[28169] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 9533 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Fri Jul 28 06:05:51 2006
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 03:05:04 -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 Fri, 28 Jul 2006 Volume: 10 Number: 9533
Today's topics:
Re: garbage collector <1usa@llenroc.ude.invalid>
Re: getopts::std <uri@stemsystems.com>
Re: getopts::std anno4000@radom.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Re: How to find all files in a directory with a specifi <schms@web.de>
new CPAN modules on Fri Jul 28 2006 (Randal Schwartz)
Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can wor tpcolson@gmail.com
Re: Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can <rvtol+news@isolution.nl>
Re: Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can <someone@example.com>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Re: Scripting for file transfer <cfajohnson@gmail.com>
Re: The "proper name" for the series: foo, bar, etc anno4000@radom.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Re: Tricky regex (exclude some multiple characters) <john@castleamber.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:21:43 GMT
From: "A. Sinan Unur" <1usa@llenroc.ude.invalid>
Subject: Re: garbage collector
Message-Id: <Xns980DC50DB5116asu1cornelledu@127.0.0.1>
Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in
news:ds2ic29q8aig3evsc27nc0cujge2ft6qga@4ax.com:
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:44:28 GMT, "A. Sinan Unur"
> <1usa@llenroc.ude.invalid> wrote:
>
>>C'mon Michele, the error is always on line 42, even if there is no line
>>42. Let's not break with tradition ;-))
>
> I thought that *the answer* is always on line 42, and also happens to
> be 42, even if there is no line 42.
Of course, you are correct! ;-)
Sinan
--
A. Sinan Unur <1usa@llenroc.ude.invalid>
(remove .invalid and reverse each component for email address)
comp.lang.perl.misc guidelines on the WWW:
http://augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc/clpmisc_guidelines.html
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:25:15 -0400
From: Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: getopts::std
Message-Id: <x7lkqewur8.fsf@mail.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "u" == usenet <usenet@DavidFilmer.com> writes:
u> Paul Lalli wrote:
>> Please don't use the word "null" when talking about Perl to beginners.
u> You're right. I should have said "empty." Or, maybe, "ain't got
u> nuthin' in it"
IMO null string is also an acceptable term but empty string is better for
newbies.
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs ---------------------------- http://jobs.perl.org
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jul 2006 09:56:39 GMT
From: anno4000@radom.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Subject: Re: getopts::std
Message-Id: <4iu5anF5g7tqU2@news.dfncis.de>
Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> >>>>> "u" == usenet <usenet@DavidFilmer.com> writes:
>
> u> Paul Lalli wrote:
> >> Please don't use the word "null" when talking about Perl to beginners.
>
> u> You're right. I should have said "empty." Or, maybe, "ain't got
> u> nuthin' in it"
>
>
> IMO null string is also an acceptable term but empty string is better for
> newbies.
"Null string" would be clear enough, but without qualification "null"
should only be used when the context provides a definition. Perl
context doesn't, so saying "$x is null" is ambiguous.
Anno
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jul 2006 23:30:11 -0700
From: "schms" <schms@web.de>
Subject: Re: How to find all files in a directory with a specific mtime
Message-Id: <1154068211.202928.173350@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>
Hi Affijn
Your approach is totally new for me. I am going to study this.
Thanks a lot.
kind regards,
Stefan
Dr.Ruud schrieb:
> schms schreef:
>
> > I have to write a perl program which finds all files in a directory
> > with mtime (modification time)
> >
> > of "today - 8 days" ( e.g. today is: 27.7.06, -8 days is: 19.7.06, so
> > the file's modification
>
> #!/usr/bin/perl
> use strict ;
> use warnings ;
>
> use IO::All ;
>
> my $path = "$ENV{HOME}/dev/perl" ;
>
> printf "%s%8d%3d %s\n"
> , $_->uid, $_->size, -M $_->name, $_->filename
> for sort {$b->mtime <=> $a->mtime}
> io($path)->filter( sub
> {
> my $m = -M $_->name ;
> 8 <= $m and $m <= 9
> })->all_files ;
>
> --
> Affijn, Ruud
>
> "Gewoon is een tijger."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:42:07 GMT
From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal Schwartz)
Subject: new CPAN modules on Fri Jul 28 2006
Message-Id: <J33Jq7.qCv@zorch.sf-bay.org>
The following modules have recently been added to or updated in the
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). You can install them using the
instructions in the 'perlmodinstall' page included with your Perl
distribution.
