[25337] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 7582 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Dec 28 09:05:53 2004
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 06:05:14 -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 Tue, 28 Dec 2004 Volume: 10 Number: 7582
Today's topics:
handle multiple submit button. <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Re: handle multiple submit button. <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Re: handle multiple submit button. <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Re: handle multiple submit button. <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Re: handle multiple submit button. <eighner@io.com>
Re: handle multiple submit button. <spamtrap@dot-app.org>
Re: Is zero even or odd? <george@briar.demon.co.uk>
Re: Is zero even or odd? <dak@gnu.org>
Re: Is zero even or odd? <jfields@austininstruments.com>
Re: Loading Modules with "require" <Juha.Laiho@iki.fi>
Re: Loading Modules with "require" <posted@cyberpomo.com>
Re: Multiple submit actions. <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Re: Multiple submit actions. <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Re: Multiple submit actions. <matternc@comcast.net>
Re: Multiple submit actions. <eighner@io.com>
Re: Multiple submit actions. <spamtrap@dot-app.org>
Re: Perl Developer neded. <tadmc@augustmail.com>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:40:28 +0800
From: sam <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Subject: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <cqr7nj$1mjq$1@news.hgc.com.hk>
Hi group,
My pervious post may be better described as a perl case.
How can I write a perl script to process multiple request from submit
buttons?
Thanks
Sam
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:33:56 +0100
From: Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Subject: Re: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <33crk7F3re2buU1@individual.net>
sam wrote:
> My pervious post
Which previous post?
> may be better described as a perl case.
It's rather a CGI question. Anyway, it's trivial, and I'll try to answer it.
> How can I write a perl script to process multiple request from submit
> buttons?
Name the buttons, for instance:
<input type="submit" name="optA" value="Option A">
<input type="submit" name="optB" value="Option B">
In the script:
use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
if ( $q->param('optA') {
# do something
} else {
# do something else
}
--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 11:40:47 +0100
From: Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc>
Subject: Re: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <33cs1hF3t2i9jU1@individual.net>
Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> In the script:
>
> use CGI;
> my $q = new CGI;
>
> if ( $q->param('optA') {
Sorry, missed the right parenthesis:
if ( $q->param('optA') ) {
--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 19:03:44 +0800
From: sam <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Subject: Re: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <cqrg47$1qlt$1@news.hgc.com.hk>
Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> sam wrote:
>
>
>> How can I write a perl script to process multiple request from submit
>> buttons?
>
>
> Name the buttons, for instance:
>
> <input type="submit" name="optA" value="Option A">
> <input type="submit" name="optB" value="Option B">
>
> In the script:
>
> use CGI;
> my $q = new CGI;
>
> if ( $q->param('optA') {
> # do something
> } else {
> # do something else
> }
>
My current perl script only is written full of print statements, with
the following form:
print "<form action=main.cgi>\n";
...
print "<input type=submit value=\"callself.pl\">\n";
print "</form>";
...
Do I need to change all print statements with CGI?
Thanks
Sam
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 05:17:14 -0600
From: Lars Eighner <eighner@io.com>
Subject: Re: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <slrnct2g0d.1uv3.eighner@goodwill.io.com>
In our last episode, <cqr7nj$1mjq$1@news.hgc.com.hk>, the lovely
and talented sam broadcast on comp.lang.perl.misc:
> Hi group,
> My pervious post may be better described as a perl case.
> How can I write a perl script to process multiple request from submit
> buttons?
First, there is no such thing as "multiple request from submit
buttons." Either you do not know exactly what you want to do,
or you have expressed yourself very poorly.
Second, you offer no evidence that you have tried to solve your
problem yourself. You haven't really told us what you mean by a
"submit button." I have to guess that it has something to do
with a document you want to put on the World-Wide Web - but that
is just a guess. If that guess is correct, you need to look up
CGI on your favorite search engine and work a few of the fine
introductory tutorials that are available. Because what you
want to do is unclear, it may be that CGI will not be helpful.
You may want a client-side solution (which has nothing to do
with perl), or you may want to do something that cannot be done
at all.
Third perl is not CGI. If you research your problem
sufficiently to have a reasonable belief that a server-side
solution is appropriate, then there is a good chance that perl
would be a good choice for your CGI (but there is a
not-insignificant chance that another fine CGI-compliant
language would be more appropriate). If you get that far, you
need to look at the perl CGI module, but you will have to have a
clear understanding of your problem and a basic understanding of
both html and perl.
