[22090] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 4312 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Wed Dec 25 18:06:16 2002
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 15:05:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Wed, 25 Dec 2002 Volume: 10 Number: 4312
Today's topics:
Re: Autofillin login popup on the web. (R Solberg)
Re: Autofillin login popup on the web. <mgjv@tradingpost.com.au>
Re: File::Find module ; want to resume search from poin (Randal L. Schwartz)
Re: Generalising a function was: Re: how to read(string <marc@nospam.com>
Re: Hash sort <uri@stemsystems.com>
Re: Hash sort <No_Mail_Address@cox.net>
Re: Hash sort <spamtrap@bd-home-comp.no-ip.org>
Re: Hash sort <uri@stemsystems.com>
invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message (steveR)
Re: invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message <eric.ehlers@btopenworld.com.spamoff>
Re: invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message (Tad McClellan)
Is there a perl command equivalent to su - user ? (Mitchell Laks)
Is there something obviously wrong w/ my script? <xaran73@hotmail.com>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Printed string truncated. (Chris Snow)
Re: Printed string truncated. <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Re: Stat() function not working. Kind of... (Jay Tilton)
Re: Stat() function not working. Kind of... (Tad McClellan)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 Dec 2002 22:37:17 -0800
From: flateyjarbok@yahoo.com (R Solberg)
Subject: Re: Autofillin login popup on the web.
Message-Id: <386cc483.0212242237.7b028eac@posting.google.com>
pims.post@hccnet.nl (Pims.post) wrote in message news:<45ae9146.0212240845.1e9f17ee@posting.google.com>...
> Hello,
>
> is it possible to fillin a popup login create from your webbrowser?
> I don't have technical access to the site. But it prompts me for my
> login and password.
> Is there a perl program around which recognizes such login and is able
> to fillin the fields and gets me.
> I'm trying to write an end to end testing program.
>
> Anybody???
>
> regards,
> Pim
Second the request. I would love to see an example that works. I
have used LWP::User Agent without a signon screen but cannot get it to
work with one.
regards, RS
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 20:26:28 +1100
From: Martien Verbruggen <mgjv@tradingpost.com.au>
Subject: Re: Autofillin login popup on the web.
Message-Id: <slrnb0iue4.4tt.mgjv@martien.heliotrope.home>
On 24 Dec 2002 22:37:17 -0800,
R Solberg <flateyjarbok@yahoo.com> wrote:
> pims.post@hccnet.nl (Pims.post) wrote in message news:<45ae9146.0212240845.1e9f17ee@posting.google.com>...
>> Hello,
>>
>> is it possible to fillin a popup login create from your webbrowser?
>> I don't have technical access to the site. But it prompts me for my
>> login and password.
>> Is there a perl program around which recognizes such login and is able
>> to fillin the fields and gets me.
>> I'm trying to write an end to end testing program.
>>
> Second the request. I would love to see an example that works. I
> have used LWP::User Agent without a signon screen but cannot get it to
> work with one.
It depends on how the site authenticates. if it uses standard
authorisation, the lwpcook documentation has example code that shows how
to do it, by using the authorization_basic() method on your
HTTP::Request object. If it uses some HTML form and cookies or other
session IDs, you'll have to keep track of the cookies, or deparse and
reconstruct URLs appropriately.
Martien
--
|
Martien Verbruggen | Useful Statistic: 75% of the people make up
| 3/4 of the population.
|
------------------------------
Date: 25 Dec 2002 09:11:32 -0800
From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: File::Find module ; want to resume search from point of failure.
Message-Id: <86adium3az.fsf@red.stonehenge.com>
>>>>> "Mitchell" == Mitchell Laks <mlaks2000@yahoo.com> writes:
Mitchell> Hi -
Mitchell> Dear Perl Gurus
Mitchell> I am using File::Find to execute a command on the files in a directory
Mitchell> (i call the command &wanted for cultural reasons :) ).
Mitchell> However if an exception is raised, and my search gets aborted, and if
Mitchell> i keep track of what file was acted upon when the search was
Mitchell> cancelled, is there a way to resume the search and execution from the
Mitchell> point of failure and avoid searching through all of the (530,000)
Mitchell> files again from the beginning?
