.perl.misc,
> bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur) writes:
> :Tell that to the designers of my digital clock. They took special care
> :so that midnight displays as "12 AM", and midday as "12 PM".
>
> I was always taught that noon is 12am, midnight is 12pm.
I've already been rebuked for pedantry. Evidently it's overly pedantic
to worry about being 12 hours out. (Or even 1 year out, but that was a
different issue.)
> Of course, that's wrong, because noon and midnight are neither,
> being between the two. Apparently I had one-based not zero-based
> trainers. :-)
They'd probably "write FORTRAN in any language".
all the best
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 17:19:18 -0400
From: dha@panix.com (David H. Adler)
Subject: Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K!
Message-Id: <slrn7mdgql.mb7.dha@panix.com>
Finally, a topic on which no one has said anything... :-)
On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 14:22:49 GMT, finsol@ts.co.nz <finsol@ts.co.nz> wrote:
>In article <slrn7m9t5s.jp8.mgm@unpkhswm04.bscc.bls.com>,
> mmorris@mindspring.com wrote:
>> Deja.com (a.k.a. DejaNews) is the mechanism whereby these usenet
>> postings are archived.
>You seem to have a very narrow understanding of newsgroups and newsgroup
>reader software. Deja.com is just another tool (of which there are many)
>to view newsgroup items - it is not *the* mechanism.
You are obviously confused. There is nothing in that statement that
says anything about Usenet reading. Deja.com is an archive (the only
one that seems to get heavy use, in fact) of usenet postings. The
fact that Deja allows you to post/read Usenet as well is not relevant
to the topic at hand.
>According to the great Perl guru himself, Tom Christiansen we, who call
>ourselves programmers, are displaying our ignorance by using software
>such as Deja.com - in his words "Web browsers masquerading as lame
>excuses for real newsreaders are notoriously bad ...". I don't agree,
>of course, and I have far more important things to do with my time than
>keep up to date on every piece of whizz bang software that hits the
>market. But the guru has spoken and perhaps his pearls of wisdom won't
>be squandered on yourself and the rest of his devoted flock.
Hm. My immediate reaction to this is that you might learn a thing or
two from Mr. Christiansen, but we'll let that pass...
You can use a wrench as a bottle opener, but I (and many others, I
would imagine) would rather use a bottle opener for opening bottles.
Obviously your mileage varies. *shrug*
Also calling Deja.com software strikes me as odd... in any event,
Tom's comments refer to using the Usenet aspects of web browsers
(kludged in so people who have a need to do *everything* in the same
program can, sort of, do so. :-), not Deja in particular.
I must say that, for someone who is claiming to be an expert on
various aspects of computing, you seem to have a rather tenuous grasp
of fine distinctions. Hm... perhaps even of ones that are not all
that fine. Quite interesting, considering that the topic you continue
to go on about are riddled with them.
*shrug*
Merely observations.
--
David H. Adler - <dha@panix.com> - http://www.panix.com/~dha/
Hey, Siegfried! Pick an accent and stick with it!
- Tom Servo, MST3K
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 21:20:06 GMT
From: gbacon@itsc.uah.edu (Greg Bacon)
Subject: Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K!
Message-Id: <7k6g26$6ls$1@info2.uah.edu>
In article <7k6568$ehr$1@brokaw.wa.com>,
jeromeo@atrieva.com (Jerome O'Neil) writes:
: > Anyway, the new millennium doesn't start till a year later.
:
: This thread is now one pedant long.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called [pedantry] by
those who have not got it."
This, of course, comes with apologies to G. B. Shaw.
Greg
--
If in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a
computer display backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day
and was instantly responsive, how much value could you derive from that?
-- Douglas Engelbart
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 14:39:38 -0700
From: Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Afraid to ask about Y2K!
Message-Id: <yl7lp5jg85.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu>
finsol <finsol@ts.co.nz> writes:
> My 22 years experience in computing has given me a broader perspective
> than most of the IT industry.
Your 22 years of experience in computing have made you a pretentious git.
How do you honestly expect anyone to pay any attention to you whatsoever
when you act like a pompous ass?
