[23371] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 5590 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Sep 30 06:05:56 2003
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 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, 30 Sep 2003 Volume: 10 Number: 5590
Today's topics:
Re: 1) How to debug CGI.pm cookies 2) Template.pm with <konny@waitrose.com>
Re: bespoke pdf printing using Perl <nobull@mail.com>
Re: Endless Loop (trying for...) <invalid-email@rochester.rr.com>
Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code? <Nekid@jaybird.com>
Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code? <cryofan@mylinuxisp.com>
Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code? <usenet@dwall.fastmail.fm>
Re: How To activate command line history in debugger? <k.kronschnabl_nospm_@ica-intercom-akademie.de>
Re: LWP::Simple get() refined problem <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Re: Net-Telnet-Cisco module (Prashant Varghese)
newbie needs help [references and values] (John)
Re: newbie needs help [references and values] <ak+usenet@freeshell.org>
Re: newbie needs help [references and values] (Anno Siegel)
Re: Perl command to copy one file into another (Tad McClellan)
Re: Perl Help - Windows Perl script accessing a Unix pe <fjasl;@earthlink.net>
Re: Perl Help - Windows Perl script accessing a Unix pe <me@privacy.net>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Re: What is standard? <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Re: <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 02:06:28 +0100
From: Mr I <konny@waitrose.com>
Subject: Re: 1) How to debug CGI.pm cookies 2) Template.pm with CGI.pm
Message-Id: <uj1n41-8j1.ln1@sam.amaretti.net>
Louis Erickson wrote:
> Mr I <konny@waitrose.com> wrote:
>
> : Took my own advice :(
>
> Why is it so sad that you solved your problem?
>
Not really sad. But could have solved it faster IF i had just read
perldoc ;)
Thanks for you advance...
K
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 2003 09:00:09 +0100
From: Brian McCauley <nobull@mail.com>
Subject: Re: bespoke pdf printing using Perl
Message-Id: <u9y8w6iu46.fsf@wcl-l.bham.ac.uk>
mjames@bmjgroup.com (jimbo2112) writes:
> I am running Perl 5.8 on NT 4.0
>
> I have set up an FTP print server which automates the printing of any
> pdf dropped into a watched folder before sending it to a holding area
> where, after 3 days, it will be deleted.
>
> I need to make the process more sophistcated by having 3 ftp folders.
> These would be to either send it to a mono printer, send to a colour
> printer or print only the first page (mono).
>
> The problem I have is that the line command options for Acrobat are
> very restricted.
I've done something very similar I driving Acrobat with Win32::OLE.
(You need the full version of Acrobat not just the freebee reader).
The trouble is that the OLE interface cannot print to any printer but
the default so every time you want to change the target printer you
need to terminate the Acrobat process, change the default printer and
then restart Acrobat.
--
\\ ( )
. _\\__[oo
.__/ \\ /\@
. l___\\
# ll l\\
###LL LL\\
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 01:47:52 GMT
From: Bob Walton <invalid-email@rochester.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Endless Loop (trying for...)
Message-Id: <3F78E0B3.3010902@rochester.rr.com>
Darren Dunham wrote:
> Brian <BChirhart@fnni.com> wrote:
>
...
> my $y = 1;
> my @a = ($y);
> foreach my $x (@a)
> {
> print "array = @a\n";
> print "index variable= $x\n";
> $y++;
> push (@a, $y);
> }
Hmmmm...from the perlsyn docs for foreach:
"If any part of LIST is an array, foreach will get very confused if you
add or remove elements within the loop body, for example with splice. So
don't do that."
So maybe that isn't a good idea, even if it does seem to work in some
particular version and platform of Perl.
--
Bob Walton
Email: http://bwalton.com/cgi-bin/emailbob.pl
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:34:45 -0400
From: Buck <Nekid@jaybird.com>
Subject: Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code?
Message-Id: <pan.2003.09.30.02.34.41.138468@jaybird.com>
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:47:45 -0500, randy wrote:
> I have placed this wwwboard.pl code in my cgi-bin directory, and a
> wwwboard.html file accesses it to post on a message board. The board
> works fine, but every time I put it up I get all kinds of spam that
> has apparently been sent using the pl and/or the html file.