Apache2-ExplorerDestroyer-0.03
http://search.cpan.org/~crakrjack/Apache2-ExplorerDestroyer-0.03/
Kill Bill's Browser with Google AdSense
----
CDB_File-0.95
http://search.cpan.org/~msergeant/CDB_File-0.95/
Perl extension for access to cdb databases
----
Catalyst-Controller-Constraints-0.10_02
http://search.cpan.org/~phaylon/Catalyst-Controller-Constraints-0.10_02/
Constraint Signatures for Controller Actions
----
Class-InsideOut-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~dagolden/Class-InsideOut-1.01/
a safe, simple inside-out object construction kit
----
DBD-LDAP-0.08
http://search.cpan.org/~turnerjw/DBD-LDAP-0.08/
Perl extension for DBI, providing an SQL/Perl DBI interface to Ldap databases. LDAP stands for the "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol". For more information, see: http://www.ogre.com/ldap/docs.htm
----
DBD-Sprite-0.58
http://search.cpan.org/~turnerjw/DBD-Sprite-0.58/
Perl extension for DBI, providing database emmulation via flat files.
----
DBIx-Class-Schema-Loader-0.03007
http://search.cpan.org/~blblack/DBIx-Class-Schema-Loader-0.03007/
Dynamic definition of a DBIx::Class::Schema
----
DBIx-VersionedSubs-0.02
http://search.cpan.org/~corion/DBIx-VersionedSubs-0.02/
all your code are belong into the DB
----
Data-SExpression-0.2
http://search.cpan.org/~nelhage/Data-SExpression-0.2/
Parse Lisp S-Expressions into perl data structures.
----
Devel-Pler-0.12
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/Devel-Pler-0.12/
----
Email-Valid-0.176
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email-Valid-0.176/
Check validity of Internet email addresses
----
File-Mosaic-0.01
http://search.cpan.org/~boumenot/File-Mosaic-0.01/
assemble the constituent pieces of a file into a single file.
----
Frivolity-0.6.4
http://search.cpan.org/~jmac/Frivolity-0.6.4/
A Perl implementation of the Volity game platform
----
GO-TermFinder-0.72
http://search.cpan.org/~sherlock/GO-TermFinder-0.72/
identify GO nodes that annotate a group of genes with a significant p-value
----
IO-KQueue-0.31
http://search.cpan.org/~msergeant/IO-KQueue-0.31/
perl interface to the BSD kqueue system call
----
IPC-Run3-0.035
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/IPC-Run3-0.035/
run a subprocess in batch mode (a la system) on Unix, Win32, etc.