> I have recently developed, and am sucessfully selling, Y2K scan software
> - not for Perl however!. I am currently actively working on (mostly
> teleworking) Y2K assignments with several organisations - three very
> large and six smaller ones in the USA, one in Australia and three
> locally in New Zealand.
Aha. So in other words, the reason why you're so obsessed with Y2K is
because you're profiting off of it. Figures.
--
#!/usr/bin/perl -- Russ Allbery, Just Another Perl Hacker
$^=q;@!>~|{>krw>yn{u<$$<[~||<Juukn{=,<S~|}<Jwx}qn{<Yn{u<Qjltn{ > 0gFzD gD,
00Fz, 0,,( 0hF 0g)F/=, 0> "L$/GEIFewe{,$/ 0C$~> "@=,m,|,(e 0.), 01,pnn,y{
rw} >;,$0=q,$,,($_=$^)=~y,$/ C-~><@=\n\r,-~$:-u/ #y,d,s,(\$.),$1,gee,print
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 17:11:44 -0500
From: "Juan Manuel Gonzalez" <jgnzalez@swbell.net>
Subject: Re: Can't make a perl NT
Message-Id: <xaA93.699$7G6.239513@typhoon01.swbell.net>
If you are using NT 4.0 Server I recommend that you download ActiveState's
Perl 5.317 and use the module PPM to update all the Win32 specific perl
modules.
That's what I have on my system.
The problem you encounter is that you may need to re-compile those modules
if you don't use ppm.
-----------------
Mike S. wrote in message <3756cde5.0@news.otw.com>...
>If anyone can help me get a perl loaded on NT Server 4 I would appreciate
>it.
<snip>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 21:05:23 GMT
From: jan@ude.org
Subject: Clear screen function in Perl?
Message-Id: <7k6f6b$1r0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Hi!
I'm currently writing a GUI front end in Perl which is supposed to be
for the shell. I use scrolling for updating the screen but that's not
the best way to do it. Is there a clear screen funtion like there is on
in nearly every language.
Any other good suggestions?
I prefer e-mail as answers and if it matters, I use Perl on Linux.
Jan Rocho
jan@ude.org
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 16:57:40 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Clear screen function in Perl?
Message-Id: <3766da64@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, jan@ude.org writes:
:I'm currently writing a GUI front end in Perl which is supposed to be
:for the shell. I use scrolling for updating the screen but that's not
:the best way to do it. Is there a clear screen funtion like there is on
:in nearly every language.
Nearly every language? Hello? Fortran has no clear screen function
defined in the language. C has no clear screen function defined
in the language. C++ has no clear screen function defined in the
language. Pascal has no clear screen function defined in the language.
Vax assembler has no clear screen function defined in the language.
Awk has no clear screen function defined in the language. Even sh has
no clear screen function defined in the language.
That being said, what part of the answer to this question as
elaborated in the standard perlfaq8 manpage included with
every Perl distribution was unclear to you?
--tom
--
"Noalias must go. This is non-negotiable." --dmr
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 18:47:57 -0400
From: dha@panix.com (David H. Adler)
Subject: Re: Errors attempting to use ftp.pl package
Message-Id: <slrn7mdm0r.6b7.dha@panix.com>
On Sun, 13 Jun 1999 23:45:36 -0500, TerryP <no-spam-texpilot@yahoo.com> wrote:
>(re-posting to these two newsgroups, as i have yet to see my previous post
>appear in either comp.lang.perl nor comp.lang.perl.moderated):
Not sure why it didn't show up in clpmod, but comp.lang.perl is dead
as a doornail (i. e. no longer an actual usenet group, as opposed to
just being trafficless...), which may explain *that*. :-)
--
David H. Adler - <dha@panix.com> - http://www.panix.com/~dha/
"We're dumber than squirrels. We hear voices and do what they
command. I have broccoli in my socks." - Dilbert's boss
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 21:18:34 GMT
From: sean-whitestone <sean_whitestone@my-deja.com>
Subject: FEAR FAD
Message-Id: <7k6fuu$248$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Y2K MILLENNIUM BUG:THE LATEST FEAR FAD "I sought the Lord and He answered
me, and delivered me from all my fears," Psalm 34:4. David knew there were
times as a warrior he needed delivered not only from battle, enemies,
plagues, etc., but from FEARS . The Christian soldier today, likewise, needs
delivered from fears. Fears created and sent by his enemy and promoted by the
Judeo-Christian doom and gloom theologians and marketed by the
Kosher-Conservative gurus and fear marketers. The latest is Y2K, a.k.a. The
Millennium Bug. What is Y2K? They tell us it is the world wide computer
problem that allegedly looms on the horizon and when the clock strikes