It comes down to what in the world can you mean by "process
multiple request from submit buttons"? Many CGI scripts (many
of them written in perl) can field several different kinds of
requests and can do several things with any request that is
recognized. The whole idea of CGI is that several instances of
scripts can run at the same time to handle requests from
different clients - and that entails some effort to assure that
the several clients do not step on any data they may both try to
access at the same time. An html document can include several
forms, and each form can have several submit buttons. But the
client (i.e. browser) will send its request more or less
immediately when any one submit button is hit, so it is
impossible to activate several submit buttons simultaneously -
and that has nothing to do with perl.
--
Lars Eighner eighner@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
"We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with
Kuwait." -- Bush's Ambassador April Glaspie, giving Saddam Hussein
the greenlight to invade Kuwait.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:08:39 -0500
From: Sherm Pendley <spamtrap@dot-app.org>
Subject: Re: handle multiple submit button.
Message-Id: <CdGdneuDGItKx0zcRVn-rA@adelphia.com>
sam wrote:
> My pervious post may be better described as a perl case.
What previous post? This is a new thread. If you want to post a
followup, post a followup.
sherm--
--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:19:37 -0000
From: "George Dishman" <george@briar.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Is zero even or odd?
Message-Id: <cqrbtq$oh0$1@news.freedom2surf.net>
"RP" <no_mail_no_spam@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:33c95pF3vc9n9U1@individual.net...
>
....
>
> Though you are both essentially claiming, for the sake of argument, that
> the resistor has fixed resistance, and arguing from this premise that
> resistance isn't therefore undefined under any conditions, even under the
> condition 0/0, this is a fallacy, since the premise is false. OTOH your
> conclusion is accidentally correct.
>
> Resistance is not determinate in reality, but varies with current, some
> resistors increasing with current and some decreasing with current.
Generally resistance varies with temperature and
temperature varies with power dissipation. If
resistace varied directly with current, you would
get second or higher order effects which would
create harmonics if a sine wave is applied but
suitable resistors are used at RF without that
happening.
> Thus under the condition E=0 and I=0, we must have R=0 orr R=oo.
No, as the current reduces, the temperature becomes
indistinguishable from that of the environment so
R tends to the zero-power value.
> So the solution to the argument about the value of 0/0 seems to be 0/0=0
> orr 0/0=oo. That is, the resistance isn't (for instance) 10ohms under
> these conditions, even though it may be 10ohms when 1V is applied to it.
>
> This is however just an idealistic solution, since in reality it is also
> true that E is never precisely zero. If it were, then the universe will
> have ended and there would be no discussion to be had :)
You are right, Ohm's Law is being used in an
idealised way to illustrate a point.
George
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:14:11 +0100
From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Is zero even or odd?
Message-Id: <x5wtv2wu7w.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>
russotto@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto) writes:
> In article <t4rss0duo9eho2urcsibtq302e3s3edqkr@4ax.com>,
> vonroach <hadrainc@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:46:25 GMT, "Nicholas O. Lindan" <see@sig.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>0^0 is a mess in either system.
>>
>>A meaningless mess. As Pauli might say `it isn't even wrong'. And
>>Heisenberg would add a `pile of crap'.
>
> Well, 0^0 is a mess. But lim x->0 0^x is well defined.
Uh, no. lim x->0+ 0^x is well-defined. But since the left-hand limit
does not even exist, lim x->0 0^x is undefined.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 05:55:17 -0600
From: John Fields <jfields@austininstruments.com>
Subject: Re: Is zero even or odd?
Message-Id: <ms91t0dhjdf80j8l804mo2ic098gv2ndil@4ax.com>
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 23:26:19 -0000, "George Dishman"
<george@briar.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message
>news:mo21t0h2g8lgk2ej6ce3d98bdi45f6tf1f@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:17:28 -0000, "George Dishman"
>> <george@briar.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If you can clarify whether or not you were suggesting
>>>that 0/0 has the unique value of 1, perhaps we can get
>>>away from that style.
>>
>> ---
>> Yes. I apologize for the crankiness...
>
>Then I'll apologise too, I should have gone
>back on the thread a bit before jumping in.
>
>> That 0/0 has the unique value of 1 is precisely what I was suggesting,
>> and I've written it up in
>>
>> kdt0t0ddceqrf3lg4hgjcl8mf7pbp2kvar@4ax.com
>>
>> (my last post to Michael Mendelsohn on sci.electronics.design)
>
>Ok. In that you argue that, if you set the
>voltage and current numerically equal, then
>since the ratio is 1 for all values, it
>implies that it remains 1 for a numerical
>value of 0. His counter argument is that
>the choice of setting the values to be equal
>is arbitrary and it is just as valid to set
>the voltage to be, say, double that of the
>current hence by the same argument, 0/0=2.