----
MDV-Repsys-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~nanardon/MDV-Repsys-0.04/
----
Net-VNC-0.34
http://search.cpan.org/~lbrocard/Net-VNC-0.34/
A simple VNC client
----
Net-Whois-Raw-1.09
http://search.cpan.org/~despair/Net-Whois-Raw-1.09/
Get Whois information for domains
----
Object-InsideOut-1.46
http://search.cpan.org/~jdhedden/Object-InsideOut-1.46/
Comprehensive inside-out object support module
----
POE-Filter-Bzip2-1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-Bzip2-1.2/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::Bzip2
----
POE-Filter-LZF-1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZF-1.2/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZF
----
POE-Filter-LZO-1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZO-1.2/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZO
----
POE-Filter-LZW-1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZW-1.2/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZW
----
POE-Filter-Zlib-1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-Zlib-1.2/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::Zlib
----
Perl6-Say-0.06
http://search.cpan.org/~jkeenan/Perl6-Say-0.06/
print -- but no newline needed
----
RT-Extension-QueueWizard-0.7
http://search.cpan.org/~kevinr/RT-Extension-QueueWizard-0.7/
----
String-Work-1.20
http://search.cpan.org/~kostya/String-Work-1.20/
Module of work with the string
----
Term-Menus-1.14
http://search.cpan.org/~reedfish/Term-Menus-1.14/
Create Powerful Terminal, Console and CMD Enviroment Menus
----
Test-Number-Delta-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~dagolden/Test-Number-Delta-1.01/
Compare if the difference between numbers is less than a given tolerance
----
Test-UseAllModules-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~ishigaki/Test-UseAllModules-0.05/
do use_ok() for all modules MANIFESTed
----
Test-UseAllModules-0.06
http://search.cpan.org/~ishigaki/Test-UseAllModules-0.06/
do use_ok() for all modules MANIFESTed
----
Test-UseAllModules-0.07
http://search.cpan.org/~ishigaki/Test-UseAllModules-0.07/
do use_ok() for all modules MANIFESTed
----
WWW-ConfixxBackup-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~reneeb/WWW-ConfixxBackup-0.04/
Create Backups with Confixx and download them via FTP
----
WWW-Google-News-0.12
http://search.cpan.org/~splotchy/WWW-Google-News-0.12/
Access to Google's News Service (Not Usenet)
----
XML-WBXML-0.03
http://search.cpan.org/~glasser/XML-WBXML-0.03/
Convert between XML and WBXML using libwbxml2
If you're an author of one of these modules, please submit a detailed
announcement to comp.lang.perl.announce, and we'll pass it along.
This message was generated by a Perl program described in my Linux
Magazine column, which can be found on-line (along with more than
200 other freely available past column articles) at
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/col82.html
print "Just another Perl hacker," # the original
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jul 2006 15:34:16 -0700
From: tpcolson@gmail.com
Subject: Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can work from
Message-Id: <1154039656.446671.11430@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
I'm no programmer by any means...I have 600 files that I have to do a
lot of repetive stuff to (GPS data that has to be formatted for upload
into the NGS database).
What I'm looking to automate is:
Step 1: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 12 -> and write these 8 characters to
(space?line) 2-9 in row 50 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
which needs to be overwritten.
Step 2: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 13 -> and write these 8 characters to
(space?line) 2-9 in row 51 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
which needs to be overwritten.
Step 3: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 14 -> and write these 8 characters to
(space?line) 2-9 in row 52 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
which needs to be overwritten.
Step 4: Beginning at row 53 (this gets hairy) put a carraige return
BEFORE the second letter "D" that is encountered and every D after that
(about 9 "D"s). Can't look for all D's in the whole txt file, as there
are lots that need to stay where they are.
Step 5: Copy rows 50-5x to a new txt file.
Step 6: run this pl script against another input file, and APPEND
results of step 5 to the txt file created in step 5.
Posted below are before and after examples:
Before
FILE: 21171886.DAT 000002776
NGS OPUS-RS SOLUTION REPORT
========================
.
.
.
BASE STATIONS USED
PID DESIGNATION LATITUDE LONGITUDE
DISTANCE(m)
DG5940 VALY MASSIE CORS ARP N372232.071 W0790735.675
139185.9
AM7013 HILB HILLSBOROUGH CORS ARP N360310.178 W0790609.101
12932.8
AJ2913 RALR RALEIGH CORS ARP N354712.852 W0783819.411
49254.9
.
.
.
