[22688] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 4909 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Apr 29 06:07:28 2003
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 03:05:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Tue, 29 Apr 2003 Volume: 10 Number: 4909
Today's topics:
AUTOLOAD runs repetitively on destruction <jaspax@u.washington.edu>
Re: AUTOLOAD runs repetitively on destruction (Anno Siegel)
Re: Can't load 'C:/cygwin/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/cyg <Andrew.McGregor@amtrak.co.uk>
DBM Databases, my bad! (Mike)
Difference Flat Text & DBM Database (Mike)
Re: Difference Flat Text & DBM Database <mbudash@sonic.net>
Re: Difference Flat Text & DBM Database <noreply@gunnar.cc>
errors passing values to sub from other sub with "use s <anthony@movielink.net.au>
Re: errors passing values to sub from other sub with "u <anthony@movielink.net.au>
Re: errors passing values to sub from other sub with "u (Anno Siegel)
Extracting Word from Variable <chris_12003@yahoo.com>
Re: Extracting Word from Variable <josef.moellers@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Re: Extracting Word from Variable <mbudash@sonic.net>
Re: Getting FULL path+filename from a filehandle (Joe Smith)
Re: How to compress and uncompress the files using the (Anno Siegel)
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Re: Test::Harness annoyance <kalinabears@hdc.com.au>
Re: Test::Harness annoyance <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Re: uploading photos in e-classified <chris_12003@yahoo.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 00:04:42 -0700
From: JS Bangs <jaspax@u.washington.edu>
Subject: AUTOLOAD runs repetitively on destruction
Message-Id: <Pine.A41.4.53.0304282358410.72140@dante18.u.washington.edu>
Tassilo v. Parseval sikyal:
I've changed the subject line, because I've got a new problem.
> Is there a way to turn the above into proper methods that you can
> compile on the fly? Right now, AUTOLOAD is triggered for each call to
> the same feature. Something like
>
> if ($self->feature($feature)) {
> *$AUTOLOAD = eval qq!
> sub $feature {
> my (\$self, \$idx) = \@_;
> ...
> }
> !;
> goto &$AUTOLOAD;
> }
This looked like a great idea, and as far as the feature-name methods are
concerned, it works perfectly. But now there's a new problem: when the
program ends, DESTROY() is trapped by AUTOLOAD and recurses through the
subroutine infinitely.
The old code, which looked broken, didn't have this problem. And I'm
stumped--the best I can think of is to define a local DESTROY, but that's
an inelegant way to hack out of this.
Here's the complete code that I'm currently using for AUTOLOAD:
# Allows you to call changes to feature settings directly
# with syntax like $segment->feature_name($value, $index)
sub AUTOLOAD {
my $self = $_[0];
my $feature = $AUTOLOAD;
$feature =~ s/.*:://;
no strict 'refs';
# Compile functions which are features
if ($self->feature($feature)) {
*$AUTOLOAD = eval qq!
sub $feature {
my \$self = shift;
if (scalar(\@_) > 0) {
my \$value = shift;
\$self->value($feature, \$value);
if (scalar(\@_) > 0) {
my \$index = shift;
\$self->feature_index($feature, \$index);
} # end if
} # end if
return \$self->value($feature);
} # end sub
!;
} # end if
# Execute functions (whether real or just-compiled)
goto &$AUTOLOAD;
} # end AUTOLOAD
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog
Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"
And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."
And Jesus said, "What?"
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 2003 07:16:42 GMT
From: anno4000@lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel)
Subject: Re: AUTOLOAD runs repetitively on destruction
Message-Id: <b8l8sq$226$2@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
JS Bangs <jaspax@u.washington.edu> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> Tassilo v. Parseval sikyal:
>
> I've changed the subject line, because I've got a new problem.
>
> > Is there a way to turn the above into proper methods that you can
> > compile on the fly? Right now, AUTOLOAD is triggered for each call to
> > the same feature. Something like
> >
> > if ($self->feature($feature)) {
> > *$AUTOLOAD = eval qq!
> > sub $feature {
> > my (\$self, \$idx) = \@_;
> > ...
> > }
> > !;
> > goto &$AUTOLOAD;
> > }
>
> This looked like a great idea, and as far as the feature-name methods are
> concerned, it works perfectly. But now there's a new problem: when the
> program ends, DESTROY() is trapped by AUTOLOAD and recurses through the
> subroutine infinitely.
>
> The old code, which looked broken, didn't have this problem. And I'm
> stumped--the best I can think of is to define a local DESTROY, but that's
> an inelegant way to hack out of this.
[...]