>
>Since one can choose any ratio before taking
>the limit as both approach zero, the same
>argument can prove 0/0 to be equal to any
>arbitrary value, hence falsifying the claim
>that 0/0 has one and only one value.
>
>To refute his counter-argument and prove your
>claim that the value of 1 is unique, you need
>to provide a reason why the statement 0/0=2
>(or any value other than 1) cannot be true.
---
Very nice.
For the normal order of precedence, my argument is that in order for
x/x = 1 to be true, the numerator and the denominator must both be
equal at the time of the division. That is, for any set of x's where
x = x, x/x = 1. If that's true, and 0 = 0, then 0/0 must be equal to
1. The proof is the proof of exhaustion.
--
John Fields
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:10:23 +0000 (UTC)
From: Juha Laiho <Juha.Laiho@iki.fi>
Subject: Re: Loading Modules with "require"
Message-Id: <cqr4df$64c$2@ichaos.ichaos-int>
amerar@iwc.net said:
>I sort of see who that works. Are you saying that to have the values
>in an 'include' change when it is executed more than once, I need to
>basically make that include a packaged subroutine?
If your code all is in a single file/package anyway, all you need is
a subroutine declared within that file. So, you don't even need the
use/require syntax. If you're setting up a multi-file program, then
it'd do good to play with some simple value-passing code first to
learn what happens (and contrast your findings with the relevant
documentation).
Somehow it looks here that the mere concept of a subroutine is foreign
to you, so start with that.
>But, here you are dealing with a single value. How would you code
>thing that deals with arrays, and things like this:
>
>$sel = $dbh->prepare("SELECT table_name, proper_name, acronym FROM
>table_data $where");
>$sel->execute() || die "Select of table names failed: ",
>$dbh->errstr, "\n";
>while (($table, $name, $acr) = $sel->fetchrow_array()) {
>$tables{$table} = $name;
> }
> $sel->finish;
Let's see; apparently that is dependent on the external variables
$dbh and $where, and the results should be inserted to a hash named
%tables . $sel, $table, $name and $acr are local to the routine.
sub get_name_and_acronym()
{
my ($dbh,$where,$tables_ref)=@_;
my ($sel,$table,$name,$acr);
$sel = $dbh->prepare( ... );
...
while ( ... ) {
$tables_ref->{$table} = $name;
}
$sel->finish();
}
... and call from surrounding code with
get_name_and_acronym($dbh,$where,\%tables);
Things to note:
- the subroutine only accesses variables declared within the subroutine
(parameters are explicitly passed through the 'my (...) = @_;'
mechanism)
- variable names within the subroutine are independent of the variable
names outside the subroutine (so, within the subroutine you could
rename $dbh to $d, $where to $w, and so on, and it would still work
the same
- all variables declared with 'my' within the subroutine are local
to the subroutine, and will not be accessible anywhere outside the
subroutine (though, you may have other variables with the same names
outside the subroutine)
- the \-sign preceding the %tables when calling the subroutine;
this'll create a reference to the named data structure, instead of
passing the structure itself, and thus the called routine can access
(even to modify) the contents of the structure
- the arrow notation for accessing hash contents through a reference
(so "$tables_ref->{$table}" because $tables_ref is a reference to
a hash)
--
Wolf a.k.a. Juha Laiho Espoo, Finland
(GC 3.0) GIT d- s+: a C++ ULSH++++$ P++@ L+++ E- W+$@ N++ !K w !O !M V
PS(+) PE Y+ PGP(+) t- 5 !X R !tv b+ !DI D G e+ h---- r+++ y++++
"...cancel my subscription to the resurrection!" (Jim Morrison)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 09:12:38 +0100
From: Calle Dybedahl <posted@cyberpomo.com>
Subject: Re: Loading Modules with "require"
Message-Id: <86llbiyh6x.fsf@ulthar.bisexualmenace.org>
>>>>> "amerar" == amerar <amerar@iwc.net> writes:
> Now, the first time that the coed was 'required' it would take the
> value of $y and compute a value for $x.
You are trying to hammer in nails with a toolbox. This is going to be
difficult for you, no matter how much you want it not to be. It's
going to be much easier if you use something like a hammer.