>
> I tried taking out or munging all instances of the word "mail", to no
> good effect.
> Can anyone tell me how to protect this pl code (shown below) and the
> html code (shown at bottom) from spammers?
Well... I didn't have time to read the *entire* script...
First off, what is the permission to cgi-bin directory?
Is it 711 -> rwx--x--x ?
That will stop them reading your scripts.
Take any data you generate and put it somewhere else that is NOT the
public directory. This way your data cannot be accessed.
I'd change filenames and directory paths in your script, since they
probably know your layout and can easily get by any scripting.
budman
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:32:32 -0500
From: randy <cryofan@mylinuxisp.com>
Subject: Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code?
Message-Id: <m7uhnvgssfbr3v6i0smsb8ln77lhbpmmv5@4ax.com>
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:34:45 -0400, Buck <Nekid@jaybird.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:47:45 -0500, randy wrote:
>
>> I have placed this wwwboard.pl code in my cgi-bin directory, and a
>> wwwboard.html file accesses it to post on a message board. The board
>> works fine, but every time I put it up I get all kinds of spam that
>> has apparently been sent using the pl and/or the html file.
>>
>> I tried taking out or munging all instances of the word "mail", to no
>> good effect.
>> Can anyone tell me how to protect this pl code (shown below) and the
>> html code (shown at bottom) from spammers?
>
>Well... I didn't have time to read the *entire* script...
>First off, what is the permission to cgi-bin directory?
>Is it 711 -> rwx--x--x ?
>
The instructions say it should be 755.
>That will stop them reading your scripts.
>Take any data you generate and put it somewhere else that is NOT the
>public directory. This way your data cannot be accessed.
>I'd change filenames and directory paths in your script, since they
>probably know your layout and can easily get by any scripting.
>
How would that help them?
-------------
-Randy
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 04:47:50 -0000
From: "David K. Wall" <usenet@dwall.fastmail.fm>
Subject: Re: How are spammers exploiting my wwwboard code?
Message-Id: <Xns94068316FB55dkwwashere@216.168.3.30>
randy <cry-o-fan@mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> I have placed this wwwboard.pl code in my cgi-bin directory, and a
> wwwboard.html file accesses it to post on a message board. The board
> works fine, but every time I put it up I get all kinds of spam that
> has apparently been sent using the pl and/or the html file.
Are you sure spammers aren't just pulling your email address from the
wwwboard pages? Just a thought.
[snip]
> BTW, these files are NMS version of Matt's Archive scripts, and are
> supposedly more secure versions of those apparently infamously
> insecure scripts.
I'd contact nms support and tell them what's happening:
http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/support.html
It's their program, they want to know about any security holes.
Include as much relevant information as you can, such as the program
version, how you have it configured, any changes you've made, etc, but
don't overdo it. For example, there was no need to post the the entire
program here. We can download it from the nms site for ourselves.
If you get a solution from them (don't expect it immediately, they probably
work on these programs in their spare time), please post back here *on this
same thread* so others can benefit from what you've learned.
--
David Wall
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:35:39 +0200
From: Kurt Kronschnabl <k.kronschnabl_nospm_@ica-intercom-akademie.de>
Subject: Re: How To activate command line history in debugger?
Message-Id: <blbbpu$ck4$06$1@news.t-online.com>
Peter Scott wrote:
> perl -MCPAN -e 'install Term::ReadKey'
>
> If you have never run CPAN.pm before there will be a slew of questions
> to answer that should be self explanatory.
>
> Without this module Perl has no mechanism to intercept the arrow key
> presses and interpret them as requests to traverse the command line history.
>
Hi Peter,
yet today I visited the NG after longer time again. Thank you very much!
That's it what I have searched for!!
Best regards, Kurt
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 07:42:08 GMT
From: Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Subject: Re: LWP::Simple get() refined problem
Message-Id: <djcinvkb363vitj0lniohhnp4onrvisfus@4ax.com>
Hon Guin Lee - Web Producer - SMI Marketing wrote:
>$ua->proxy(['http','https','ftp'], 'file:///usr/dist/share/proxy_config/uk.pac'); # set proxy
I don't think that will work. A .pac file is typically a Javascript
source file.
