[22185] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 4406 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Wed Jan 15 09:05:41 2003
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 06:05:09 -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, 15 Jan 2003 Volume: 10 Number: 4406
Today's topics:
Re: ActiveState's perl compiler errors or warning? (Ed Kastenmeier)
Re: ActiveState's perl compiler errors or warning? <tassilo.parseval@post.rwth-aachen.de>
Re: Debugging help <junk_nntp@hoopajoo.net>
Re: Flushing the Output Stream (Helgi Briem)
Re: Image::Magick for Activestate 5.8.0 (Win32) <ron@savage.net.au>
Re: Need Help <psinghp@emirates.net.ae>
newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one) <olafdonk@wanadoo.nl>
Re: newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one) <josef.moellers@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Re: newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one) <hazelbigfoot@gmx.net>
Re: parsing problem <fm_duendeBASURA@yahoo.com>
perl and the genome project <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Re: perl and the genome project <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Re: perl and the genome project <uri@stemsystems.com>
Re: perl and the genome project <chad@vellum.demon.co.uk>
Re: perl and the genome project <simon.andrews@bbsrc.ac.uk>
Re: Perl command line processing, Windows/dos style ? <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 14 Jan 2003 22:25:10 -0800
From: jsmirn@hotmail.com (Ed Kastenmeier)
Subject: Re: ActiveState's perl compiler errors or warning?
Message-Id: <1b5f07f8.0301142225.40f8bf98@posting.google.com>
Mark Seger <mark.seger@hp.com> wrote in message news:<3E248906.628CA44E@hp.com>...
> I recently downloaded a trial copy of the developers kit to try out the
> program that turns a perl script into a 'freestanding' program you can
> run on any system even if it doesn't have perl on it. The only problem
> is when I try to build something using a module that I had to load, I
> get errors about case mismatches. For example, the following showed up
> when trying to use Dave Roth's EventLog::Message module. The thing to
> note is the resultant program seemed to run fine making me this this is
> more of a warning than an error, but in any event I'd sure like to know
> what is really going on so I could work around it. I don't feel too
> comfortable seeing this kind of thing and the documentation wasn't very
> helpful...
>
> Here's my 2 line script, bug.pl (if I just use EventLog, it doesn't
> generate any errors):
>
> use Win32::EventLog;
> use Win32::EventLog::Message;
>
> and here's what happened when I try to compile it:
>
> D:\test>perlapp bug.pl
> PerlApp 5.0.3 build 503
> Copyright (C) 1998-2002 ActiveState Corp. All rights reserved.
> Evaluation license for Mark Seger <mark.seger@hp.com> (Expires:
> 2003-01-23)
>
> Win32\EventLog\Message.pm:
> error: Case mismatch between module and file name
> refby: bug.pl
> file: C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.PM
> auto\Win32\EventLog\Message\Message.dll:
> error: Case mismatch between module and file name
> refby: C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.PM
> file: C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Win32\EventLog\Message\Message.DLL
>
> -mark
Maybe Indigostar's compiler works.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jan 2003 06:40:45 GMT
From: "Tassilo v. Parseval" <tassilo.parseval@post.rwth-aachen.de>
Subject: Re: ActiveState's perl compiler errors or warning?
Message-Id: <b02vpd$bts$1@nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE>
Also sprach Mark Seger:
> I recently downloaded a trial copy of the developers kit to try out the
> program that turns a perl script into a 'freestanding' program you can
> run on any system even if it doesn't have perl on it. The only problem
> is when I try to build something using a module that I had to load, I
> get errors about case mismatches. For example, the following showed up
> when trying to use Dave Roth's EventLog::Message module. The thing to
> note is the resultant program seemed to run fine making me this this is
> more of a warning than an error, but in any event I'd sure like to know
> what is really going on so I could work around it. I don't feel too
> comfortable seeing this kind of thing and the documentation wasn't very
> helpful...