If you really, really want your script to be slow as molasses, hard to
understand and tricky to modify, you probably want to look at "do"
rather than "require". That will pull in code from disc and re-compile
it every time to use it.
But really, do yourself a favour and follow the advice you have
repeatedly been given here: use functions! Using the same bits of code
in several places is why functions exist in the first place.
--
Calle Dybedahl <calle@cyberpomo.com>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cdybedahl/
"Now I want to hear the GPL done as a Gregorian chant. Or maybe a rapper's
interpretation of the BSD license." -- Russ Allbery, BofhNet
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:22:10 GMT
From: "Jürgen Exner" <jurgenex@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Multiple submit actions.
Message-Id: <SI8Ad.13248$2X6.8634@trnddc07>
sam wrote:
[...]
> eg.
> print "<Form action=main.cgi>\n";
> print "<table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=second.cgi>\";
> print "<input type=submit value=\"Outlets\">\n";
> print "</form></td>\n";
> print "</table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=queryl.pl><input type=submit
> value=\"MainQuery\"></form>\n";
>
> in the above coding, pressed the MainQuery submit button actually
> called to main.cgi script instead of query1.pl.
>
> How can I change this?
Your use of the print() function seems to be correct, although some people
would probably recommend to use CGI.pm instead.
If you have questions about HTML or CGI then you may want to ask in a
newsgroup that actually deals with such languague/interface.
jue
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:32:13 +0800
From: sam <sam.wun@authtec.com>
Subject: Re: Multiple submit actions.
Message-Id: <cqr784$1m9s$1@news.hgc.com.hk>
Jürgen Exner wrote:
> sam wrote:
> [...]
>
>>eg.
>>print "<Form action=main.cgi>\n";
>>print "<table>\n";
>>print "<td><form action=second.cgi>\";
>>print "<input type=submit value=\"Outlets\">\n";
>>print "</form></td>\n";
>>print "</table>\n";
>>print "<td><form action=queryl.pl><input type=submit
>>value=\"MainQuery\"></form>\n";
>>
>>in the above coding, pressed the MainQuery submit button actually
>>called to main.cgi script instead of query1.pl.
>>
>>How can I change this?
>
>
> Your use of the print() function seems to be correct, although some people
> would probably recommend to use CGI.pm instead.
>
> If you have questions about HTML or CGI then you may want to ask in a
> newsgroup that actually deals with such languague/interface.
>
I m sorry I posted this html question in the perl newsgroup.
But I couldn't found a related newsgroup for this. I may be better look
for those forum and mailing list instead.
Thanks
Sam
> jue
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 06:15:16 -0500
From: Chris Mattern <matternc@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Multiple submit actions.
Message-Id: <mPednYZE8cbZ3UzcRVn-vw@comcast.com>
sam wrote:
> I m sorry I posted this html question in the perl newsgroup.
> But I couldn't found a related newsgroup for this. I may be better look
> for those forum and mailing list instead.
>
I believe the newsgroup you would be looking for is
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi.
--
Christopher Mattern
"Which one you figure tracked us?"
"The ugly one, sir."
"...Could you be more specific?"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 05:47:41 -0600
From: Lars Eighner <eighner@io.com>
Subject: Re: Multiple submit actions.
Message-Id: <slrnct2hpg.1uv3.eighner@goodwill.io.com>
In our last episode, <cqr57k$1ld7$1@news.hgc.com.hk>, the lovely
and talented sam broadcast on comp.lang.perl.misc:
> Hi,
> I tried to create a form which embedded with another form, thus I expect
> the second submit button will call the second cgi script, the main
> submit button will call the main cgi script seperately.
This is a basic html question. You have improperly nested
<form> and <table>. This: <form><table></form></table> is
invalid. Furthermore you have <td> in the below AFTER YOU HAVE
CLOSED YOUR TABLE. If you attempted to validate your html, you
would have learned that. Find a basic html tutorial. This has
nothing to do with perl. It has nothing to do with CGI. You
cannot expect to do anything useful with any kind of CGI until
you can write valid html.
You can have two different forms on a page, each of which point
to a different cgi. But you cannot activate both of them at
once. In my humble opinion, it would be much better to have
one cgi as the master and let it invoke the appropriate
subroutine according to the value of the submit button. You can
have as many submit buttons as you please in a form. This is,
however, pointless until you learn html.
Here's a hint: create an html document first and validate it
before you try to get a CGI to produce that document.
> eg.