midnight January 1, 2000, the world will be struck with chaos, paralysis,
destruction, and catastrophes. Why? Because of computer programs that have
two digits instead of four digits will read the year 2000 as 1900. However,
few are telling you what it really is! The latest fear fad. FEAR FADS
Perhaps you've never heard the term but it is about time someone calls the
manufactured fears what they are. Y2K is simply the latest. There's been a
lot of them and like the fads they are, they simple come and go to be
replaced by another. Let's just name a few. In the 50's and 60's the
fashionable fear fad was nuclear holocaust, nuclear chain reaction, and
nuclear winter. More recent ones have been global warming and losing the
ozone layer. The list is really quite long. Population explosion, killer
viruses, killer bees, biological terrorism, concentration camps. UFO's and
UFO abductions, volcanic eruptions, stopping the growing season and bringing
famine, economic collapse, California falling into the sea, planets lining up
and causing destruction, AIDS, etc., etc. Then, there is another list in the
Judeo-Christian church world promoted by another brand of fear profiteers
like the Hal Lindsey's. The religious fear fad of the later seventies was the
Late Great Planet Earth (Of course they continue to preach of the coming
tribulation and the Mark of the Beast, etc.) The fact that the prophecies of
these religious doom and gloom profiteers never come to pass seems to make
little difference. For example, after Hal Lindsey made a fortune off his book
The Late Great Planet Earth and nothing happened, he simple wrote another
book. Take for recent example a Judeo-Christian fear profiteer minister by
the name of Lloyd. This man was spouting on the radio and in print that the
Y2K Millennium Bug crisis would snarl and crash a large number of computers
July 1, 1998. He also predicted the death of 1.5 billion people, the
destruction of New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles and war in June and the
beginning of some Great Tribulation. And as always, time exposes the false
prophets and fear marketeers, but no one seems to care. When the false
prophecies of the Fear Profiteer ministers fail to come to past, their
ministries continue on. They are on the radio the next week. I don't claim to
understand the psychology of it all except to suggest that there are people
who seem to like being scared. It is much like when I was a child and loved
to go to the scary monster movies. It was fun to be frightened. Except,
instead of waiting for the next scary movie to come to town, the supporters
of such men as the Hal Lindseys, Lloyds, Gary Norths and the Dan McAlvanys,
etc., wait to hear the latest fear fads. It all makes for great radio
programs and newsletters. The psychology of it all may be hard to understand
but the marketing is not. FEAR MARKETEERS AND THEIR METHODS Jesus warned of
the false prophets (Matthew 7:15) and said they could be identified by their
fruits (Matthew 7:20). Many conservative Christian men and women concerned
for the future of their country and their posterity are being mislead by the
Fear Marketeers posing as conservative Christian leaders who, in reality, are
on the same side as the enemies of Christianity. One of their fruits, they
proclaim bad news and then profit themselves off the bad news and seldom if
ever do they proclaim the good news. The good news is that Christians can
overcome and conquer the so-called New World Order (I John 5:4,5). The word
"gospel" means, in the Greek, good news, but they proclaim the bad news. Bad
news is good news for two groups of people. Your enemies and their allies the
Fear Marketeers. Think about it. When your enemy hears of bad news about to
happen to you, to him it is good news. Also, bad news is good news for the
fear profiteers who take the fear fed to us by our enemies and market them,
while posing as conservatives who are concerned for your health, safety and
welfare. God's people need to learn to recognize the Babylonian pitches,
rhetoric and marketing of the merchants of Babylon (Revelation 18). Just as
our enemies use words as their weapons, so these merchant fear profiteers use
fear based motivating words and techniques.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 17:51:07 -0400
From: John Nolan <nolanj00@mh.us.sbphrd.com>
Subject: Re: Get last execution time for a cron job
Message-Id: <3766CACB.A6ECDDA0@mh.us.sbphrd.com>
Simon Lee wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know how to get the last execution time for a cron job ? For
> example, I get a cron job entry:
>
> 0 23 * * * /opt/scripts/unix_backup.sh
>
> If the current time is 'Tue Jun 15 18:57:08 1999', the last execution should
> be 'Mon Jun 23:00:00 1999' <-- I just want to get this.