>
> Here's my 2 line script, bug.pl (if I just use EventLog, it doesn't
> generate any errors):
>
> use Win32::EventLog;
> use Win32::EventLog::Message;
>
> and here's what happened when I try to compile it:
>
> D:\test>perlapp bug.pl
> PerlApp 5.0.3 build 503
> Copyright (C) 1998-2002 ActiveState Corp. All rights reserved.
> Evaluation license for Mark Seger <mark.seger@hp.com> (Expires:
> 2003-01-23)
>
> Win32\EventLog\Message.pm:
> error: Case mismatch between module and file name
> refby: bug.pl
> file: C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.PM
> auto\Win32\EventLog\Message\Message.dll:
> error: Case mismatch between module and file name
> refby: C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.PM
> file: C:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Win32\EventLog\Message\Message.DLL
Since Win32 filesystems are case insensitive it shouldn't do any harm to
rename the files mentioned above with an uppercase extension (.PM and
.DLL). 'C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.PM' becomes
'C:\Perl\site\lib\Win32\EventLog\Message.pm' and so on. I suspect that
perlapp inspects %INC and finds some discrapencies between the files
listed therein and their actual case on disk.
Tassilo
--
$_=q!",}])(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus;})(rekcah{lrePbus;})(lreP{rehtonabus;})(rehtona{tsuJbus!;
$_=reverse;s/sub/(reverse"bus").chr(32)/xge;tr~\n~~d;eval;
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:12:30 -0800
From: Steve Slaven <junk_nntp@hoopajoo.net>
Subject: Re: Debugging help
Message-Id: <v29uuejms4uk50@corp.supernews.com>
vineyard wrote:
> I am trying to debug a problem with a perl script running on Solaris 8
> (with perl 5.8, not the Sun version). The script runs as a daemon. A
> master copy of the script forks off other copies, which then perform
> a variety of tasks before ending. Periodically, I'll take a look at the
> process table and notice that a bunch of the forked copies
> have hung. Typically, if I do a truss, the copy will say that it's
> reading.
>
> What makes this difficult to debug is that the hung copies may be doing
> one of a wide variety of things. Basically, each copy pulls instance
> information from a database, builds an object and then runs an object
> method based on the instance information. I am trying to figure out what
> exactly which method the script is hanging on, as well as the parameters
> used.
>
> The condensed version is like this:
>
> use strict;
> my $params = get_info();
> my $obj = new Obj(%$params);
> my $method = $params->{"method"};
> $obj->$method;
>
> I'd give more, but it's fairly complex and I'm reasonably certain that
> it's hanging within the methods (based on previous debugging--i.e.,
> it runs fine for extended periods of time with the same method). I had a
> similar problem before, which I believe was related to an IO::Socket
> timeout problem.
>
> I'm having trouble identifying where they're hanging. I have it logging, but
> unfortunately the only clue it doesn't write after they're hanging. I have
> a wrapper around the main loop so that if it crashes I'll know about it,
> but it is a real pain to figure out what's going on when it just hangs.
>
> So: can anyone suggest a better debugging strategy? Ideally, I'd like to
> send it a signal and have it dump out the method and all the parameters. I
> am trying something like this to at least get the method name:
>
> use strict;
>
> my $i = 0;
> my $method = '';
> while (1) {
> $i++;
> run_method($i);
> }
> }
>
> sub run_method {
> $method = shift;
> print "Running method $method\n";
> $SIG{'HUP'} = \&dump_it;
> sleep 1;
> }
>
> sub dump_it {
> die "DUMPING METHOD: $method\n";
> }
>
> But that doesn't work unless I put $method in the global scope, which I
> don't think I want to do (and would also require the parameters to be
> global), and I can't pass dump_it() any parameters without it running
> right there and then (which is, ah, inconvenient).
>
> Replies to the group, please, so Google will preserve my stupidity for
> posterity.