You can do the search as a generator, rather than as a callback,
using the scheme I demonstrate in one of my 160+ magazine articles.
Then when you get an exception, you handle it, and keep going as long
as you haven't reset the iterator.
See <http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/col30.html>.
print "Just another Perl hacker,"
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 22:45:39 +1300
From: "Marcus" <marc@nospam.com>
Subject: Re: Generalising a function was: Re: how to read(string) instead of read(STDIN)?
Message-Id: <aubunj$i58$1@lust.ihug.co.nz>
Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnb0gqkt.hst.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> Marcus <marc@nospam.com> wrote:
> > Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@pandora.be> wrote in message
> > news:fsud0vkoh80q86r9luctmpkms4bie9qr44@4ax.com...
> >> Marcus wrote:
> >>
> >> >I'm trying to make a while loop like this:
> > "while(read(STDIN,$q,$w=3)){...}"
> >> >except I'd like to use a string instead of STDIN.
>
>
> [snipped what Bart wrote]
>
Thank you. Here's the much improved version:
$alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
while(read2($alphabet,$a,$x=3))
{
print $a . $x;
}
print "\n";
while(read2($alphabet,$a,$x=3))
{
print $a . $x;
}
print "\nposition = $position"; # position = blank
print "\nexit = $exit"; # exit = blank
BEGIN {
my $position = 0;
my $exit = 0;
sub read2 {
my ($text,undef, $step) = @_;
if ($exit) {
$position = 0;
$exit = 0;
return undef;
};
if ($step+$position > length($text)) {
$_[1] = substr($text,$position,length($text)-$position);
$exit = 1;
}
elsif ($step+$position eq length($text)) {
$_[1] = substr($text,$position,$step);
$exit = 1;
}
else {
$_[1] = substr($text, $position, $step);
$position += $step;
}
}
}
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 02:21:47 GMT
From: Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: Hash sort
Message-Id: <x7smwmaldx.fsf@mail.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "F" == Fred <No_Mail_Address@cox.net> writes:
>>> "SS" == Steven Smolinski <steven.smolinski@sympatico.ca> writes:
F> (snip)
>> Uri Guttman wrote:
>> (snip)
>> this is the more interesting one liner for printing a hash:
>>
>> print map "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_}\n", sort keys %mailrc;
>>
>> uri
F> But how would I sort the %hash and write it to a @array instead of
F> printing to a file?
just don't print it.
@sorted = map "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_}\n", sort keys %mailrc;
it is easier than you think.
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
----- Stem and Perl Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding ----
Search or Offer Perl Jobs ---------------------------- http://jobs.perl.org
Damian Conway Perl Classes - January 2003 -- http://www.stemsystems.com/class
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 07:14:40 GMT
From: Fred <No_Mail_Address@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Hash sort
Message-Id: <3E095B4C.71E09C3A@cox.net>
Uri Guttman wrote:
>
> >>>>> "F" == Fred <No_Mail_Address@cox.net> writes:
>
> >>> "SS" == Steven Smolinski <steven.smolinski@sympatico.ca> writes:
> F> (snip)
> >> Uri Guttman wrote:
> >> (snip)
> >> this is the more interesting one liner for printing a hash:
> >>
> >> print map "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_}\n", sort keys %mailrc;
> >>
> >> uri
>
> F> But how would I sort the %hash and write it to a @array instead of
> F> printing to a file?
>
> just don't print it.
>
> @sorted = map "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_}\n", sort keys %mailrc;
>
> it is easier than you think.
>
> uri
Yes, that is much easier than I had imagined ...
---
Fred
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 17:19:26 GMT
From: bd <spamtrap@bd-home-comp.no-ip.org>
Subject: Re: Hash sort
Message-Id: <i3pcua-fld.ln@ID-151211.user.cis.dfn.de>
Fred wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> I have a hash:
> $mailrc{$name} = $address ;
>
> I know how to sort and print it with a foreach-loop:
>
> foreach (sort keys %mailrc) {
> print "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_} \n" ;
> }
>
> But I cannot find a way to sort and print it using a while loop:
>
> while ( ($name,$address) = each %mailrc ) {
> print "$name \t\t $address \n" ;
> }
>
> Is it possible to sort and print a hash using a while loop?