Try using a real URL for the proxy.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 2003 02:40:50 -0700
From: pv79@ddsl.net (Prashant Varghese)
Subject: Re: Net-Telnet-Cisco module
Message-Id: <5ff7e2e0.0309300140.59bcca5@posting.google.com>
Hi all,
Finally we could sort out the problem.The downloaded file was not
tar.gz file itself ,wonder Y?
just see this:
#file Net-Telnet-Cisco-1.10.tar.gz
Net-Telnet-Cisco-1.10.tar.gz: ASCII text, with no line terminators
Also the size of this file was 40 Bytes!!
So we did an ftp to the server and have downloaded the actual file.But
can anyone tell me why through browser i was getting this ..i tried
Netscape also..
Thanks and Regards,
Prashant
pv79@ddsl.net (Prashant Varghese) wrote in message news:<5ff7e2e0.0309271020.13be7c52@posting.google.com>...
> Louis Erickson <wwonko@rdwarf.com> wrote in message news:<bl27uj$9ia$1@holly.rdwarf.com>...
> > John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com.invalid> wrote:
> > : Prashant Varghese wrote:
>
> > :> Hi everybody,
> > :>
> > :> I'm getting the following error when i try to unpack the Net-Telnet-Cisco
> > :> module from CPAN.Has anyone faced this ?How can get out of this problem?
> > :>
> > :> #tar -zxvf Net-Telnet-Cisco-1.10.tar.gz
>
> > : Which OS? IIRC Sun OS has a broken tar.
> >
> > How did you download it? If you used a browser, it may have helpfully
> > ungzipped it for you, and not mentioned that fact.
> >
> > To find out, ask tar to run a table of contents of the file:
> >
> > tar -tf Net-Telnet-Cisco-1.10.tar.gz
> >
> > If that's the case, rename the file so there's no .gz extension or you'll
> > only be confused later. And don't download with that browser any more.
>
> Hi ,
> Thanks for the reply..I'm using Red Hat Linux
> I used these browsers Galeon,Konquero and Netscape.
> All are giving the same error.As u said i tried using the tar -tf
> command and here's the output of that
>
> #tar -tf Net-Telnet-Cisco-1.10.tar.gz
> tar: 40 garbage bytes ignored at end of archive
> tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
>
> Also i tried renaming it to .tar file and tried tar -xvf and still got
> the same output as given above in this message.
>
> Any idea whats wrong?
>
> Kindly reply
> Thanks and regards,
> Prashant
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 2003 02:11:57 -0700
From: news2003@wanadoo.es (John)
Subject: newbie needs help [references and values]
Message-Id: <3bd6db81.0309300111.761f58fa@posting.google.com>
Dear listers,
I have just started on perl and I have a question about if the thing I
copy is copy the value itself or I am copying the refence.
Can you help me with that?
The code is writen below.
My question is if I (as I understand) copy the values of @a into @b
and then I change the values for @a (on the subroutines) and print
then back. Why @b is altered?
If this is the normal behavior,
Why $st1 and $st2 do look to have the same behavior?
What I am missing?
Thanks for your advise.
John
#the code################################
use strict;
my $st1="abcdefabcdef";
my @a = ( [qw(1 2 3 4 5 6)],
[qw(2 4 6 8 10 12)],
[qw(3 5 7 9 13 15)]
);
my @b = @a;
print $a[1][2],"\n"; # before to do anything PRINT 6
print $a[1][3],"\n"; # before to do anything PRINT 8
pe(\@a); # call the module
print $a[1][2],"\n"; # this value has changed PRINT 88
print $a[1][3],"\n"; # this has changed too PRINT 55
print $b[1][3],"\n"; # but why this has changed is is reffered to
# another array??? WHY PRINT 55?????
# if this is the normal behavior... read down
print "\n";
my $st2= $st1;
$st2 =~ tr/abcdef/123456/;
print "$st1\n"; # why in this case we change one and the
print "$st2\n"; # other remains as it was?
sub pe{
my ($inner1)= @_;
$inner1->[1][2]=88;
per($inner1);
}
sub per{
my ($inner2)=@_;
$inner2->[1][3]=55;
}
and the result is:
6
8
88
55
55
abcdefabcdef
123456123456
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:16:38 +0000 (UTC)
From: Andreas Kahari <ak+usenet@freeshell.org>
Subject: Re: newbie needs help [references and values]
Message-Id: <slrnbniifj.qea.ak+usenet@vinland.freeshell.org>
In article <3bd6db81.0309300111.761f58fa@posting.google.com>, John wrote:
> Dear listers,
>
>
> I have just started on perl and I have a question about if the thing I
> copy is copy the value itself or I am copying the refence.