If you mean the last time the cron job actually ran,
then your best bet is to have the cron job itself leave
some kind of log with a datestamp. Pretty straightforward.
But if you want to calculate the last time the cron job
*should* have run, (get a datestamp for the most recent
11:00 PM), then you can say this:
use Date::Manip;
my $prev = Date_GetPrev( ParseDate("today"), undef, 1, "23:00" );
print UnixDate( $prev, "%c" );
Read the POD for Date::Manip for more details.
--
John Nolan
Smithkline Beecham
nolanj00 mh.us.sbphrd.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 18:13:01 -0400
From: brian@pm.org (brian d foy)
Subject: Re: Help needed !!!!!!!
Message-Id: <brian-ya02408000R1506991813010001@news.panix.com>
In article <3766b95a.19792590@news.flash.net>, dalehend@flash.net posted:
> You have to check to make sure permissions are right for the file and
> the directory its in. 755 for file and I think its 777 for directory.
it shouldn't be 777 for anything unless you like security hazards.
--
brian d foy
CGI Meta FAQ <URL:http://www.smithrenaud.com/public/CGI_MetaFAQ.html>
Perl Monger Hats! <URL:http://www.pm.org/clothing.shtml>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 16:13:35 -0500
From: seong joon bae <seongbae@students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: How to communicate with Serial port???
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.10.9906151608010.24324-100000@ux12.cso.uiuc.edu>
Hello,
I have a device that connects to the serial port and when I give it a
command, it's supposed to respond with some characters.
Right now, I'm just trying to see if my program can communicate with the
device through the serial port.
but it doesn't seem to work. when I run it, it just hangs there.
so far, I have:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
&read1probe;
sub read1probe {
open (FILE, "/dev/term/b") || die "can't open file: $!";
system("stty 1200 -crtscts -crtsxoff < /dev/term/b");
print( FILE "aR\n"); #aR is a command to the device
read( FILE, $buff, 1 ); #i should get 1-character response.
print( STDOUT "$buff\n" );
close (FILE);
}
Can anyone tell me why this isn't working?
Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 16:18:10 -0500
From: seong joon bae <seongbae@students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: How to communicate with Serial port???
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.10.9906151616230.26170-100000@ux12.cso.uiuc.edu>
Hello,
I have a device that connects to the serial port and when I give it a
command, it's supposed to respond with some characters.
Right now, I'm just trying to see if my program can communicate with the
device through the serial port.
but it doesn't seem to work. when I run it, it just hangs there.
so far, I have:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
&read1probe;
sub read1probe {
open (FILE, "/dev/term/b") || die "can't open file: $!";
system("stty 1200 -crtscts -crtsxoff < /dev/term/b");
print( FILE "aR\n"); #aR is a command to the device
read( FILE, $buff, 1 ); #i should get 1-character response.
print( STDOUT "$buff\n" );
close (FILE);
}
Can anyone tell me why this isn't working?
Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 21:24:41 GMT
From: gbacon@itsc.uah.edu (Greg Bacon)
Subject: Re: How to communicate with Serial port???
Message-Id: <7k6gap$6ls$2@info2.uah.edu>
grep, grep, grep the FAQ
to get your answers fast.
When you have a decent OS
isn't this a blast?
[16:20] ettsn% grep -i serial perlfaq*
perlfaq5.pod:are often buffered with a buffer size between 1/2 and 2k. Serial devices
perlfaq8.pod:=head2 How do I read and write the serial port?
perlfaq8.pod:the case of Unix, the serial ports will be accessible through files in
Greg
--
Did you know that 42% of statistics are made up on the spot?
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 15:32:01 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Inept Newsmanglers (was: taint checking setuid error message)
Message-Id: <3766c651@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting DENIED because the poster lied
about his address, posting an illegal message. BURN!]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| You have violated more rules than I can shake a stick at. And I'm tired |
| of it, having just read umpteen dozen of these, and I can't send you |
| private mail, so you take a public trouncing. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Screw-up #1: You posted under an illegal address. That's not according
to spec.
