[16584] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 3996 Volume: 9
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sat Aug 12 09:10:38 2000
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 06:10:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Message-Id: <966085818-v9-i3996@ruby.oce.orst.edu>
Content-Type: text
Perl-Users Digest Sat, 12 Aug 2000 Volume: 9 Number: 3996
Today's topics:
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup <joelnelsen@home.net>
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup <bkennedy99@home.com>
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: Negativity in Newsgroup (Steve Leibel)
Re: open, close dial-up connexion under Win32 <dominique.plu@ifrance.com>
Re: Perl/CGI suitable for this? <elephant@squirrelgroup.com>
Re: Pipe on WinNT (Decklin Foster)
Re: Problems with adding 1 (Tim Hammerquist)
Re: Send input to a command line program nobull@mail.com
Sort data from text file stu265@my-deja.com
Re: User-defined hash... <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Re: warning/var weirdness (or is it?) <elephant@squirrelgroup.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 04:46:01 GMT
From: Joel Nelsen <joelnelsen@home.net>
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <3994D670.2754A99F@home.net>
> "Godzilla!" wrote:
> I find it rather odd, not a person in this
> thread has even mentioned the personal insults,
> vulgarities, bigotry, sexism, racism, threats
> of physical violence, threats of crime, email
> bombing, attempted break-ins at my sites and
> actual crimes committed against our family,
> such as threatening email, forgery, harassment
> and the such, to a point where we needed to make
> not only contact with internet service providers
> but law enforcement contact as well, as noted
> in archived articles. All of these repugnant
> activities being committed mostly by prominent
> well known regulars here. These events have
> been taking place, hmm.. six to eight months
> now? At least six months. I would have to
> pull my documentation to pin a time frame.
As I have started following this newsgroup to actually learn about perl,
I have become amused reading the back and forth rants such as this. It's
actually quite entertaining. There are no lack of extra soap boxes here
and I appear to have just found one.
> So what is the deal you people are not realistic
> enough and brave enough to comment upon what
> regulars here are truly like; sociopaths if
> not outright criminals. Sure reads like a
> coverup to me. If you are intent on discussing
> issues like these, why cannot you be candid
> and truthful? Afraid of reality are you?
Sounds the same as the rest of them.
> Easy to speak as a victim. Very difficult to
> speak up when you are a perpetrator, yes?
She's speaking easy here. Victim?
> This is not a reflection upon you Mr. Hecht.
> I am simply using your article to add some
> of my own thoughts.
Or soap box?
> This has nothing to do
> with you personally. Don't be offended.
But we'll use it to our advantage anyway damn you!
> Only note I would add to your comments, Mr. Hecht,
> is newbies here best be prepared to be subjected
> to the worst, ranging from vile hatred to crime.
We'll at least from very helpful people to hatred and crime.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 22:03:55 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <3994DABB.312F3A2B@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Joel Nelsen wrote:
(snipped)
> > Only note I would add to your comments, Mr. Hecht,
> > is newbies here best be prepared to be subjected
> > to the worst, ranging from vile hatred to crime.
> We'll at least from very helpful people to hatred and crime.
I stand corrected. It is true, there are some here who
are very helpful, very sincere and very nice. I am quite
remiss is not crediting those who enhance this newsgroup.
Actually, there are a good number of decent people here.
There are times, my anger and my disappointment taint my
thinking. This is my shame with which to deal, personally.
Thank you for correcting my unfair assessment.
Godzilla!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 22:30:35 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <3994E0FB.6ED1E89@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Joel Nelsen wrote:
(snippage)
> > Easy to speak as a victim. Very difficult to
> > speak up when you are a perpetrator, yes?
> She's speaking easy here. Victim?
I am compelled to comment upon this. Well, yes,
it is fairly well known our family has been
victimized by crime perpetrated by a few here.
Not just myself, but rather our family. When
a family member is a victim of crime, her or
his family is also victimized. I should add,
ours is not the first family to be victimized
by crime via this newsgroup. Previous crimes
are as well documented as crimes against us.