Why not use:
foreach my $name (sort keys %mailrc){
print "$name \t\t $mailrc{$name} \n";
}
--
Replace spamtrap with bd to reply.
What are YOU doing to oppose the Microsoft Juggernaut?
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 20:44:20 GMT
From: Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: Hash sort
Message-Id: <x7lm2dakws.fsf@mail.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "b" == bd <spamtrap@bd-home-comp.no-ip.org> writes:
b> Fred wrote:
>> foreach (sort keys %mailrc) {
>> print "$_ \t\t $mailrc{$_} \n" ;
>> }
>>
b> Why not use:
b> foreach my $name (sort keys %mailrc){
b> print "$name \t\t $mailrc{$name} \n";
b> }
because it is the same as the OP's original for loop but with a named
variable instead of $_.
he wanted a while loop variant and he got some good answers.
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
----- Stem and Perl Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding ----
Search or Offer Perl Jobs ---------------------------- http://jobs.perl.org
Damian Conway Perl Classes - January 2003 -- http://www.stemsystems.com/class
------------------------------
Date: 25 Dec 2002 04:09:00 -0800
From: steve@richsoft.fsbusiness.co.uk (steveR)
Subject: invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message
Message-Id: <b4667172.0212250409.162ff064@posting.google.com>
hi, when I run labelnation.pl on SuSE 8.1 (perl 5.8) (standard
installation)
I get the following error messages:
labelnation.pl: line 27: use: command not found
labelnation.pl: line 31: my: command not found
the above line is repeated until:
labelnation.pl: line 54: syntax error near unexpected token '('
labelnation.pl: line 54: '$Version =~ s/\S+\s\+(\S+)\s+\S+/$1/;'
In the distant passed I have had this script running on FreeBSD - so I
am at a loss to see why it will not work now.
ps. I do not understand the first three line of this script
it seems to suggest that various shells can run it!!
any help greatfully appreciated - Steve
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 12:38:54 +0000 (UTC)
From: "eric" <eric.ehlers@btopenworld.com.spamoff>
Subject: Re: invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message
Message-Id: <auc8su$833$1@helle.btinternet.com>
"steveR" <steve@richsoft.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote in message
news:b4667172.0212250409.162ff064@posting.google.com...
> hi, when I run labelnation.pl on SuSE 8.1 (perl 5.8) (standard
> installation)
> I get the following error messages:
> labelnation.pl: line 27: use: command not found
> labelnation.pl: line 31: my: command not found
> the above line is repeated until:
> labelnation.pl: line 54: syntax error near unexpected token '('
> labelnation.pl: line 54: '$Version =~ s/\S+\s\+(\S+)\s+\S+/$1/;'
>
> In the distant passed I have had this script running on FreeBSD - so I
> am at a loss to see why it will not work now.
>
> ps. I do not understand the first three line of this script
> it seems to suggest that various shells can run it!!
what are the first three lines of the script? it looks to me as if the
commands in the perl script are being executed by something other than a
perl interpreter. normally the first line of the script would be something
like
#!/usr/bin/perl
is perl installed properly? to test for the line above you could do
"/usr/bin/perl -v" at the command line.
instead of running "labelnation.pl", first try using the same mechanism to
run a one-line "hello world" perl script.
eric
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 07:32:04 -0600
From: tadmc@augustmail.com (Tad McClellan)
Subject: Re: invoking labelnation.pl - unknown error message
Message-Id: <slrnb0jcqk.3l7.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com>
steveR <steve@richsoft.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote:
> hi, when I run labelnation.pl on SuSE 8.1 (perl 5.8) (standard
> installation)
What is labelnation.pl?
> I get the following error messages:
> labelnation.pl: line 27: use: command not found
> labelnation.pl: line 31: my: command not found
Those messages are not from perl, you can tell because they
do not appear in perldiag.pod.
They are shell error messages.