Axx2006 7 72006 0 7
B2006 7 017 02006 7 017 0 3 rsgps 0.90IGS
Iant_info.003 NGS
C00040001 -276294327 32 790799428 150 1111562005 114
C00040002 -89599763 31 -66248694 149 -65641692 114
C00040003 354507175 32 -155059133 149 -304772514 114
D 1 2 -8885611 1 3 9234127 1 4 9421130 1 5 -8394382 1 6
8759577 D 1 7 9196876 1 8 -8355813 1 9 8733047 2 3 -9759412
2 4 -8435147 D 2 5 9461764 2 6 -9273033 2 7 -8234550 2 8
9424027 2 9 -9247586 D 3 4 8810457 3 5 -9302342 3 6 9503507
3 7 8686579 3 8 -9280962 D 3 9 9489121 4 5 -8874091 4 6
9265782 4 7 9355880 4 8 -8438250 D 4 9 8801376 5 6 -9783679
5 7 -8392435 5 8 9502704 5 9 -9308397 D 6 7 8739195 6 8
-9303254 6 9 9504962 7 8 -8870240 7 9 9245156 D 8 9 -9783610
After:
Axx2006 7 72006 0 7
B2006 7 017 02006 7 017 0 3 rsgps 0.90IGS
Iant_info.003 NGS
C18865940 -276294327 32 790799428 150 1111562005 114
C18867013 -89599763 31 -66248694 149 -65641692 114
C18862913 354507175 32 -155059133 149 -304772514 114
D 1 2 -8885611 1 3 9234127 1 4 9421130 1 5 -8394382 1 6
8759577
D 1 7 9196876 1 8 -8355813 1 9 8733047 2 3 -9759412 2 4
-8435147
D 2 5 9461764 2 6 -9273033 2 7 -8234550 2 8 9424027 2 9
-9247586
D 3 4 8810457 3 5 -9302342 3 6 9503507 3 7 8686579 3 8
-9280962
D 3 9 9489121 4 5 -8874091 4 6 9265782 4 7 9355880 4 8
-8438250
D 4 9 8801376 5 6 -9783679 5 7 -8392435 5 8 9502704 5 9
-9308397
D 6 7 8739195 6 8 -9303254 6 9 9504962 7 8 -8870240 7 9
9245156
D 8 9 -9783610
I would greatly appreciate it if someone could post a website with some
basic examples that do line/row/column copy and paste...I've been
looking all day and can't make heads or tails of it....
Thanks
Tom- North Carolina State University/NC Geodetic Survey.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:55:09 +0200
From: "Dr.Ruud" <rvtol+news@isolution.nl>
Subject: Re: Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can work from
Message-Id: <eabnl5.q0.1@news.isolution.nl>
tpcolson@gmail.com schreef:
> I would greatly appreciate it if someone could post a website with
> some basic examples that do line/row/column copy and paste...I've been
> looking all day and can't make heads or tails of it....
perldoc -q fixed-record-length
--
Affijn, Ruud
"Gewoon is een tijger."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:54:02 GMT
From: "John W. Krahn" <someone@example.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie question, looking for pl examples that I can work from
Message-Id: <umcyg.143785$I61.122311@clgrps13>
tpcolson@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm no programmer by any means...I have 600 files that I have to do a
> lot of repetive stuff to (GPS data that has to be formatted for upload
> into the NGS database).
>
> What I'm looking to automate is:
>
> Step 1: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
> in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 12 -> and write these 8 characters to
> (space?line) 2-9 in row 50 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
> which needs to be overwritten.
>
> Step 2: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
> in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 13 -> and write these 8 characters to
> (space?line) 2-9 in row 51 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
> which needs to be overwritten.
>
> Step 3: Copy characters in (space?Line) 12-15 in row 1 and characters
> in (space?line?) 4-7 in row 14 -> and write these 8 characters to
> (space?line) 2-9 in row 52 (which allready has text there, all 0's,
> which needs to be overwritten.
For example:
while ( my $row = <> ) {
if ( $. == 1 ) {
$prefix = substr $row, 11, 4;
}
if ( $. == 12 || $. == 13 || $. == 14 ) {
push @suffix, substr $row, 2, 4;
}
if ( $. == 50 || $. == 51 || $. == 52 ) {
substr $row, 1, 8, $prefix . shift @suffix;
}
}
> Step 4: Beginning at row 53 (this gets hairy) put a carraige return
> BEFORE the second letter "D" that is encountered and every D after that
> (about 9 "D"s). Can't look for all D's in the whole txt file, as there
> are lots that need to stay where they are.