Just put
return if $AUTOLOAD =~ /DESTROY$/;
early in the AUTOLOAD routine.
Anno
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 09:05:12 +0100
From: Andrew McGregor <Andrew.McGregor@amtrak.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Can't load 'C:/cygwin/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/cygwin-multi/auto/DBD/Pg/Pg.dll'
Message-Id: <3EAE3238.7090600@amtrak.co.uk>
IKNIR wrote:
> I am struggling with the DBD-Pg installation almost 3 weeks. Please
> somebody out there could help me. Thank you in advance.
>
> I have installed the following on WINDOWS XP:
> CYGWIN
> POSTGRESQL 7.3.1
> APACHE 2.0.43
> ACTIVESTATE PERL 5.8
> DBI 1.35 (Installed using cygwin)
> DBD-Pg 1.22 (Installed using cygwin perl makefile.pl, make, make test,
> and make install)
>
> I have no problem in running the following script in CYGWIN:
>
> #!/perl/bin/perl -w
> BEGIN {
> push(@INC, 'C:/cygwin/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/cygwin-multi');
> }
> use DBI;
> use DBD::Pg;
> print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
> print "hi";
>
> However, I cannot run this using the browser. I get the following
> error.
>
> Can't load 'C:/cygwin/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/cygwin-multi/auto/DBD/Pg/Pg.dll'
> for module DBD::Pg:load_file:The specified module could not be found
> at C:/Perl/lib/DynaLoader.pm line 229.
>
> What am I doing wrong? Why this works in CYGWIN but not in browser?
nothing obvious springs to mind, try:
* printing the version (after removing the use line)
just in case something in your windows/apache setup
is calling your script with a different interpreter.
a bit of a stab in the dark as I'm not familiar with
Perl32 :(
* printing @INC + %ENV and check for any differences
between the two invocations.
------------------------------
Date: 28 Apr 2003 22:20:10 -0700
From: csdude@hotmail.com (Mike)
Subject: DBM Databases, my bad!
Message-Id: <46cdc619.0304282120.2d84995c@posting.google.com>
OK, OK, I get it now. I screwed up before, and now realize that a DBM
database is nowhere near the same as a flat-text database. Please
ignore the insane, inept, and uneducated ignorance of my previous
post!
Thanks,
Mike
PS, I realize that, thanks to the magic of Google, this post may show
up before, or much later than, my previous post to which I make
reference, but in the real-world they were about 10 minutes apart.
Sorry again!
------------------------------
Date: 28 Apr 2003 21:34:12 -0700
From: csdude@hotmail.com (Mike)
Subject: Difference Flat Text & DBM Database
Message-Id: <46cdc619.0304282034.6dee1eb4@posting.google.com>
Hey,
I recently started playing around with DBM databases, but I'm not
really seeing what the difference is between this is a flat-text
database. Can somebody enlighten me?
For instance, if I do:
tie(%hash, "SDBM_File", "test.txt", O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0666)
or die "Error opening test.txt. $!, stopped";
$hash{$email} = $name|$comments;
untie(%hash);
Or if I do:
open (FILE, ">>test.txt")
or die "Error opening test.txt. $!, stopped";
print FILE "$name|$comments";
close (FILE);
I get the same thing; a text file with:
My Name|Whatever comments I type in.
Is there an advantage to the DBM database that I'm not seeing?
TIA,
Mike
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 04:41:13 GMT
From: Michael Budash <mbudash@sonic.net>
Subject: Re: Difference Flat Text & DBM Database
Message-Id: <mbudash-851B87.21411228042003@typhoon.sonic.net>
In article <46cdc619.0304282034.6dee1eb4@posting.google.com>,
csdude@hotmail.com (Mike) wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I recently started playing around with DBM databases, but I'm not
> really seeing what the difference is between this is a flat-text
> database. Can somebody enlighten me?
>
> For instance, if I do:
>
> tie(%hash, "SDBM_File", "test.txt", O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0666)
> or die "Error opening test.txt. $!, stopped";
> $hash{$email} = $name|$comments;
> untie(%hash);
>
>
> Or if I do:
>
> open (FILE, ">>test.txt")
> or die "Error opening test.txt. $!, stopped";
> print FILE "$name|$comments";
> close (FILE);
>
>
> I get the same thing; a text file with:
> My Name|Whatever comments I type in.
>
>
> Is there an advantage to the DBM database that I'm not seeing?