Primary difference is, those who were previously
victimized with crime by a _few_ regulars here,
to the best of my knowledge, did not pursue these
crimes through law enforcement. We did and do,
very aggressively, whether a crime is submitting
false documentation or threatening us with crime
via email. Our family practices a zero tolerance
policy regarding not only crime, but hatred as well.
A few here have been taken by surprise, never
expecting our family to escalate their activities
into the realm of crime. We take this seriously.
So yes, a victim. This is very clear. Literally
dozens, if not more, has witnessed some crimes
perpetrated against our family, right here in
this newsgroup. However, this is old news and
not really worth rehash except to say, there
are regulars here who are, in fact, criminals.
Surprisingly, many of these few, never realize,
never know, some of their acts, are unlawful.
My ethics require a pseudo footnote. I am not
speaking of a person convicted of crimes very
long ago. This is unrelated and enough time
has passed, dues have been paid, to afford
gracious forgiveness, but not forgetfulness.
It should also be known, there are many victims
here; victims of hatred in its various forms.
I am not alone and hold compassion for others.
Godzilla!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 05:52:23 GMT
From: "Ben Kennedy" <bkennedy99@home.com>
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <rC5l5.94385$A%3.1302583@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>
"DM" <drawbridge@home.com> wrote in message
news:39947037.905C0883@home.com...
> Why are there so many negative remarks in this newsgroup?
>
> People come here with problems and people come here to help others.
> Some questions may not exactly fit the mold, so then don't answer it.
> Perl has so many uses that many of us peogrammers aren't sure where to
> turn to look for answers. Some users won't know if a question was asked
> before because someone else asked it in the past. Get real, there are
> new Perl users everyday getting stuck on things you once got stuck on.
>
> No one knows EVERYTHING about this language. There is no Wise King
> here. So thank you to all of the helpful ones on this group, and to all
> of the netative unhelpful ones...go look at yourself in the mirror
> because your ego is out of control.
The postings here just don't support your claims. I picked a random day
(Aug 1 this year), and browsed a day of new posts. Nearly every post was
answered, most of them with actual perl code in addition to RTFM answers.
Even off topic posts usually got some kind of productive responces. I would
agree that this is a bad place for newbies who are using this newsgroup as a
substitute for actually reading the docs and the faq. But if you are
actually interested in learning the language, often a RTFM answer is the
best kind.
The only real negativity I see is wrath directed to and from the nameless
troll who claims to be a Perl expert but in actuality knows only the basics
of the langaue. Such is Usenet.
--Ben Kennedy
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 23:52:04 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <3994F414.8610BCEC@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Ben Kennedy wrote:
> DM wrote:
> > Why are there so many negative remarks in this newsgroup?
(snipped)
> The only real negativity I see is wrath directed to and from
> the nameless troll who claims to be a Perl expert but in
> actuality knows only the basics of the langaue. Such is Usenet.
Hilarious! Within the same breath you proclaim this
a nice newsgroup and immediately spew hatred!
This is truly funny, in an exceptionally ignorant way.
hmm... perhaps ignorance is a root cause of hatred.
Oh yes, I routinely post my name, email address and
site address here, sometimes daily. On this nameless
thing, I find humor within such an absolutely stupid,
I mean really stupid lie. However, telling lies does
seem the rule here rather than the exception.
*shrugs*
So, there you have it folks. A classic example of
distasteful deceit, rancid hypocrisy and vile hatred
so abundant here, provided by the man/woman of a
thousand fake faces! So stereotypical, so expected,
so repugnant and so representative of people here,
save for those few good people here without enough
good sense to get out of here, much like myself.
Believe I will sit back and enjoy a good laugh
with what is mostly inane idiocy being posted
within this thread of hypocrisy and deceit.
Godzilla!
