[29754] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 998 Volume: 11
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Fri Nov 2 06:09:37 2007
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 03:09:03 -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, 2 Nov 2007 Volume: 11 Number: 998
Today's topics:
Chat and earn friends like Orkut through this link <mentorpradeep@gmail.com>
new CPAN modules on Fri Nov 2 2007 (Randal Schwartz)
Re: Perl module for accessing dbase files (DF4OR)
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@seesig.invalid
runaway memory leak with LWP and Fork()ing on Windows bulk88@hotmail.com
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:43:28 -0000
From: Remo <mentorpradeep@gmail.com>
Subject: Chat and earn friends like Orkut through this link
Message-Id: <1193993008.566552.309630@o38g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
http://indianfriendfinder.com/go/g906261-pmem
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 04:42:17 GMT
From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal Schwartz)
Subject: new CPAN modules on Fri Nov 2 2007
Message-Id: <Jqv3qH.1uCM@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.
Acme-ProgressBar-1.123
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Acme-ProgressBar-1.123/
a simple progress bar for the patient
----
Amce-CNA-0.063
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Amce-CNA-0.063/
a moer tolernat verison of mehtod location
----
Archive-Zip-1.22
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/Archive-Zip-1.22/
Provide an interface to ZIP archive files.
----
Autodia-2.05
http://search.cpan.org/~teejay/Autodia-2.05/
The configuration and Utility perl module for AutoDia.
----
Bundle-POE-IRC-1.03
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/Bundle-POE-IRC-1.03/
Bundle to install all POE related IRC modules.
----
Bundle-POE-Simple-TCPIP-Services-1.02
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/Bundle-POE-Simple-TCPIP-Services-1.02/
A bundle to install all POE simple TCP/IP services modules.
----
CPAN-Mini-0.564
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/CPAN-Mini-0.564/
create a minimal mirror of CPAN
----
CSS-Minifier-XS-0.01_06
http://search.cpan.org/~gtermars/CSS-Minifier-XS-0.01_06/
XS based CSS minifier
----
CSS-Tiny-1.15
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/CSS-Tiny-1.15/
Read/Write .css files with as little code as possible
----
Captcha-reCAPTCHA-v0.8
http://search.cpan.org/~andya/Captcha-reCAPTCHA-v0.8/
A Perl implementation of the reCAPTCHA API
----
Captcha-reCAPTCHA-v0.9
http://search.cpan.org/~andya/Captcha-reCAPTCHA-v0.9/
A Perl implementation of the reCAPTCHA API
----
CatalystX-CRUD-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~karman/CatalystX-CRUD-0.05/
CRUD framework for Catalyst applications
----
CatalystX-CRUD-Controller-RHTMLO-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~karman/CatalystX-CRUD-Controller-RHTMLO-0.05/
Rose::HTML::Objects CRUD controller
----
CatalystX-CRUD-Model-RDBO-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~karman/CatalystX-CRUD-Model-RDBO-0.04/
Rose::DB::Object CRUD
----
Clarion-1.02
http://search.cpan.org/~ukoloff/Clarion-1.02/
Perl module for reading CLARION 2.1 data files
----
Clarion-1.1.2
http://search.cpan.org/~ukoloff/Clarion-1.1.2/
Perl module for reading CLARION 2.1 data files
----
Config-INI-0.008
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Config-INI-0.008/
----
Config-Tiny-2.12
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/Config-Tiny-2.12/
Read/Write .ini style files with as little code as possible
----
DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.12
http://search.cpan.org/~cbiondo/DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.12/
DBI driver to query IBM DB2 mainframe databases through an IBM FTP server.
----
DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.13
http://search.cpan.org/~cbiondo/DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.13/
DBI driver to query IBM DB2 mainframe databases through an IBM FTP server.
----
DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.14
http://search.cpan.org/~cbiondo/DBD-MVS_FTPSQL-0.38.14/
DBI driver to query IBM DB2 mainframe databases through an IBM FTP server.