Something you could do is map the signal to do a cluck to a file,
something like:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Carp qw( cluck );
use strict;
$SIG{ USR1 } = \&dumpit;
while( 1 ) {
warn( "looping" );
doit();
}
sub doit {
sleep( 10 );
}
sub dumpit {
local *SAVEERR=*STDERR;
open( STDERR, ">/tmp/dump.$$" );
cluck( "Dump" );
close( STDERR );
*STDERR = *SAVEERR;
}
And you'll get something like:
Dump at ./server line 19
main::dumpit('USR1') called at ./server line 13
main::doit() called at ./server line 9
In the file. I used USR1 so you could kill -USR1 it, and save HUP for a
graceful shutdown if you want. This will give you a stack dump in
/tmp/dump.PID that you can look at, and preserve STDERR for other uses.
I don't think you're supposed to do lots of stuff in a signal handler,
but since you are debugging it shouldn't be a problem, and in production
I would assume the signal would never get called unless there was
already a problem, so it can't get any worse. :)
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than to open it and remove all doubt."
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Steve Slaven - http://hoopajoo.net
MIS Programmer, Horizon Distribution - http://horizondistribution.com
Office: (509) 453-3181 x 254 / Fax: (509) 457-5769
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:28:45 GMT
From: helgi@decode.is (Helgi Briem)
Subject: Re: Flushing the Output Stream
Message-Id: <3e2537c6.977149046@news.cis.dfn.de>
On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 10:41:44 -0800, Chucky
<chuck.carson@syrrx.com> wrote:
>Much thanks kind sir. Actually used less bandwidth than the
>other nitwit who replied.
*plonk*. So long, nitwit.
--
Regards, Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:46:29 +1100
From: "Ron Savage" <ron@savage.net.au>
Subject: Re: Image::Magick for Activestate 5.8.0 (Win32)
Message-Id: <b033ms$2boo$1@arachne.labyrinth.net.au>
Eric
Go to the ImageMagick mailing list archives, eg via
http://savage.net.au/ImageMagick.html
and search for my post of 12-Dec-2002.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:04:45 +0400
From: Dr P Singh <psinghp@emirates.net.ae>
Subject: Re: Need Help
Message-Id: <3E25323D.6C523D5A@emirates.net.ae>
Jay Tilton wrote:
> Dr P Singh <psinghp@emirates.net.ae> wrote:
>
> : Subject: Need Help
>
> That's a perfectly abysmal choice for the subject line. Except in a
> most broadly generic sense, it's not what the article is about.
yes, I could have been more specific but found difficult to describe the problem on
subject line.
Thank you for being very kind and helpful.
>
>
> I had noticed this article earlier, but I deferred replying. Then I
> couldn't find it again because the subject has nothing to do with
> anything. Found it again only by accident.
>
> : Hi every one. I took this code snippet from active perl(5.8) and ran it with
> : little modification. I have two problem with this code.
> :
> : (1) I get this warning message "Constant Subroutine emptyenum redefined at
> : c:/site/lib/win32/ole/constant.pm line 65535. I get a lot of this message.
The actual message is like this. I could not cut and paste so to type, missed the
'perl/' bit in the process.
c:/perl/site/lib/win32/ole/constant.pm line 65535.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> That feels so very wrong.
>
> Are the Perl site libraries really hanging off c:\ like that?
>
> I'm familiar with Win32::OLE::Const, but I've never seen
> Win32::OLE::Constant. Where did that constant.pm file come from?
It is from the file C|/Perl/html/faq/Windows/ActivePerl-Winfaq12.html.
Have a look into section "How do I print a Microsoft Word document?"
>
>
> : (2) Though the code runs fine after these message, I get a printer popup asking
> : for the pdf file name.
>
> If there is a way to do that, it should be described in the
> documentation for either Word or Acrobat PDFWriter.
>
> As a rule, even though OLE can be done with Perl, it's not a Perl
> problem. Posting to a newsgroup dealing specifically with OLE, like
> say microsoft.public.vb.ole.automation, would give a better chance of
> getting a good answer. If you can lay hands on some VBA code, it can
> be easily rewritten in Perl.
I did try to record a macro in word XP and rerun the macro only to get error.
I have the macro.