--
Turn off your red light Roxanne. I love you.
http://la.znet.com/~callgirl3/roxanne.mid
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 00:19:16 -0700
From: stevel@bluetuna.com (Steve Leibel)
Subject: Re: Negativity in Newsgroup
Message-Id: <stevel-1208000019160001@192.168.100.2>
In article <39948FDD.8842C266@attglobal.net>, care227@attglobal.net wrote:
> No one deserves an answer, straight or otherwise. That questions get
> answered at all is a favor. You are asking for free advice from someone
> who probably usually charges for such things. You are asking for their
> time and their knowlege. And far too often, you (collectively, not
> specifically) are unwilling to give back.
>
Wow, that is exactly the kind of attitude I'm talking about.
I've gotten and given tons of free advice from people on the Net for
years. It's an amazing medium. When I get stuck, I "ask the Net," and
strangers always take time out of their day to share what they know. And
from time to time a question runs across my screen that I know the answer
to, and I pass along what I know.
I reiterate that of all the newsgroups and mailing lists I've ever been
on, comp.lang.perl.misc is the one place where every question is evaluated
in terms of "Are they worthy enough to deserve an answer?" and generally
found lacking. People on this group consistently go out of their way to
demean questioners for not having done sufficient research (in the
responder's opinion) or else point to very general documentation ("perldoc
everything") rather than give a simple straightforward answer. The
general tone is that of irritation at having to be bothered addressing an
inferior life form.
What's strange about this collective snottiness is that it comes out of
the Perl community. I started with Perl4 using what eventually became a
very-well-thumbed-through first edition Camel book. What I liked about
the "Perl philosophy," or maybe the Perl sensibility, was "There's more
than one way to do it." I always took that to indicate a laid-back, let's
get the job done kind of attitude. Maybe you use a clever regexp while I
use a few not-as-clever lines of code to accomplish the same result. But
we're not going to fight over which approach is "better." We both got the
job done, and there's more than one way to do it.
I was away from Perl for a while doing C++ and Java, and now the past few
months I'm on a big Perl5 project. So I'm coming up to speed on the new
syntax and working through Damian Conway's "Object-Oriented Perl" and
reading this newsgroup, and man I am really surprised by the tone of this
group, which was not nearly so unfriendly a few years ago.
Not everybody needs or wants to know every last detail of every last piece
of Perl syntax. And by the way if you haven't noticed, Perl has gotten
some very baroque (Larry likes that word) syntax lately. It's a fulltime
job keeping up with the changes to the language. I caught a little of the
the ANSI Perl discussion, and as I understand it the Perl powers that be
prefer to keep adding features rather than try to standardize and
stabilize what's already there. So it's very reasonable that a lot of
programmers ask questions around here because they do not have the time or
inclination to track every permutation of the language, and where else
would they ask? This is where the experts hang out. And for those of you
who love Perl passionately and want to promote its use, why not take the
opportunity to answer the questions, and impress people with the openness
and helpfulness of the community at the same time?
I do take your point that this is a "discussion group" and not a help
line. But jeez, it's Usenet. Of course people ask questions. What's
different about this group is how difficult it is to get an answer, and
the attitude that you have to wade through to get one.
I challenge everyone in this newsgroup to stop for a moment the next time
you're going to say "read the FAQ" or "Perldoc irrelevant" to an earnest
question, and either A) Give a straightforward specific complete
professional answer, like you would if your professional colleague was
asking you the question; or B) Don't say anything at all.
Do you really think that would be such a threat to the Perl world?
Respectfully,
Steve Leibel
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 14:27:26 +0200
From: "Dominique PLU" <dominique.plu@ifrance.com>
Subject: Re: open, close dial-up connexion under Win32
Message-Id: <8n3fcu$q3s$1@capella.worldonline.fr>
Hello,
Maybe you can launch your connection simply by lauching the shrtcut to
connection for killing, I don't know, I still search because I have to do
the same after a ping if my ADSL connection is lost
Hope someone will help
Dominique PLU
Gorbeast <gorbeast@SPAMSUCKS.subduction.org> a écrit dans le message :
39949B90.FFF7DAD5@SPAMSUCKS.subduction.org...