----
DBIx-Class-Tree-0.02000
http://search.cpan.org/~bluefeet/DBIx-Class-Tree-0.02000/
Manipulate and anaylze tree structured data. (EXPERIMENTAL)
----
Data-FormValidator-4.57
http://search.cpan.org/~markstos/Data-FormValidator-4.57/
Validates user input (usually from an HTML form) based on input profile.
----
Date-Tiny-1.03
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/Date-Tiny-1.03/
A date object with as little code as possible
----
DateTime-Calendar-Japanese-0.06000
http://search.cpan.org/~dmaki/DateTime-Calendar-Japanese-0.06000/
DateTime Extension for Traditional Japanese Calendars
----
DateTime-Calendar-Japanese-0.06001
http://search.cpan.org/~dmaki/DateTime-Calendar-Japanese-0.06001/
DateTime Extension for Traditional Japanese Calendars
----
DateTime-Format-Natural-0.58
http://search.cpan.org/~schubiger/DateTime-Format-Natural-0.58/
Create machine readable date/time with natural parsing logic
----
DateTime-TimeZone-0.69
http://search.cpan.org/~drolsky/DateTime-TimeZone-0.69/
Time zone object base class and factory
----
EV-0.1
http://search.cpan.org/~mlehmann/EV-0.1/
perl interface to libev, a high performance full-featured event loop
----
Email-Send-2.192
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email-Send-2.192/
Simply Sending Email
----
Email-Simple-Creator-1.423
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Email-Simple-Creator-1.423/
build an Email::Simple object from scratch
----
Eval-Context-0.02
http://search.cpan.org/~nkh/Eval-Context-0.02/
Evalute perl code in context wrapper
----
FCGI-Async-0.11
http://search.cpan.org/~pevans/FCGI-Async-0.11/
Module to allow use of FastCGI asynchronously
----
Gungho-0.09001
http://search.cpan.org/~dmaki/Gungho-0.09001/
Yet Another High Performance Web Crawler Framework
----
IPC-Mmap-0.14
http://search.cpan.org/~aduitsis/IPC-Mmap-0.14/
----
MooseX-GlobRef-Object-0.0201
http://search.cpan.org/~dexter/MooseX-GlobRef-Object-0.0201/
Store a Moose object in glob reference
----
Net-Pownce-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~cthom/Net-Pownce-1.00/
Perl OO interface to pownce.com
----
POE-Component-IRC-5.36
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-IRC-5.36/
a fully event-driven IRC client module.
----
POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-POE-Knee-1.02
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-POE-Knee-1.02/
A POE::Component::IRC plugin that runs Acme::POE::Knee races.
----
POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-RSS-Headlines-1.03
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-RSS-Headlines-1.03/
A POE::Component::IRC plugin that provides RSS headline retrieval.
----
POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-URI-Find-1.03
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-IRC-Plugin-URI-Find-1.03/
A POE::Component::IRC plugin that finds URIs in channel traffic.
----
POE-Component-IRC-Service-0.993
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-IRC-Service-0.993/
a fully event driven IRC Services module
----
POE-Component-Pluggable-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Pluggable-1.00/
A base class for creating plugin enabled POE Components.
----
POE-Component-Proxy-SOCKS-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Proxy-SOCKS-0.05/
A POE based SOCKS 4 proxy server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Chargen-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Chargen-1.07/
A POE component that implements an RFC 864 Chargen server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Daytime-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Daytime-1.07/
A POE component that implements an RFC 865 Daytime server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Discard-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Discard-1.07/
A POE component that implements an RFC 863 Discard server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Echo-1.53
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Echo-1.53/
A POE component that implements an RFC 862 Echo server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Echo-1.54
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Echo-1.54/
A POE component that implements an RFC 862 Echo server.
----
POE-Component-Server-IRC-1.24
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-IRC-1.24/
A fully event-driven networkable IRC server daemon module.