>
> TIA,
>
> Mike
random access, for one. to get to a record with a specific email address
you'd have to start reading at the beginning of th efile and keep
reading until you got the record you wanted. with the dbm file, you just
say $hash{$email}...
hth-
--
Michael Budash
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:30:11 +0200
From: Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Subject: Re: Difference Flat Text & DBM Database
Message-Id: <b8ld49$b5i0i$1@ID-184292.news.dfncis.de>
Mike wrote:
> I recently started playing around with DBM databases, but I'm not
> really seeing what the difference is between this is a flat-text
> database. Can somebody enlighten me?
>
> For instance, if I do:
<snip>
> I get the same thing; a text file with:
> My Name|Whatever comments I type in.
The files generated by SDBM_File are binary, not text, right?
> Is there an advantage to the DBM database that I'm not seeing?
Besides the easier access to a specific record, as mentioned by
Michael B., I have experienced a significantly less risk that the file
gets corrupted when I use SDBM_File compared to the use of plain text
files.
/ Gunnar
--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:36:13 +1000
From: "Tony" <anthony@movielink.net.au>
Subject: errors passing values to sub from other sub with "use strict"
Message-Id: <pan.2003.04.29.09.36.11.966752@movielink.net.au>
Hi guys,
During the course of some perl programming I have come accross
a specific problem that has got me stumped.
I have a small program (Simplified) with 2 sub's:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
@list("something 1", "something_else 1");
@process_list(@list)
sub process_list
{
foreach $item(@LIST);
my $var1 = "text";
my $var2 = strip trailing digit and whitespace from $item;
my $var3 = remove all but trailing digit from $item;
do_something($var1,$var2,$var3)
}
sub do_something
{
my $var_1 = "text";
my $var_2 = "text2";
my $var_3 = $var1;
my $var_4 = $var2;
my $var_5 = $var3;
print "$var_1 $var_2 $var_3 $var_4 $var_5\n"
}
This should produce the content of the 5 variables as
a combination of the 2 locally defined ones in the second sub
and the 3 ones passed from the first sub.
This works when switching off "use strict" but with "use strict"
all saundry errors like
Global symbol "$some_var" requires explicit package name at...some line
When defining the same variables directly and then using
do_something($var1,$var2,$var3);
instead of a sub, all works fine.
It is as if creating these variables within a sub, and
then trying to pass them to another sub, causes the problem
What am I doing wrong - reading "Learning perl" and the Camel book
3rd ed. does not shed any light over it.
I tried to use the "my" in front of different variables
but that caused other errors about "." concatenation or
something to that effect.
Tony
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
To reply directly send to: anthony AT movielink DOT net DOT au
Replace AT and DOT with @ and . and mail will get through.
Any spammers will be persued until they get booted off the net
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:38:35 +1000
From: "Tony" <anthony@movielink.net.au>
Subject: Re: errors passing values to sub from other sub with "use strict"
Message-Id: <pan.2003.04.29.09.38.35.794565@movielink.net.au>
Sorry, small typo
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:36:13 +1000, Tony wrote:
>
> #!/usr/bin/perl
> use warnings;
> use strict;
>
> @list("something 1", "something_else 1");
>
>
> @process_list(@list)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
should be
process_list(@list)
>
> sub process_list
rest snipped...
Tony
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
To reply directly send to: anthony AT movielink DOT net DOT au
Replace AT and DOT with @ and . and mail will get through.
Any spammers will be persued until they get booted off the net
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 2003 09:47:16 GMT
From: anno4000@lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel)
Subject: Re: errors passing values to sub from other sub with "use strict"
Message-Id: <b8lhn4$61q$1@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
Tony <anthony@movielink.net.au> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
>
>
> Sorry, small typo
>
> On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:36:13 +1000, Tony wrote:
>
>
> >
> > #!/usr/bin/perl
> > use warnings;
> > use strict;
> >
> > @list("something 1", "something_else 1");
> >
> >
> > @process_list(@list)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> should be
>
> process_list(@list)
>
> >
> > sub process_list
> rest snipped...
Perhaps. That still leaves the nonsensical
@list("something 1", "something_else 1");
Anno
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:12:58 -0700
From: "Chris" <chris_12003@yahoo.com>
Subject: Extracting Word from Variable
Message-Id: <vas2etjvulik43@corp.supernews.com>
I have a variable $section that contains the string
'store=grocery">Grocery</a>'. How would I extract the word 'grocery' from
the last part of this string? I assume I search for the word store= and
extract all the characters until I reach " but don't know how to do this.