> Hello,
>
> Does any body know if I can open and close dial-up connections using
> perl
> scripts on my Windows98 computer? If so, do you have any details?
>
>
> Thank you for your time!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:24:48 GMT
From: jason <elephant@squirrelgroup.com>
Subject: Re: Perl/CGI suitable for this?
Message-Id: <MPG.13ffdf78568c1e8b9896aa@localhost>
Dr Stuart McIntyre wrote ..
>Thanks for your reply.
>
>"jason" <elephant@squirrelgroup.com> wrote in message
>news:MPG.13fe6e5b416dcb029896a1@localhost...
>> correct me if I'm wrong .. but the Java part of things is essentially
>> irrelevant to this Perl question .. because you're essentially asking
>>
>> "
>> can a Perl program be called via an SSL encrypted HTTP request over CGI
>> and retrieve a text file from the local filesystem and return the
>> contents of that text file back to the client over the SSL encrypted
>> HTTP socket
>> "
>>
>> to which the answer is yes .. this is trivial
>>
>> if any part of that is incorrect - specifically the "from the local
>> filesystem" ...
>
>I meant an arbitrary (external) url.
ahh .. then (as you may have already discovered) there are a bunch of
helpful modules in the LWP bundle
still quite simple
--
jason -- elephant@squirrelgroup.com --
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 05:58:46 GMT
From: decklin+usenet@red-bean.com (Decklin Foster)
Subject: Re: Pipe on WinNT
Message-Id: <qI5l5.17135$f_5.82428@news1.rdc1.ct.home.com>
Joe Smith <inwap@best.com> writes:
> The call to system() is special; it sets $? on failure (on Unix
> systems).
Actually, it always sets $?. Of course, this value is by convention
(on most systems) 0 when the program suceeds. This is not limited to
Unix; the DOS command interpreter for example has something called
ERRORLEVEL (IIRC; it has been a while).
--
There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. There
are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. -- BSD fortune(6)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 04:17:56 GMT
From: tim@degree.ath.cx (Tim Hammerquist)
Subject: Re: Problems with adding 1
Message-Id: <slrn8p9kj6.jc.tim@degree.ath.cx>
On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:55:12 GMT, jason <elephant@squirrelgroup.com> wrote:
> Tim Hammerquist wrote ..
> >: open HITS, "+< $hitfile" or die "Can't open $hitfile: $!\n";
> >: chomp($hits = <HITS> || 0);
> >: seek HITS, 0, 0;
> >: print HITS ++$hits, "\n";
> >: close HITS or die "Can't close $hitfile: $!\n";
> >
> >and $hits contains the hit count.
>
> you're not showing any locking of that file .. which is kind of
> important with this sort of thing
You're right. My bad. I'm a recovering Micro$oft user, and I never
needed flock on Windoze. Just didn't cross my mind.
--
-Tim Hammerquist <timmy@cpan.org>
Diplomacy -- the art of saying "Nice doggie"
'til you can find a stick.
-- Wynn Catlin
------------------------------
Date: 12 Aug 2000 12:15:48 +0100
From: nobull@mail.com
Subject: Re: Send input to a command line program
Message-Id: <u9zomid923.fsf@wcl-l.bham.ac.uk>
Hendrik.Holtmann@pmnet.uni-oldenburg.de writes:
> I run openssl from a perl-script to sign keys. The openssl needs some
> input (like yes/no) and passphrase which has to be entered by keyboard
> and cannot replaced by parameters. How can I post this input from my
> perl-script to the openssl program. I already tried IPC::Open2, but with
> no luck.
> Anyone has a solution for this?
You should probably look into the Expect module.