In comp.lang.perl.misc, "John" <john@nonet.com> writes:
:I agree that I need to update to a newer version of Perl. The problem is
:that a vendor supplied app has not yet been updated to run with anything
:greater than version 4.
:
:I did get a chuckle from the OJ comment but was hoping for some
:enlightenment regarding the taint checking message. That could help even
:when I eventually do upgrade.
Screw up #2: You included more quoted text than new text.
You have only (charitably put) 34 quoted lines out of 42
total. Actually, it's more, due to screw up #5.
Screw up #3: You failed to trim the quoted text to the
relevant portions.
Screw up #4: You placed all the quoted text at the end of the
message, destroying all possible context.
:David Cassell <cassell@mail.cor.epa.gov> wrote in article
:<37667D82.9DEF2165@mail.cor.epa.gov>...
:> Tom Phoenix wrote:
:> >
:> > On Mon, 14 Jun 1999, John wrote:
:> >
:> > > I'm running perl v4
:> >
:> > When that version of Perl was current, OJ Simpson was best known for
:being
Screw up #5: You miswrapped the quoted text.
That is a mangled line wrap caused by some brain-damaged piece of
bloatware that doesn't understand Usenet. Your headers indicate that
that was Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161.
:> > a Heisman trophy winner. He still can't seem to find the real killer,
:but
That is a mangled line wrap caused by some brain-damaged piece of
bloatware that doesn't understand Usenet. Your headers indicate that
that was Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161.
:> > you can (and should) find the real Perl.
:> >
:> > http://www.cpan.org/
:>
:> In the words of Randal, "heh".
:>
:> > There are even CERT advisories telling why such old software isn't safe
:to
That is a mangled line wrap caused by some brain-damaged piece of
bloatware that doesn't understand Usenet. Your headers indicate that
that was Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161.
:> > use. Please upgrade.
:> >
:> > > (actually ingperl v4).
:> >
:> > Well, you can probably do whatever it is that was special about ingperl
:> > with a module (a database module, perhaps?). And your code will be more
:> > reliable for no extra cost.
:>
:> IngPerl was the old Ingres database code for Perl. It has been
:> supplanted by the DBI module and the appropriate DBD::* module.
:> And these need a modern Perl to run. So pay attention to TomP.
:>
:> HTH,
:> David
:> --
:> David Cassell, OAO cassell@mail.cor.epa.gov
:> Senior computing specialist
:> mathematical statistician
:>
+--------------------------------+
| First, the overquoted diatribe |
+--------------------------------+
Subject: Your overquoted message
Out of the 42 lines in your posting, you appear to have quoted
34 of them, which is 80%. Usually it's best to keep your
quote percentage to under 50%. After all, all modern newsreaders
allow the reader to easily back up in the thread and see the parent
posting, so there's no need to quote so very much. It's just a waste.
+--------------------------------------------------+
| Next, the "you wrapped this text wrong diatribe" |
+--------------------------------------------------+
Subject: Your message with oddly wrapped lines
It looks like you've been hoodwinked into using a newsreader that wraps
lines for you incorrectly. I certainly hope you didn't pay for the
software or service responsible for mangling your posting.
Let me explain. For example, quoted text that looks like this:
> It looks like you are using a newsreader that wraps
lines for you
> incorrectly. This is often a badly configured web browser.
If it's
> netscape, I suggest you report the bug to them. It mangles
your
Is very wrong. This is especially prevalant in broken Mac or
PC newsreaders or browsers that have incorrectly implemented quoting.
Even lines that come out as
It looks like you are using a newsreader that wraps
lines for you
incorrectly. This is often a badly configured web browser.
If it's
netscape, I suggest you report the bug to them. It mangles
your
posting beyond any reasonable ability to read.
These are certainly not very nice to look at, wouldn't you agree?
That's what you're sending out. Surprised? It's true.