> In the distant passed I have had this script running on FreeBSD - so I
> am at a loss to see why it will not work now.
perl is probably installed in a different place.
> ps. I do not understand the first three line of this script
If you show us the first 3 lines of that script, then we might
be able to help debug it.
Debugging unseen code is Really Hard. :-)
> it seems to suggest that various shells can run it!!
Apparently so, since you are getting messages from the shell.
Since you didn't give us the code, we can only guess what is happening:
1) there is no shebang (#!) line, so the file is fed to the
default interpreter, such as /bin/sh
2) the program uses the chicanery described in perlrun.pod in
an attempt to run perl without knowing where perl is installed.
> any help greatfully appreciated - Steve
Either:
1) invoke without using the shebang line:
perl labelnation.pl
or:
2) modify the program with a shebang line appropriate for your system:
#!/usr/bin/perl
try "which perl" or "whereis perl" to find out what is appropriate
for your system.
--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas
------------------------------
Date: 25 Dec 2002 14:08:23 -0800
From: mlaks2000@yahoo.com (Mitchell Laks)
Subject: Is there a perl command equivalent to su - user ?
Message-Id: <ab3b13db.0212251408.230ced50@posting.google.com>
Is there a perl command equivalent to su - user ?
I am configuring many linux computers and automating the process with
perl.
I can do it - but perhaps there is "another way to do it" thats
prettier.
Some of the setup steps are done as root, and some (that involve a
postgresql database) can not be done as root, rather as a regular
user.
So i have to effectively do
task1(); # as root
su - postgresuser
task2(); #as nonroot postgresuser
#change back to root
taks3(); #as root
...
with many iterations of the above.
i am able to do it using the following trick
I create multiple perl scripts: scripts.pl, scripts1.pl, scripts2.pl
etc and
i run them from my main script : which is run as root:
...
open (PIP,"|su - postgresuer);
print PIP "/script2.pl";
close (PIP);
...
essentially i am using the shell to run the different scripts.
But I would like to make those separate scripts just functions
(subroutines) within the main script - it would be more elegant, and
easier to maintain. My code looks like spagetti at present, with calls
to different shell files. Is it possible?
Mitchell
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 22:53:43 GMT
From: "C:\\" <xaran73@hotmail.com>
Subject: Is there something obviously wrong w/ my script?
Message-Id: <Xns92EFF3117A96Fxaran73hotmailcom@195.67.237.51>
Script (count.pl):
$FileToGet = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
$FileToGet =~ s/^\//http:\/\/$ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}\//g;
print "Location:$FileToGet\n\n";
Simple, right?
I point a browser to the script:
/cgi-bin/count.pl?/files/file.zip
and file.zip is supposed to appear for download.
Problem:
_Some_ files refuses to work. Instead, I get a download of count.pl
It works if I:
A) Move count.pl to anoter folder, say /cgi-bin/counter/count.pl
B) Change name for the "problem file(s)": CTemp30.zip -> CTemp31.zip
My system is Apache 2.0.43 and ActivePerl 5.6, on WinXPP
Ideas?
--
C:\Magnus
God jul!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 16:45:27 -0600
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.2 $)
Message-Id: <DV2dnU9UCvqaqJejXTWcqw@august.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.2 $)
This newsgroup, commonly called clpmisc, is a technical newsgroup
intended to be used for discussion of Perl related issues (except job
postings), whether it be comments or questions.
As you would expect, clpmisc discussions are usually very technical in
nature and there are conventions for conduct in technical newsgroups
going somewhat beyond those in non-technical newsgroups.
This article describes things that you should, and should not, do to
increase your chances of getting an answer to your Perl question. It is
available in POD, HTML and plain text formats at:
http://mail.augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc.shtml
For more information about netiquette in general, see the "Netiquette
Guidelines" at:
http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/rfc/rfc1855.html
A note to newsgroup "regulars":
Please do not use the existence of these guidelines as a
"license to flame" or other meanness. It is possible that
a poster is not aware of the things discussed here. Let's
give them the benefit of the doubt, and just help them learn
how to post, rather than assume that they do know and are
being the "bad kind" of Lazy.