Thanks,
Chris
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:50:10 +0200
From: Josef =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6llers?= <josef.moellers@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Subject: Re: Extracting Word from Variable
Message-Id: <3EAE20A2.4329D5E7@fujitsu-siemens.com>
Chris wrote:
> =
> I have a variable $section that contains the string
> 'store=3Dgrocery">Grocery</a>'. How would I extract the word 'grocery'=
from
> the last part of this string? I assume I search for the word store=3D =
and
> extract all the characters until I reach " but don't know how to do thi=
s.
$line =3D 'store=3Dgrocery">Grocery</a>';
if ($line =3D~ m/store=3D([^"]*)"/) {
print "The item is in $1\n";
}
-- =
Josef M=F6llers (Pinguinpfleger bei FSC)
If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize
-- T. Pratchett
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:48:10 GMT
From: Michael Budash <mbudash@sonic.net>
Subject: Re: Extracting Word from Variable
Message-Id: <mbudash-E0EA5E.23480928042003@typhoon.sonic.net>
In article <vas2etjvulik43@corp.supernews.com>,
"Chris" <chris_12003@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have a variable $section that contains the string
> 'store=grocery">Grocery</a>'. How would I extract the word 'grocery' from
> the last part of this string? I assume I search for the word store= and
> extract all the characters until I reach " but don't know how to do this.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
>
#--------------------
$string = 'store=grocery">Grocery</a>';
if ($string =~ /store=(.+?)"/) {
$theword = $1;
}
else {
# didn't find it!
}
#--------------------
hth-
--
Michael Budash
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 04:03:03 GMT
From: inwap@inwap.com (Joe Smith)
Subject: Re: Getting FULL path+filename from a filehandle
Message-Id: <XPmra.10868$io.313934@iad-read.news.verio.net>
In article <3EA981ED.A8A26463@boeing.com>,
Michael P. Broida <michael.p.broida@boeing.com> wrote:
>Uri Guttman wrote:
>>
>> >>>>> "MPB" == Michael P Broida <michael.p.broida@boeing.com> writes:
>>
>> MPB> I've been digging through the Camel book and haven't been
>> MPB> able to find out how to get the FULL path+filename from a
>> MPB> filehandle.
>>
>> you can't.
>>
>> MPB> At the time the file was opened, I had "current directory"
>> MPB> and the "filename" (with possible partial/relative path).
>> MPB> So the "open" worked just fine. And I could, at that point,
>> MPB> build the full path from that info.
>>
>> so do it there and keep it associated with the handle in a tied object,
>> a hash or whatever.
>
> That's probably what I will have to do.
>
>> MPB> I know the OS has that info, but I can't seem to find any
>> MPB> way to get it in Perl. Any ideas/pointers??
>>
>> how do you know the OS has this? which OS? most actually don't have it.
>
> Yes, they do.
No, they don't. Unix doesn't.
> The actual data connected with the filehandle
> INSIDE the filemanagement handlers/drivers/whatevernameyouwant
> includes the information used to GET to the file to open it.
> Once the file is open, the structure itself is enough to work
> with it, but that info is still there.
Nope. For Unix, what is known is the inode of the current directory,
not the absolute pathname of the current directory.
The namei() function conferts a name to an inode. The inode number
is remembered, not the text string that was used to locate it.
> I've worked with a dozen or more OSes and I know for certain
> that at least three of them had this capability built in via
> system calls.
Solaris is not one of them. The 'lsof' tries to guess, using the
in-core cache of recently openned files, but is reducted to printing
the mount-partition number and inode number.
What happens if you rename a file while is it still open?
What happens if you rename the current directory (or one of its
parents) while a file is still open? The answer is that the inode
number does not change, and the OS uses the tuple <disk_number, inode>
to locate the data.
> Hmm, I thought I had done this on Solaris six+ years ago ... unsure
I'd say not.
>> in fact the whole idea of handles is so you don't need to keep it
>> around in the OS.
>
> No, it's so the user of the file doesn't need to keep referring
> to the file by name/whatever. The system still has it, though.
Nope. The Unix kernel uses disk number and inode number; the first
two items returned by the stat() system call. No names.
-Joe
--
See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10 and "ReBoot" pages.
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 2003 07:10:03 GMT
From: anno4000@lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel)
Subject: Re: How to compress and uncompress the files using the perl program
Message-Id: <b8l8gb$226$1@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
Vinod. K <pkvinu@indiatimes.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> anno4000@lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel) wrote in message
> news:<b8ir0k$bl2$2@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>...
> > Vinod. K <pkvinu@indiatimes.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> > > Hello All,
> > >
> > >
> > > I am having a bunch of compressed files(database files, i.e .dbf files
> > > whose size is more than 1GB) in one area. All these files need to be
> > > uncompressed one after the other and put them in other location using
> > > perl script. presently I used - system "uncompress" - statement in my
> > > perl script which is consuming considerably more time. Just I want
> > > know is there any module or any other command in perl which will
> > > perform the above said activity in lesser time???