Common pieces of software that seem particularly broken in this regard
seem to include MSIE and Netscape, but probably other mailers and
newsreaders as well. The author/supplier of your software may already
have a fix for the problem. Talk to them. PC-based newsreaders (that
aren't running with a proper operating system installed) are notoriously
broken at this, although even (bad) Unix or mainframe software has had
the problem (like tin). If you're paying an ISP who provided you a
newsreader, please tell them it is not up spec. (Specs available.)
Also talk to your systems administrator, support personnel, or service
provider -- or send me mail if you must -- if this message doesn't make
sense to you. In the best of all possible worlds, I would urge you to
contact the author of the software you used to post your message and
explain to them that they're sending out mutilated messages. If I knew
their email address, I would even do it myself.
+-------------------------------------+
| Next, the quoted-at-bottom diatribe |
+-------------------------------------+
Subject: Your quoting strategy
You appear to have quoted the entire message to which you were replying.
Worst of all, you have done so by merely appending the complete message
at the bottom. If all you want to do is forward a copy of the message,
that's one thing, but here you seem to have just blindly pasted the
complete old message at the end without providing any content. This is
neither a proper public followup nor even a decent private reply.
Here's why.
First of all, this is massive overkill -- you're supposed to trim your
quoted text to only what you're replying to. Otherwise you'll probably
violate the netiquette target quoting percentage of 50%. See below.
Second, putting everything at the bottom does little good. It doesn't
provide the proper context. It's far too late. When you reply to
someone's content, the reason you quote the previous message is so that
you can provide some degree of contextual continuity. The best way to
do this is to interleave what you're quoting with your responses to that
particular piece. That means that you should provide a quoted portion,
then address what the points therein, then another quoted section, etc.
For example, here's how followup replies *should* look:
> Joe said we should eat noodles.
But I don't like noodles. They are a pain to prepare -- remember
that what started this thread was how to cook using only a microwave,
not real cooking -- and they provide you with very little sustenance
in the long run. It's like eating cardboard, nutritionally speaking.
> He also suggests adding anchovies.
What is this fish fetish? Not all of us like the little minnows
with the lingering briny taste swimming around our mouths for the
next few hours or days. Can you imagine this on a date? Iccccch!
Notice how in the text above, alternate quoted passages are interleaved
with new response text. Notice also that the new text far exceeds the
old text. This is the way it should be.
If you are receiving this message in response to a news posting,
please understand that modern newsreaders provide a "get parent article"
functionality following the References: header, so it is seldom necessary
to quote the whole thing. Sometimes even mail readers provide this,
depending on the mail headers and the list archival mechanism on your
own system.
Here's a section from the essential netiquette guide, "A Primer
on How to Work With the Usenet Community", which is available in
news.announce.newusers. Perhaps your service provider neglected to point
you at before you got swallowed up by all of Usenet. It's a good read,
and critical to understanding the culture you're now moving in.
Summarize What You are Following Up.
When you are following up someone's article, please summarize the
parts of the article to which you are responding. This allows readers
to appreciate your comments rather than trying to remember what the
original article said. It is also possible for your response to get
to some sites before the original article.
Summarization is best done by including appropriate quotes from
the original article. Do not include the entire article since it
will irritate the people who have already seen it. Even if you are
responding to the entire article, summarize only the major points you
are discussing.
I've already given a good example of how you should be quoting followup
responses, and told you why this is a much better approach then what
you've done. Now, by way of demonstration, I'll show you the bad way.
At the end of this message, I include a forwarding of your complete
original, unaltered save for its quoted material. Please note how
completely useless this is, because at no point in the real message do
I pull in summarized portions of your original. In fact, I'm not even
using the data in your message. See how clumsy and unneeded this is?
It's very annoying, too.
--
There is a need to keep from being locked into Open Systems. --IBM sales rep
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 18:20:13 -0400
From: "Claudio Gutierrez" <cgutierr@firstcom.cl>
Subject: Is it better perl than awk ?
Message-Id: <3766d292.0@omega>
As this news are read by people with a problem similar to mine currently
solved, I ask the referenced question.I don4t attempt to begin a
philosophical discussion, I just would like to know if it is better to
invest time to learn perl or awk to solve the next situation what is not
cleared after reading the Introduction of Sed&awk and Learning Perl, because
both books say awk and perl are reporting languages.