----
POE-Component-Server-Ident-1.10
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Ident-1.10/
A POE component that provides non-blocking ident services to your sessions.
----
POE-Component-Server-NNTP-0.99
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-NNTP-0.99/
A POE component that provides NNTP server functionality.
----
POE-Component-Server-Qotd-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Qotd-1.07/
A POE component that implements an RFC 865 QotD server.
----
POE-Component-Server-SimpleContent-1.10
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-SimpleContent-1.10/
The easy way to serve web content with POE::Component::Server::SimpleHTTP.
----
POE-Component-Server-SimpleHTTP-1.24
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-SimpleHTTP-1.24/
Perl extension to serve HTTP requests in POE.
----
POE-Component-Server-SimpleSMTP-1.06
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-SimpleSMTP-1.06/
A simple to use POE SMTP Server.
----
POE-Component-Server-Syslog-1.08
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Syslog-1.08/
syslog services for POE
----
POE-Component-Server-Time-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-Server-Time-1.07/
A POE component that implements an RFC 868 Time server.
----
POE-Component-WWW-Shorten-1.08
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Component-WWW-Shorten-1.08/
A non-blocking wrapper around WWW::Shorten.
----
POE-Filter-Bzip2-1.53
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-Bzip2-1.53/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::Bzip2
----
POE-Filter-CSV-1.07
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-CSV-1.07/
A POE-based parser for CSV based files.
----
POE-Filter-IRCD-2.32
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-IRCD-2.32/
A POE-based parser for the IRC protocol.
----
POE-Filter-LZF-1.63
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZF-1.63/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZF
----
POE-Filter-LZO-1.63
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZO-1.63/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZO
----
POE-Filter-LZW-1.63
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-LZW-1.63/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::LZW
----
POE-Filter-Zlib-1.92
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Filter-Zlib-1.92/
A POE filter wrapped around Compress::Zlib
----
POE-Wheel-Run-Win32-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~bingos/POE-Wheel-Run-Win32-0.04/
event driven fork/exec with added value
----
PPI-PowerToys-0.09
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/PPI-PowerToys-0.09/
A handy collection of small PPI-based utilities
----
PPIx-Grep-v0.0.1
http://search.cpan.org/~elliotjs/PPIx-Grep-v0.0.1/
Search PPI documents (not Perl code).
----
Params-Validate-0.89
http://search.cpan.org/~drolsky/Params-Validate-0.89/
Validate method/function parameters
----
Parse-Eyapp-1.082
http://search.cpan.org/~casiano/Parse-Eyapp-1.082/
Extensions for Parse::Yapp
----
Parse-Marpa-0.001_028
http://search.cpan.org/~jkegl/Parse-Marpa-0.001_028/
Jay Earley's general parsing algorithm with LR(0) precomputation
----
Perl6-Say-0.11
http://search.cpan.org/~jkeenan/Perl6-Say-0.11/
print -- but no newline needed
----
SWISH-API-Object-0.11
http://search.cpan.org/~karman/SWISH-API-Object-0.11/
return SWISH::API results as objects
----
Sub-Exporter-0.977_01
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Sub-Exporter-0.977_01/
a sophisticated exporter for custom-built routines
----
Sub-Exporter-0.977_02
http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Sub-Exporter-0.977_02/
a sophisticated exporter for custom-built routines
----
Template-Declare-0.27
http://search.cpan.org/~jesse/Template-Declare-0.27/
Perlish declarative templates
----
Test-Harness-2.99_07
http://search.cpan.org/~andya/Test-Harness-2.99_07/
Run Perl standard test scripts with statistics
----
Text-CSV-Track-0.8
http://search.cpan.org/~jkutej/Text-CSV-Track-0.8/
module to work with .csv file that stores some value(s) per identificator
----
Util-Properties-0.14
http://search.cpan.org/~alexmass/Util-Properties-0.14/
Java.util.properties like class
----
WWW-Search-PubMed-1.004
http://search.cpan.org/~gwilliams/WWW-Search-PubMed-1.004/
Search the NCBI PubMed abstract database.