> >
>
>
>
> > There may be such modules, but they won't run significantly faster.
> > All you can save is the call time for an external program. The time-
> > consuming expansion will be the same in both cases.
> >
> > Anno
>
>
> Hi Anno,
> Thanks for ur immediate response. Do you have any idea about those modules ???
Do a CPAN search at http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/cpan-search.html.
Anno
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 02:22:17 -0500
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.4 $)
Message-Id: <gpycnUE1NOS0tTOjXTWcog@august.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.4 $)
This newsgroup, commonly called clpmisc, is a technical newsgroup
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postings), whether it be comments or questions.
As you would expect, clpmisc discussions are usually very technical in
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This article describes things that you should, and should not, do to
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For more information about netiquette in general, see the "Netiquette
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Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
This section describes things that you *must* do before posting to
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have others do your work.
The perl distribution includes documentation that is copied to your hard
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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 expected in all newsgroups. Lurking means
to monitor a newsgroup for a period to become familiar with local
customs. Each newsgroup has specific customs and rituals. Knowing
these before you participate will help 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.cpan.org/authors/id/D/DM/DMR/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* each section of quoted text to
which they relate. Unappreciated followup styles are referred to as
"Jeopardy" (because the answer comes before the question), or
"TOFU".
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://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/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: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 13:56:33 +1000
From: "Sisyphus" <kalinabears@hdc.com.au>
Subject: Re: Test::Harness annoyance
Message-Id: <3eadf8f8$0$22583@echo-01.iinet.net.au>
"James E Keenan" <jkeen@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:b8kg4j$8ff@dispatch.concentric.net...
>
> "Sisyphus" <kalinabears@hdc.com.au> wrote in message
> news:3ead46a3$0$21278@echo-01.iinet.net.au...
> >
> >
> > Ha !! Really not a perl problem - at least the solution has nothing to
do
> > with perl.
> >
> > Turns out that the (cmd.exe) console on my laptop is 80 characters wide,
> and
> > on my desktop it's only 75 characters wide.
> >
> > Test::Harness defines a variable:
> > $blank = ' ' x 77;
> >
> > So, on the laptop 'print "$blank\r";' returns the cursor to its original
> > starting position, but on the desktop the same command advances the
cursor
> > down the screen by one line.
> >
> > Setting the desktop console to 80 chars wide fixes the problem.
> >
> This sounds like a cousin to the problem I reported a couple of months
back:
> That when I installed ActivePerl 8.0 (Perl 5.8.0) on Win95, I got screwy
> results in the console when I called 'perldoc'. The solution (short of
> installing arcane patches) was to wait till I was upgraded to Win2K before
> installing 5.8.
>
>
>
Yes - I recall that saga :-)
The key to this one was the use of "\r". Was "\r" involved with the one you
refer to ? I can't recall now.
'print "$x\r";' will return the cursor to its original starting position if
and only if length($x) is less than or equal to the width of the cmd.exe
console.
Wonder if it's the same on other consoles ...... or is this just another of
the privileges associated with this wonderful os ?
Cheers,
Rob
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:04:30 GMT
From: Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Subject: Re: Test::Harness annoyance
Message-Id: <ngjsavksj8ut1gjfke8tm6cug8h8i0ropn@4ax.com>
James E Keenan wrote:
>Right now I'm looking at an older version of Test::Harness (v1.1604) and I
>don't see any code calling 'print "\n";'. There are several lines that call
>things like 'print $_' with no specific newline character, but I haven't
>looked at it closely enough to see where the next newline is coming from.
Could it be that $\ is set to "\n" or maybe something like it, for
example, "\r"?
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:11:17 -0700
From: "Chris" <chris_12003@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: uploading photos in e-classified
Message-Id: <vas2esna2qnp40@corp.supernews.com>
"Malcolm Dew-Jones" <yf110@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca> wrote in message
news:3eaca2cb@news.victoria.tc.ca...
> For the original question, the program was probably modified for the site
> in question. If it's perl then you have the source code so you can do
> this yourself if you figure out the program and if you figure out perl.
> (That may or may not be allowed, based on the license of course, and if
> the program was free then there may still be a license you have to
> follow.)
>
> I doubt there is a simple way to do this, except possibly buying an
> enhanced version of the software.
I found the section of code that needed to be modified. I now have it so I
can upload 2 photos and may increase that in the future.
- Chris
------------------------------
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>
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 4909
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