[cut]
> use strict;
>
> my $st1="abcdefabcdef";
>
> my @a = ( [qw(1 2 3 4 5 6)],
> [qw(2 4 6 8 10 12)],
> [qw(3 5 7 9 13 15)]
> );
Note that @a is an array of references to arrays of numbers.
When doing "@b = @a", you copy the references to those arrays
over to @b.
That should answer most of your questions.
Andreas
--
Andreas Kähäri
------------------------------
Date: 30 Sep 2003 09:49:00 GMT
From: anno4000@lublin.zrz.tu-berlin.de (Anno Siegel)
Subject: Re: newbie needs help [references and values]
Message-Id: <blbjic$lpb$1@mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>
John <news2003@wanadoo.es> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> Dear listers,
>
>
> I have just started on perl and I have a question about if the thing I
> copy is copy the value itself or I am copying the refence.
>
> Can you help me with that?
>
> The code is writen below.
>
> My question is if I (as I understand) copy the values of @a into @b
> and then I change the values for @a (on the subroutines) and print
> then back. Why @b is altered?
>
> If this is the normal behavior,
Yes.
> Why $st1 and $st2 do look to have the same behavior?
You mean "seem to have a different behavior".
> What I am missing?
>
> Thanks for your advise.
> John
>
> #the code################################
>
> use strict;
>
> my $st1="abcdefabcdef";
>
> my @a = ( [qw(1 2 3 4 5 6)],
> [qw(2 4 6 8 10 12)],
> [qw(3 5 7 9 13 15)]
> );
The elements of @a are array references.
>
> my @b = @a;
Here you copy the references from array @a to @b. The actual (anonymous)
arrays the references are pointing to are the same for both @a and @b.
So, if you change one (through @a below), the other changes too.
> print $a[1][2],"\n"; # before to do anything PRINT 6
> print $a[1][3],"\n"; # before to do anything PRINT 8
>
> pe(\@a); # call the module
You mean "call the routine". There is no module involved.
Using a subroutine to make changes to @a is just obfuscation. It would
have been clearer to put the code right here:
$a[1]->[2] = 88;
$a[1]->[3] = 55;
> print $a[1][2],"\n"; # this value has changed PRINT 88
> print $a[1][3],"\n"; # this has changed too PRINT 55
> print $b[1][3],"\n"; # but why this has changed is is reffered to
> # another array??? WHY PRINT 55?????
Because both $a[1] and $b[1] point to the same anonymous array, which
you have changed.
> # if this is the normal behavior... read down
>
> print "\n";
>
> my $st2= $st1;
>
> $st2 =~ tr/abcdef/123456/;
>
> print "$st1\n"; # why in this case we change one and the
> print "$st2\n"; # other remains as it was?
Here no references are involved. $st1 and $st2 point to two different
scalars.
[snippage]
Anno
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 20:07:11 -0500
From: tadmc@augustmail.com (Tad McClellan)
Subject: Re: Perl command to copy one file into another
Message-Id: <slrnbnhlpv.md9.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com>
Michael P. Broida <michael.p.broida@boeing_oops.com> wrote:
> Use the ` command in perl to run the shell command:
>
> $result = `copy a.txt b.txt`;
> $result will contain whatever output the shell returned
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> (error messages,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
bacticks do not capture STDERR.