> print "<Form action=main.cgi>\n";
> print "<table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=second.cgi>\";
> print "<input type=submit value=\"Outlets\">\n";
> print "</form></td>\n";
> print "</table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=queryl.pl><input type=submit
> value=\"MainQuery\"></form>\n";
> in the above coding, pressed the MainQuery submit button actually called
> to main.cgi script instead of query1.pl.
It is a wonder it did anything at all, being as it is totally
invalid html. Your browser did that in the face of invalid
html. Another browser might have done it differently. There is
no one correct way for browsers to handle invalid html. (It is
true enough that not all browsers do the right thing with every
kind of valid html document, but if you don't give a browser
valid html, it doesn't have a chance.)
> How can I change this?
Writing valid html would be a start.
--
Lars Eighner eighner@io.com http://www.io.com/~eighner/
I hate laundry month.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:04:12 -0500
From: Sherm Pendley <spamtrap@dot-app.org>
Subject: Re: Multiple submit actions.
Message-Id: <weqdnUTZpLxQxEzcRVn-pw@adelphia.com>
sam wrote:
> I tried to create a form which embedded with another form
That's not valid HTML, so what browsers will do with it is undefined.
> thus I expect the second submit button will call the second cgi script
You expect too much. What happens in response to valid HTML is well
defined; what happens in response to invalid HTML is not.
> print "<Form action=main.cgi>\n";
> print "<table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=second.cgi>\";
> print "<input type=submit value=\"Outlets\">\n";
> print "</form></td>\n";
> print "</table>\n";
> print "<td><form action=queryl.pl><input type=submit
> value=\"MainQuery\"></form>\n";
Nothing wrong here, your Perl print() statements are fine. What was your
Perl question?
> How can I change this?
Fix your HTML. Ask about that in a more appropriate group - you'll find
them under the "comp.infosystems.www.authoring.*" hierarchy.
sherm--
--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 23:16:08 -0600
From: Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com>
Subject: Re: Perl Developer neded.
Message-Id: <slrnct1r0o.ptc.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com>
Chad Columbus <ccolumbu@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am pretty sure I should not be posting this here,
You are correct.
> Please don't blast me.
Don't do wrong things if you don't want to be taken to task
for doing wrong things.
> If there is another free way to touch as large a group as this please let me
> know.
http://jobs.perl.org
--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
tadmc@augustmail.com Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas
------------------------------
Date: 28 Dec 2004 08:22:44 GMT
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.5 $)
Message-Id: <41d117c0$0$22084$8b463f8a@news.nationwide.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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Really Really Should
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If You Like
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Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
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Be extra cautious when you get upset
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.5 $)
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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.
The article at:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
describes how to get answers from technical people in general.
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
help them learn how to post, rather than assume
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
it's unlikely that you will benefit much from this group.
We're not bossing you around; we're making the point without
lots of words.
Do *NOT* send email to the maintainer of these guidelines. It will be
discarded unread. The guidelines belong to the newsgroup so all
discussion should appear in the newsgroup. I am just the secretary that
writes down the consensus of the group.
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
This section describes things that you *must* do before posting to
clpmisc, in order to maximize your chances of getting meaningful replies
to your inquiry and to avoid getting flamed for being lazy and trying to
have others do your work.
The perl distribution includes documentation that is copied to your hard
drive when you install perl. Also installed is a program for looking
things up in that (and other) documentation named 'perldoc'.
You should either find out where the docs got installed on your system,
or use perldoc to find them for you. Type "perldoc perldoc" to learn how
to use perldoc itself. Type "perldoc perl" to start reading Perl's
standard documentation.
Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Checking the FAQ before posting is required in Big 8 newsgroups in
general, there is nothing clpmisc-specific about this requirement.
You are expected to do this in nearly all newsgroups.
You can use the "-q" switch with perldoc to do a word search of the
questions in the Perl FAQs.
Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
The perl distribution comes with much more documentation than is
available for most other newsgroups, so in clpmisc you should also
see if you can find an answer in the other (non-FAQ) standard docs
before posting.
It is *not* required, or even expected, that you actually *read* all of
Perl's standard docs, only that you spend a few minutes searching them
before posting.
Try doing a word-search in the standard docs for some words/phrases
taken from your problem statement or from your very carefully worded
"Subject:" header.
Really Really Should
This section describes things that you *really should* do before posting
to clpmisc.
Lurk for a while before posting
This is very important and 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
"top-posting", "Jeopardy" (because the answer comes before the
question), or "TOFU" (Text Over, Fullquote Under).
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: 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 7582
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