>
> Step 5: Copy rows 50-5x to a new txt file.
This is the tricky part. It depends on what comes before and after this block
of text (your example elides this information.) You may be able to use
paragraph mode if this block is preceeded and followed by blank lines or else
you need some way to identify with certainty the beginning and end of the block.
For example:
if ( 50 .. /end of block/ ) {
$block .= $row;
}
if ( /end of block/ ) {
$block =~ s/(?<=\d) +(?=D \d)/\n/g;
}
> Step 6: run this pl script against another input file, and APPEND
> results of step 5 to the txt file created in step 5.
open my $out, '>>', 'new txt file' # open in append mode
or die "Cannot open 'new txt file' $!";
John
--
use Perl;
program
fulfillment
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jul 2006 07:22:29 GMT
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.6 $)
Message-Id: <44c9bb2f$0$57730$ae4e5890@news.nationwide.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: 1.6 $)
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.
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://www.augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc.shtml
For more information about netiquette in general, see the "Netiquette
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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
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A note about technical terms used here:
In this document, we use words like "must" and "should" as
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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
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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
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Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Checking the FAQ before posting is required in Big 8 newsgroups in
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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
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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
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Try doing a word-search in the standard docs for some words/phrases
taken from your problem statement or from your very carefully worded
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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: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:01:30 -0400
From: "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohnson@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Scripting for file transfer
Message-Id: <a84op3-hes.ln1@xword.teksavvy.com>
On 2006-07-27, maxwelton@my-deja.com wrote:
> I have the following in a csh script. This is run on a remote system
> and the goal is to allow a user on a client to tar and gzip files
> and download them to their system. All I get is streamed data to the
> browser. Any help would be appreciated.
This more properly belongs in a group devoted to CGI programming,
e.g., comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi.
> # ! /bin/csh
I recommend that you do not write scripts in csh; read these for
more information:
<http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/CshTop10.txt>
<http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Csh.html#uh-0>
<http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/>
> echo "Content-description: File Transfer'\n"
> echo "'Content-type: application/x-gzip\n'"
> echo "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"site.tar.gz\"\n";
>
> # < do some file redirection in here ->
>
> tar cf - * | gzip -c
>
> #end
You need a blank line after the headers:
echo "Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"site.tar.gz\"\n\n";
> The interesting thing is if I do:
>
> tar cf - * | gzip -c > site.tar.gz
>
> then the file is able to be unzipped and untarred and it is all good.
> I think my problem is somewhere in those 'content' headers. I can
> also try :
>
> tar zcf - * | cat
>
> and this streams the data to the browser as well.
>
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jul 2006 09:42:55 GMT
From: anno4000@radom.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Subject: Re: The "proper name" for the series: foo, bar, etc
Message-Id: <4iu4gvF5g7tqU1@news.dfncis.de>
<usenet@DavidFilmer.com> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
[foo, bar, baz]
> I can't remember the term he used (and I'm not even sure I heard it
> correctly). Does someone know the name of this series? I'm curious...
Ask Gaspode -- the mongrel of Discworld fame. It's one of favorite
words.
Anno
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jul 2006 03:33:03 GMT
From: John Bokma <john@castleamber.com>
Subject: Re: Tricky regex (exclude some multiple characters)
Message-Id: <Xns980DE5654C594castleamber@130.133.1.4>
Chris Mattern <syscjm@gwu.edu> wrote:
> Uncle_Fester wrote:
>>
>> How might I allow 'oo' and 'ee' and not 'ff' or '--' ?
>
> I fear if you did that, your filter would be just so much fluff.
OTOH effective :-D
--
John Bokma Freelance software developer
&
Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 9533
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