--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 02:56:55 GMT
From: "Dale" <fjasl;@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Perl Help - Windows Perl script accessing a Unix perl Script
Message-Id: <Xh6eb.8374$RW4.1690@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>
Thank you to everyone who replied. I think I have found the answer. If not I
will let you know. Thanks again
"dpackwood" <dpackwood@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:BjNdb.7424$RW4.3844@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Hello,
>
> I have two different scripts that do pretty much the same thing. The main
> perl script is on Windows. It runs and in the middle of it, it then calls
> out another perl script that then should run on a Unix box I have. Both
> scripts run ok, except for the part when Windows try's to call out the
> Unix script. I have it set up where the Unix is mapped through a drive
> letter and can drop stuff into the Unix box. It is going through another
> server to do that. So I can see the script and drop files into the Unix
box
> but just can't figure out why perl will not call out the script. When I
call
> out the perl script through the command line of windows I get " specified
> path not found", even though I'm in that directory.
>
> Has any one done anything like this that would be willing to either help
me
> or point me in the right direction to do research on it. Thanks
>
> -Dale
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 19:54:39 +1200
From: "Tintin" <me@privacy.net>
Subject: Re: Perl Help - Windows Perl script accessing a Unix perl Script
Message-Id: <blbcrv$a3jfc$1@ID-172104.news.uni-berlin.de>
"Dale" <fjasl;@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xh6eb.8374$RW4.1690@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> "dpackwood" <dpackwood@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:BjNdb.7424$RW4.3844@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have two different scripts that do pretty much the same thing. The
main
> > perl script is on Windows. It runs and in the middle of it, it then
calls
> > out another perl script that then should run on a Unix box I have. Both
> > scripts run ok, except for the part when Windows try's to call out the
> > Unix script. I have it set up where the Unix is mapped through a drive
> > letter and can drop stuff into the Unix box. It is going through another
> > server to do that. So I can see the script and drop files into the Unix
> box
> > but just can't figure out why perl will not call out the script. When I
> call
> > out the perl script through the command line of windows I get "
specified
> > path not found", even though I'm in that directory.
> >
> > Has any one done anything like this that would be willing to either help
> me
> > or point me in the right direction to do research on it. Thanks
> >
> > -Dale
>
> Thank you to everyone who replied. I think I have found the answer. If not
I
> will let you know. Thanks again
If you *have* found the answer, then you should definitely let us all know.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 02:22:51 -0500
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.4 $)
Message-Id: <j7ycnXs2kYPWsuSiU-KYvw@august.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.4 $)
This newsgroup, commonly called clpmisc, is a technical newsgroup
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":
Do not use these guidelines as a "license to flame" or other
meanness. It is possible that a poster is unaware of things
discussed here. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and just
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A note about technical terms used here:
In this document, we use words like "must" and "should" as
they're used in technical conversation (such as you will
encounter in this newsgroup). When we say that you *must* do
something, we mean that if you don't do that something, then
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We're not bossing you around; we're making the point without
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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 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, 30 Sep 2003 09:42:51 +0200
From: Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Subject: Re: What is standard?
Message-Id: <blbc5k$a41qr$1@ID-184292.news.uni-berlin.de>
Steve Grazzini wrote:
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc> wrote:
>> My problem is: Where do I find the information about which
>> modules that are Perl "standard" or "core"?
>
> Look at the standard distribution.
>
> For example, to see what's bundled with 5.005_03:
>
> http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl5.005_03.tar.gz
>
>> An example: My program uses MIME::Base64 and MIME::QuotedPrint.
>> Are they core/standard?
>
> They are now. They weren't in 5.005_03 or 5.6.1.
Okay.. Thanks, Steve. Does that mean that, in order to determine
whether a particular module is "standard", there is no reason to
distinguish between what's included in the 'lib' and the 'ext'
directory in the Perl distribution file? Is it reasonable to assume
that a web hosting provider, who are providing a certain Perl version,
typically has installed all the modules in both 'lib' and 'ext'?
--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 01:59:56 GMT
From: Bob Walton <bwalton@rochester.rr.com>
Subject: Re:
Message-Id: <3F18A600.3040306@rochester.rr.com>
Ron wrote:
> Tried this code get a server 500 error.
>
> Anyone know what's wrong with it?
>
> if $DayName eq "Select a Day" or $RouteName eq "Select A Route") {
(---^
> dienice("Please use the back button on your browser to fill out the Day
> & Route fields.");
> }
...
> Ron
...
--
Bob Walton
------------------------------
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 5590
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