A note about technical terms used here:
In this document, we use words like "must" and "should" in the
very precise sense that they're used in technical conversation
(such as you're likely to encounter in this newsgroup). When
we say that you *must* do something, we mean that if you don't
do that something, then it's very unlikely that you're going to
get much benefit from using this group. We're not trying to boss
you around; we're just trying to convey the point without using
a lot of words.
Do *NOT* send email to the maintainer of these guidelines. It will be
discarded unread. The guidelines belong to the newsgroup so all
discussion should appear in the newsgroup. I am just the secretary that
writes down the consensus of the group.
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
This section describes things that you *must* do before posting to
clpmisc, in order to maximize your chances of getting meaningful replies
to your inquiry and to avoid getting flamed for being lazy and trying to
have others do your work.
The perl distribution includes documentation that is copied to your hard
drive when you install perl. Also installed is a program for looking
things up in that (and other) documentation named 'perldoc'.
You should either find out where the docs got installed on your system,
or use perldoc to find them for you. Type "perldoc perldoc" to learn how
to use perldoc itself. Type "perldoc perl" to start reading Perl's
standard documentation.
Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Checking the FAQ before posting is required in Big 8 newsgroups in
general, there is nothing clpmisc-specific about this requirement.
You are expected to do this in nearly all newsgroups.
You can use the "-q" switch with perldoc to do a word search of the
questions in the Perl FAQs.
Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
The perl distribution comes with much more documentation than is
available for most other newsgroups, so in clpmisc you should also
see if you can find an answer in the other (non-FAQ) standard docs
before posting.
It is *not* required, or even expected, that you actually *read* all of
Perl's standard docs, only that you spend a few minutes searching them
before posting.
Try doing a word-search in the standard docs for some words/phrases
taken from your problem statement or from your very carefully worded
"Subject:" header.
Really Really Should
This section describes things that you *really should* do before posting
to clpmisc.
Lurk for a while before posting
This is very important and is expected regardless of what newsgroup
you are visiting. Lurking means to simply monitor a newsgroup for a
period of time until you become very familiar with local customs.
Think of a newsgroup as foreign culture. Each newsgroup has its own
specific customs and rituals. Get to know those customs and rituals
well before you participate. This will help you to avoid
embarrassing social situations. Consider yourself to be a foreigner
at first!
Search a Usenet archive
There are tens of thousands of Perl programmers. It is very likely
that your question has already been asked (and answered). See if you
can find where it has already been answered.
One such searchable archive is:
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
If You Like
This section describes things that you *can* do before posting to
clpmisc.
Check Other Resources
You may want to check in books or on web sites to see if you can
find the answer to your question.
But you need to consider the source of such information: there are a
lot of very poor Perl books and web sites, and several good ones
too, of course.
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
There can be 200 messages in clpmisc in a single day. Nobody is going to
read every article. They must decide somehow which articles they are
going to read, and which they will skip.
Your post is in competition with 199 other posts. You need to "win"
before a person who can help you will even read your question.
These sections describe how you can help keep your article from being
one of the "skipped" ones.
Is there a better place to ask your question?
Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
It can be difficult to separate out where your problem really is,
but you should make a conscious effort to post to the most
applicable newsgroup. That is, after all, where you are the most
likely to find the people who know how to answer your question.
Being able to "partition" a problem is an essential skill for
effectively troubleshooting programming problems. If you don't get
that right, you end up looking for answers in the wrong places.
It should be understood that you may not know that the root of your
problem is not Perl-related (the two most frequent ones are CGI and
Operating System related), so off-topic postings will happen from
time to time. Be gracious when someone helps you find a better place
to ask your question by pointing you to a more applicable newsgroup.
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
You have 40 precious characters of Subject to win out and be one of
the posts that gets read. Don't waste them. Take care while
composing them, they are the key that opens the door to getting an
answer.
Spend them indicating what aspect of Perl others will find if they
should decide to read your article.
Do not spend them indicating "experience level" (guru, newbie...).
Do not spend them pleading (please read, urgent, help!...).