>
>
> For a guess, from looking at the Printout method in Word help, the
> "PrintToFile" and "OutputFileName" arguments look promising.
I did try that but it pops up another window asking for file name.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:10:39 +0100
From: olaf <olafdonk@wanadoo.nl>
Subject: newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one)
Message-Id: <pan.2003.01.15.14.10.39.448405.1337@wanadoo.nl>
Hi all,
i want to create a 8x8 array of buttons, but I'm having trouble
understanding the pack manager. If anybody has a suggestion...
And as for the stupid question: In order to solve my riddle myself I'm
reading the Tk::UserGuide. It strongly recommends running the widget demo
but I can't find the thing. Is it part of the standard Perl/Tk
distribution? Does anybody know were to find it?
Thanks for any help, if I'm asking at the wrong place (I'm aware of
c.l.p.tk, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of traffic...) or should do
more homework before bothering you, just say so ;-)
Olaf
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:48:02 +0100
From: Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?= <josef.moellers@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Subject: Re: newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one)
Message-Id: <3E256692.F6A51686@fujitsu-siemens.com>
olaf wrote:
> =
> Hi all,
> =
> i want to create a 8x8 array of buttons, but I'm having trouble
> understanding the pack manager. If anybody has a suggestion...
As usual, TMTOWTDI:
1. you can create a vertical frame of horizontal frames of buttons. Pack
the bittons -side=3Dleft and the horizontal frames -side=3Dtop.
Disadvantage: the buttons will, in general, have different sizes.
2. you can use the grid manager: man Tk::grid, e.g. $button->grid(-row
=3D> $row, -column =3D> $col);
HTH,
Josef
-- =
Josef M=F6llers (Pinguinpfleger bei FSC)
If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize
-- T. Pratchett
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:58:37 +0100
From: Jens Hoehne <hazelbigfoot@gmx.net>
Subject: Re: newbie: Tk questions (a sensible and a stupid one)
Message-Id: <3E25771D.D6F50E77@gmx.net>
olaf wrote:
>
[...]
> And as for the stupid question: In order to solve my riddle myself I'm
> reading the Tk::UserGuide. It strongly recommends running the widget demo
> but I can't find the thing. Is it part of the standard Perl/Tk
> distribution? Does anybody know were to find it?
For me it is simply typing 'widget' in a shell and whops - there it is.
Took me a while though to figure this out, too.
Regards,
Jens
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:46:49 GMT
From: monkeys paw <fm_duendeBASURA@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: parsing problem
Message-Id: <ZKcV9.83174$3v.14434@sccrnsc01>
Uri Guttman wrote:
>>>>>> "mp" == monkeys paw <fm_duendeBASURA@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> mp> Thanks Uri, works like a champ!
>
> but heed all the other advice you got here. Date::Manip can handle that
> format already and when building large regexes, it is best to build them
> from smaller pieces with qr//.
>
> uri
>
Yes, the reason the string i'm parsing looks so
familiar is that the parsing i am doing is just
to pick up additional tokens (not shown in the post)
before i run the string thru Date::Manip. Eventually,
when i get the base cases down, i'll be filter a wider
array of strings into something Date::Manip can
handle.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jan 2003 07:09:02 +0000
From: Joe Mc Cool <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Subject: perl and the genome project
Message-Id: <863cnuyjn5.fsf@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Please,
lurking in this newsgroup and google searches lead me to believe that
Perl is being used quite a bit in the genome project. Where can I get
an overview of its use there ?
I have to write a newspaper article - so I need material for the
general reader, not nitty gritties.
Thanks.
--
Joe Mc Cool
========================================================================
Tangent Computer Research BT71 7LN (www.tangent-research.com)
voice:(44)2837-548074fax:(44)-870-0520185 The more you say the less the better.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jan 2003 07:20:50 +0000
From: Joe Mc Cool <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: perl and the genome project
Message-Id: <86y95mx4j1.fsf@benburb.demon.co.uk>
Joe Mc Cool <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Please,
>
> lurking in this newsgroup and google searches lead me to believe that
> Perl is being used quite a bit in the genome project. Where can I get
> an overview of its use there ?