--
\\ ( )
. _\\__[oo
.__/ \\ /\@
. l___\\
# ll l\\
###LL LL\\
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 04:56:30 GMT
From: stu265@my-deja.com
Subject: Sort data from text file
Message-Id: <8n2ldt$q75$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
I am new to Perl and am trying to find a solution to a problem.
I have a text file that contains dates with a description and I need to
sort the lines in date order. The follwing is an example of a line of
date, 8/11/2000 - Description. I know I need to split off the date and
create a sort function but I'm not sure the best way to do it. Any
ideas?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 04:54:53 GMT
From: Bob Walton <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Subject: Re: User-defined hash...
Message-Id: <3994D8D0.51BF0FFC@rochester.rr.com>
Scoot wrote:
>
> I want to set an user-defined hash in the client side, this hash should
> be used by other scripts for reference, and it will be stored until the
> browser in the client side is closed.
>
> I don't want to use cookies.
>
> Is there any way to implement this in Perl? Please give me an example of
> it, thanks a lot!
>
> Scoot.S
You could use a tied hash. See
perldoc perltie
Here is how you can tie hash %data to file lpmain.db using the default
DBM-type interface your Perl was compiled for:
dbmopen %data,'lpmain.db',0666 or die "Couldn't open lpmain.db, $!\n";
After that, use %data just like a hash to store non-reference scalar
values. Use
dbmclose %hash;
to break the tie when done. Later on, in another program, or another
instance of the same program, the same data will be available. It makes
a hash "permanent" and also permits the storage of huge hashes without
requiring them to be memory resident. Note that if there is a
possibility more than one program will access the file simultaneously
(like with CGI programs), you will need to use locking to prevent the
file from being corrupted (locking is a very tricky subject). Also note
that many implementations of DBM-style files have size limitations on
keys and values. DB_File is a notable exception, and is recommended.
Finally, note that not every operating system supports every type of
DBM-style file. Also, SDMB doesn't work on FAT/FAT32 file systems on
Windoze (it pretends to work, but some fraction of the keys stored will
not be retrievable). DB_File does work on FAT/FAT32. You should also
carefully read your OS's docs for the DBM-style implmentation you will
be using.
Also, note that references stored in a DBM-tied hash cannot be
successfully retrieved for any useful purpose. For multilevel data
structure storage in DBM-tied hashes, consider the MLDBM module.
If you don't want all these limitations and file locking concerns, you
might consider putting your "permanent" data on a "real" database and
using DBI to access it.
--
Bob Walton
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 09:54:25 GMT
From: jason <elephant@squirrelgroup.com>
Subject: Re: warning/var weirdness (or is it?)
Message-Id: <MPG.13ffbc3a1ffc407e9896a7@localhost>
Ben Kennedy wrote ..
>"jason" <elephant@squirrelgroup.com> wrote in message
>news:MPG.13fdd36f6a6b2b7c989692@localhost...
>>
>> that's a good guess .. but I still see it as a bug .. something like -
>> in order to resolve the ambiguity imposed by the '[' Perl does the wrong
>> thing with the '{}'s which results in them being evaluated in symbolic
>> deref circumstances
>
>I agree that the behavior is inconsistent - but seems to me that the first
>case of ${a} interpreting to the lexical $a is more of a bug. If you insert
>${'a'}, it will act as a symbolic reference, which seems more consistant.
no .. the '{}'s are there just to resolve the delimitation ambiguity ..
it's the same as
my $x = 'abc';
print "${x}d";
and it shouldn't have anything to do with symbolic references
if you wanted ${x}[ to be interpreted as an array element then you'd use
${x[} .. although - clearly that's a syntax error
I can't actually find where the use of {} is documented in the standard
documentation .. but it's NOT solely for creating symbolic references ..
it's also - as I am trying to show - a simple variable delimiter for
lexical as well as package variables
--
jason -- elephant@squirrelgroup.com --
------------------------------
Date: 16 Sep 99 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99)
Message-Id: <null>
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V9 Issue 3996
**************************************