I have log files from a RADIUS server, about 10MB daily. I need to
process such files to get info like: users connected a day, duration of each
connection of each user an so on.
Then:
awk is capable to deal quickly with such relatively huge files or I need
perl?
the searching and reporting is better in awk or perl ?
Any hints, clues, gotchas will be appreciated.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1999 16:44:46 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Is it better perl than awk ?
Message-Id: <3766d75e@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, "Claudio Gutierrez" <cgutierr@firstcom.cl> writes:
:As this news are read by people with a problem similar to mine currently
:solved, I ask the referenced question.I donM-4t attempt to begin a
^^^^
That was illegal MS-ASCII!
See http://language.perl.com/misc/ms-ascii.html for details.
:philosophical discussion, I just would like to know if it is better to
:invest time to learn perl or awk to solve the next situation
Awk is a venerable, powerful, elegant, and simple tool that everyone
should know. Perl is a superset and child of awk, but has much more
power that comes at expense of sacrificing some of that simplicity.
--tom
--
"They acquit the vultures but condemn the doves."
- Juvenal
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 19:39:28 GMT
From: rach55@my-deja.com
Subject: net::ftp
Message-Id: <7k6a5e$vfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Quick question. Does Active Perl Build 517 include Net::FTP? If not,
where do I find it? Thanks.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 22:35:12 GMT
From: aaronp@removeme-shore.net
Subject: newbie learning "my" declarations
Message-Id: <AyA93.5842$nn.1067464@news.shore.net>
I have a question about using the 'my' and 'local' declarations. I'm new
to perl and am at the stage of teaching myself how to make scripts not
just work, but work right, based on info from this newsgroup.
I want to do this:
my $total++;
It won't let me do that, neither will 'local'. I thought from reading
page 108 of the Camel book that local would at least work. Any ideas on
where I should go from here to learn more about this? The llama and ram
books dont cover this much.
FWIW, here is my script as is. Its supposed to be a replacement for
WU-FTPD's "ftpwho" tool, showing who is logged into an ftp site and what
they're doing.
thanks..
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#use strict;
open(PS, 'ps ax --cols=200 |') or die "can't ps: $_";
while(<PS>) {
chomp;
my @psnfo = split(/ +/);
my $pid = $psnfo[1];
my $user = $psnfo[7];
my $host = $psnfo[6];
if ( $psnfo[5] =~ /ftpd/) {
my @file = split(/:/); # use colons for files because filenames have
# spaces
my $filename = "$file[4]";
$filename =~ s/ +$//; # strip trailing whitespace
printf " $pid $user $host $filename\n";
$total++; # add up number of users
}
}
printf "Total of $total Users/n";
close(PS) or die "can't close ps: $_";
exit(0);
Aaron Price, 011011011 www.aavso.org
Sysadmin, American Association of Variable Star Observers
"We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of the dreams." - Roald Dahl
------------------------------
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.
]To do so, send mail to majordomo@eyrie.org with "subscribe clpm" in the
]body. Majordomo will then send you instructions on how to confirm your
]subscription. This is provided as a general service for those people who
]cannot receive the newsgroup for whatever reason or who just prefer to
]receive messages via e-mail.
The Perl-Users Digest is a retransmission of the USENET newsgroup
comp.lang.perl.misc. For subscription or unsubscription requests, send
the single line:
subscribe perl-users
or:
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to almanac@ruby.oce.orst.edu.
To submit articles to comp.lang.perl.misc (and this Digest), send your
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To submit articles to comp.lang.perl.announce, send your article to
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To request back copies (available for a week or so), send your request
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where x is the volume number and y is the issue number.
The Meta-FAQ, an article containing information about the FAQ, is
available by requesting "send perl-users meta-faq". The real FAQ, as it
appeared last in the newsgroup, can be retrieved with the request "send
perl-users FAQ". Due to their sizes, neither the Meta-FAQ nor the FAQ
are included in the digest.
The "mini-FAQ", which is an updated version of the Meta-FAQ, is
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For other requests pertaining to the digest, send mail to
perl-users-request@ruby.oce.orst.edu. Do not waste your time or mine
sending perl questions to the -request address, I don't have time to
answer them even if I did know the answer.
------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 6007
**************************************