Do not spend them on non-Subjects (Perl question, one-word
Subject...)
For more information on choosing a Subject see "Choosing Good
Subject Lines":
http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/authors/Dean_Roehrich/subjects.post
Part of the beauty of newsgroup dynamics, is that you can contribute
to the community with your very first post! If your choice of
Subject leads a fellow Perler to find the thread you are starting,
then even asking a question helps us all.
Use an effective followup style
When composing a followup, quote only enough text to establish the
context for the comments that you will add. Always indicate who
wrote the quoted material. Never quote an entire article. Never
quote a .signature (unless that is what you are commenting on).
Intersperse your comments *following* the sections of quoted text
that your comments apply to. Failure to do this is called "Jeopardy"
posting because the answer comes before the question.
Reversing the chronology of the dialog makes it much harder to
understand (some folks won't even read it if written in that style).
For more information on quoting style, see:
http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/nquote.html
Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
Perl is much more precise than natural language. Saying it in Perl
instead will avoid misunderstanding your question or problem.
Do not say: I have variable with "foo\tbar" in it.
Instead say: I have $var = "foo\tbar", or I have $var = 'foo\tbar',
or I have $var = <DATA> (and show the data line).
Ask perl to help you
You can ask perl itself to help you find common programming mistakes
by doing two things: enable warnings (perldoc warnings) and enable
"strict"ures (perldoc strict).
You should not bother the hundreds/thousands of readers of the
newsgroup without first seeing if a machine can help you find your
problem. It is demeaning to be asked to do the work of a machine. It
will annoy the readers of your article.
You can look up any of the messages that perl might issue to find
out what the message means and how to resolve the potential mistake
(perldoc perldiag). If you would like perl to look them up for you,
you can put "use diagnostics;" near the top of your program.
Do not re-type Perl code
Use copy/paste or your editor's "import" function rather than
attempting to type in your code. If you make a typo you will get
followups about your typos instead of about the question you are
trying to get answered.
Provide enough information
If you do the things in this item, you will have an Extremely Good
chance of getting people to try and help you with your problem!
These features are a really big bonus toward your question winning
out over all of the other posts that you are competing with.
First make a short (less than 20-30 lines) and *complete* program
that illustrates the problem you are having. People should be able
to run your program by copy/pasting the code from your article. (You
will find that doing this step very often reveals your problem
directly. Leading to an answer much more quickly and reliably than
posting to Usenet.)
Describe *precisely* the input to your program. Also provide example
input data for your program. If you need to show file input, use the
__DATA__ token (perldata.pod) to provide the file contents inside of
your Perl program.
Show the output (including the verbatim text of any messages) of
your program.
Describe how you want the output to be different from what you are
getting.
If you have no idea at all of how to code up your situation, be sure
to at least describe the 2 things that you *do* know: input and
desired output.
Do not provide too much information
Do not just post your entire program for debugging. Most especially
do not post someone *else's* entire program.
Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
clpmisc is a text only newsgroup. If you have images or binaries
that explain your question, put them in a publically accessible
place (like a Web server) and provide a pointer to that location. If
you include code, cut and paste it directly in the message body.
Don't attach anything to the message. Don't post vcards or HTML.
Many people (and even some Usenet servers) will automatically filter
out such messages. Many people will not be able to easily read your
post. Plain text is something everyone can read.
Social faux pas to avoid
The first two below are symptoms of lots of FAQ asking here in clpmisc.
It happens so often that folks will assume that it is happening yet
again. If you have looked but not found, or found but didn't understand
the docs, say so in your article.
Asking a Frequently Asked Question
It should be understood that you may have missed the applicable FAQ
when you checked, which is not a big deal. But if the Frequently
Asked Question is worded similar to your question, folks will assume
that you did not look at all. Don't become indignant at pointers to
the FAQ, particularly if it solves your problem.
Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
If folks think you have not even tried the obvious step of reading
the docs applicable to your problem, they are likely to become
annoyed.
If you are flamed for not checking when you *did* check, then just
shrug it off (and take the answer that you got).
Asking for emailed answers
Emailed answers benefit one person. Posted answers benefit the
entire community. If folks can take the time to answer your
question, then you can take the time to go get the answer in the
same place where you asked the question.