>
> I have to write a newspaper article - so I need material for the
> general reader, not nitty gritties.
Contacts in the UK are particularly useful.
--
Joe Mc Cool
========================================================================
Tangent Computer Research BT71 7LN (www.tangent-research.com)
voice:(44)2837-548074fax:(44)-870-0520185 The more you say the less the better.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:46:24 GMT
From: Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: perl and the genome project
Message-Id: <x7r8belusv.fsf@mail.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "JMC" == Joe Mc Cool <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk> writes:
JMC> lurking in this newsgroup and google searches lead me to believe that
JMC> Perl is being used quite a bit in the genome project. Where can I get
JMC> an overview of its use there ?
JMC> I have to write a newspaper article - so I need material for the
JMC> general reader, not nitty gritties.
http://bioperl.org/
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, 15 Jan 2003 11:57:49 +0000
From: Chad Hanna <chad@vellum.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: perl and the genome project
Message-Id: <BDbnvUC9yUJ+EwIf@vellum.demon.co.uk>
In message <863cnuyjn5.fsf@benburb.demon.co.uk>, Joe Mc Cool
<joe@benburb.demon.co.uk> writes
>Please,
>
>lurking in this newsgroup and google searches lead me to believe that
>Perl is being used quite a bit in the genome project. Where can I get
>an overview of its use there ?
>
>I have to write a newspaper article - so I need material for the
>general reader, not nitty gritties.
>
>Thanks.
>
I think one classic article is Lincoln Stein's "How Perl saved the Human
Genome Project".
http://bioperl.org/GetStarted/tpj_ls_bio.html
Up to 16 months ago, I was involved in using Perl for Proteomics, that
is about Proteins rather than Genes. We used Perl and other software to
convert Gene sequences to Protein sequences and to see how well the
matches compared. But perl was very much the glue that held things
together and allowed us to process thousands of database searches a day
through a farm of machines (NT running a Fortran spectrum correlation
program) and put the results in the database.
--
Chad Hanna
Chairman Berkshire Family History Society www.berksfhs.org.uk
Quality Family History Data www.familyhistoryonline.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:39:11 +0000
From: Simon Andrews <simon.andrews@bbsrc.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: perl and the genome project
Message-Id: <3E25566F.343F3D90@bbsrc.ac.uk>
>
> >>>>> "JMC" == Joe Mc Cool <joe@benburb.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
> JMC> lurking in this newsgroup and google searches lead me to believe that
> JMC> Perl is being used quite a bit in the genome project. Where can I get
> JMC> an overview of its use there ?
> Uri Guttman wrote:
> http://bioperl.org/
Also, see
http://www.ensembl.org/Docs/
That page references the Ensembl Publication in NAR, which has a bit of
info about their software setup. It also has links to all the Ensembl
code documentation. Basically most of the Ensembl project is written
around Bioperl and MySQL.
It might be worth asking the Ensembl helpdesk for some information about
this as well, they may be open to a bit of free publicity :-)
Simon.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:27:02 +0100
From: Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it>
Subject: Re: Perl command line processing, Windows/dos style ?
Message-Id: <v5aa2v47ejpg2srjp6b9uitgh1pn50c21o@4ax.com>
On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 23:48:17 +0100, "Harald H.-J. Bongartz"
<bongie@gmx.net> wrote:
>Read my posting again and see the (empty) result when setting
>"shopt -s nullglob". ;-)
Sorry, you're right: I just missed that; no pun intended anyway, and
probably no harm done stressing the point...
Michele
--
>It's because the universe was programmed in C++.
No, no, it was programmed in Forth. See Genesis 1:12:
"And the earth brought Forth ..."
- Robert Israel on sci.math, thread "Why numbers?"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 07:22:23 -0600
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.2 $)
Message-Id: <yd-dnWftsK0S_bijXTWcpw@august.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.2 $)
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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: 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 4406
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