----
WebService-Lucene-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~bricas/WebService-Lucene-0.05/
Module to interface with the Lucene indexing webservice
----
XML-Tiny-1.11
http://search.cpan.org/~dcantrell/XML-Tiny-1.11/
simple lightweight parser for a subset of XML
----
YAML-Tiny-1.17
http://search.cpan.org/~adamk/YAML-Tiny-1.17/
Read/Write YAML files with as little code as possible
----
self-0.11
http://search.cpan.org/~gugod/self-0.11/
Provides "self" and "args" keywords in your OO program.
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: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:01:19 +0100
From: "Ekki Plicht (DF4OR)" <df4or@web.de>
Subject: Re: Perl module for accessing dbase files
Message-Id: <fgelgf$54n$02$1@news.t-online.com>
Bill H wrote:
> Has anyone used any of the modules on cpan for creating and
> manipulating dbase style database files? The few I found on there seem
> to be pretty old (one was from 1999).
I have used (and still suing) DBD::Xbase with success. Everything works as
advertised. There is one shortcoming - you can't write files with indexes.
I can live with that, but for serious applications this might be a killer.
Rgds,
Ekki
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:10:28 GMT
From: tadmc@seesig.invalid
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.8 $)
Message-Id: <E3AWi.52137$RX.50309@newssvr11.news.prodigy.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: 1.8 $)
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.rehabitation.com/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 that they do
know and are being the "bad kind" of Lazy.
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 and many others on the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
--
Tad McClellan
email: perl -le "print scalar reverse qq/moc.noitatibaher\100cmdat/"
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:30:20 -0000
From: bulk88@hotmail.com
Subject: runaway memory leak with LWP and Fork()ing on Windows
Message-Id: <1193981420.975737.63410@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>
I am trying to non-blocking/asynchronously fetch/work with websites as
a standalone program (not a server script).
My idea is to use Perl, LWP, and simple perl-provided forking on Win32
(Windows XP in my case). Child threads do not need to talk back
anything to the parent. Parent fires a bunch of childs off, and
wait()s for them to complete, then fires off more children in a loop.
My code has a severe memory leak. I have isolated it into the code
below.
If this program is modified to not fork (look in comments; change
'fork()' to '0' and 'exit(0);' to '#exit(0);' ), it will
only take 8mb ram and 7mb VM through its whole lifetime which is 500
iterations for this example. If forking is on, then it will balloon to
290mb Ram usage, 470mb VM usage when it ends at 500 iterations.
Placing the loop on infinity will cause all memory to be used up and
eventually a crash. I would want to be go with a infinite loop, or
user specified count in the 1000s of iterations. I believe I wait();
an adequate amount of times. In my research, if I don't wait(),
program will silently end with no errors after 64 unwait()ed children
threads due to limitations in fork() implementation in ActivePerl/
Win32 perl, but I am fine with the 64 limit.
My forking code seems to work fine by itself. To see this, replace
doGet sub with "mySleep" sub. mySleep will simulate the latency of the
web page fetches. MySleep uses between 13 to 38 MB of RAM, never
exceeding 40mb. It approaches 40mb right before the wait() cleanup
that happens every 60 iterations, then falls to 13mb and SLOWLY goes
back up again. With LWP code, the memory NEVER goes down after a 60
iteration wait() cleanup. Undef()ing $ua and $response in the child
does not help the memleak at all. I think there might be a garbage
collection problem, but I dont know.
Keywords: win32, LWP, UserAgent, fork, windows, threads, ithreads
I assume there is a problem with LWP somehow. I would rather not use a
real threading library. It seems unnecessary and not KISS. Can someone
help?