It is OK to ask for a *copy* of the answer to be emailed, but many
will ignore such requests anyway. If you munge your address, you
should never expect (or ask) to get email in response to a Usenet
post.
Ask the question here, get the answer here (maybe).
Beware of saying "doesn't work"
This is a "red flag" phrase. If you find yourself writing that,
pause and see if you can't describe what is not working without
saying "doesn't work". That is, describe how it is not what you
want.
Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
A "stealth Cc" is when you both email and post a reply without
indicating *in the body* that you are doing so.
Be extra cautious when you get upset
Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
This is recommended in all Usenet newsgroups. Here in clpmisc, most
flaming sub-threads are not about any feature of Perl at all! They
are most often for what was seen as a breach of netiquette. If you
have lurked for a bit, then you will know what is expected and won't
make such posts in the first place.
But if you get upset, wait a while before writing your followup. I
recommend waiting at least 30 minutes.
Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
After you have written your followup, wait *another* 30 minutes
before committing yourself by posting it. You cannot take it back
once it has been said.
AUTHOR
Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com> and many others on the
comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
------------------------------
Date: 25 Dec 2002 06:38:01 -0800
From: chris_snow@bigfoot.com (Chris Snow)
Subject: Printed string truncated.
Message-Id: <7d4d966c.0212250638.2f826f47@posting.google.com>
All,
If I assign the output of a command to a scalar variable then print
that scalar variable to the screen the output is truncated.
eg
$string = `somecommand -last 100`;
print $string;
(data protection forbids that I post the output or the command! Sorry.
But suffice to say it gives me the last 100 records of a log file)
How do I stop Perl doing that?
Chris.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 15:37:02 GMT
From: Bob Walton <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Printed string truncated.
Message-Id: <3E09D06F.7010607@rochester.rr.com>
Chris Snow wrote:
...
> If I assign the output of a command to a scalar variable then print
> that scalar variable to the screen the output is truncated.
>
> eg
>
> $string = `somecommand -last 100`;
> print $string;
>
> (data protection forbids that I post the output or the command! Sorry.
> But suffice to say it gives me the last 100 records of a log file)
>
> How do I stop Perl doing that?
>
> Chris.
>
Perl won't do that, but your command display window might if the file
has the wrong set of control characters in it. You might try deleting
all control characters and see how you make out. Something like [untested]:
$string=~y/\000-\037//d;
--
Bob Walton
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 21:06:16 GMT
From: tiltonj@erols.com (Jay Tilton)
Subject: Re: Stat() function not working. Kind of...
Message-Id: <3e0a1ac5.67250877@news.erols.com>
schuckm@emigrant.com (Mac) wrote:
: Thank you "purl guru" that fixed the problem. Tad go jump in a lake, dickhead.
The one who rewrote your program by prepending the path onto the
filename gets thanked.
The one who showed you the pertinent sentence in the documentation
("you'd better prepend the directory...") gets slapped in the face.
Identical advices, differing only in the amount of work left for you
to do on your own.
Thanks for the laugh. Good luck with your future Perl endeavors.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 16:46:03 -0600
From: tadmc@augustmail.com (Tad McClellan)
Subject: Re: Stat() function not working. Kind of...
Message-Id: <slrnb0kd9b.43e.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com>
Jay Tilton <tiltonj@erols.com> wrote:
> schuckm@emigrant.com (Mac) wrote:
>
>: Thank you "purl guru" that fixed the problem. Tad go jump in a lake, dickhead.
Oh my.
I didn't even see that followup since:
1) is was a (TOFU'd) followup to itself rather than to
the dickhead's post that he was commenting on.
2) he'd already been scored down some for the programming
equivalent of signing a contract without reading it.
> Identical advices,
The identical part of the advice is only of passing importance,
as it only helped with this one problem.
The first sentence of my followup would have helped with many
future problems, as well as with just the problem de jure.
> Good luck with your future Perl endeavors.
It appears that some folks prefer to remain needy rather than
become more self-sufficient. <shrug>
--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 4312
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