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use Time::HiRes qw( sleep );
use String::Escape qw( printable );
sub doGet();
for (my $i = 0; $i < 500; $i++)
{
my $pid;
$pid = fork(); # $pid = 0; # for non-fork design
if ($pid == 0)
{
doGet ();
#mySleep(); # replace doGet with mySleep to see forking code
working right
print "child $i\n";
exit(0); # comment out to switch to non-fork design
}
else {
print "parent $i $pid \n";
sleep(.1);
if ($i % 60 == 0) #cleanup thread IDs to not run into 64
limit on windows fork
{ foreach(1..60) {wait();}};
}
}
#end of script/pause to check memory usage, hopefully will cause a
pause on non-win32
$^O eq 'MSWin32' ? system('pause') : system('read -n 1 -p "Press Any
Key to Continue..."');
#LWP function
sub doGet()
{
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
#url can be anything, google was used just as an example
my $response = $ua->get('http://www.google.com/images/firefox/
op_icon.png');
if ($response->is_success) {
print substr(printable( $response->content), 0, 30)."\n";
}
else {
die $response->status_line;
}
#undef($ua);
#undef($response);
}
sub mySleep()
{
sleep(rand(5));
}
__END__
Here is my perl -V:
Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 8 subversion 8) configuration:
Platform:
osname=MSWin32, osvers=5.00, archname=MSWin32-x86-multi-thread
uname=''
config_args='undef'
hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=undef
usethreads=define use5005threads=undef useithreads=define
usemultiplicity=d
fine
useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef
use64bitint=undef use64bitall=undef uselongdouble=undef
usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
Compiler:
cc='cl', ccflags ='-nologo -GF -W3 -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1 -DWIN32 -
D_CONSOLE
DNO_STRICT -DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT -DNO_HASH_SEED -DUSE_SITECUSTOMIZE -
DPRIVLIB_LAST_
N_INC -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -
DPERL_MSVCRT_RE
DFIX',
optimize='-MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1',
cppflags='-DWIN32'
ccversion='12.00.8804', gccversion='', gccosandvers=''
intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8, byteorder=1234
d_longlong=undef, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=8
ivtype='long', ivsize=4, nvtype='double', nvsize=8,
Off_t='__int64', lseeks
ze=8
alignbytes=8, prototype=define
Linker and Libraries:
ld='link', ldflags ='-nologo -nodefaultlib -debug -opt:ref,icf -
libpath:"C
\Perl\lib\CORE" -machine:x86'
libpth=\lib
libs= oldnames.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib
winspool.lib comdlg3
.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib netapi32.lib
uuid.lib ws2
32.lib mpr.lib winmm.lib version.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib
msvcrt.lib
perllibs= oldnames.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib
winspool.lib com
lg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib netapi32.lib
uuid.lib
ws2_32.lib mpr.lib winmm.lib version.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib
msvcrt.lib
libc=msvcrt.lib, so=dll, useshrplib=true, libperl=perl58.lib
gnulibc_version=''
Dynamic Linking:
dlsrc=dl_win32.xs, dlext=dll, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags=' '
cccdlflags=' ', lddlflags='-dll -nologo -nodefaultlib -debug -
opt:ref,icf
libpath:"C:\Perl\lib\CORE" -machine:x86'
Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
Compile-time options: MULTIPLICITY PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT
PERL_IMPLICIT_SYS PERL_MALLOC_WRAP
PL_OP_SLAB_ALLOC USE_ITHREADS USE_LARGE_FILES
USE_PERLIO USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
Locally applied patches:
ActivePerl Build 822 [280952]
Iin_load_module moved for compatibility with build 806
PerlEx support in CGI::Carp
Less verbose ExtUtils::Install and Pod::Find
Patch for CAN-2005-0448 from Debian with modifications
Rearrange @INC so that 'site' is searched before 'perl'
Partly reverted 24733 to preserve binary compatibility
MAINT31223 plus additional changes
31490 Problem bootstraping Win32CORE
31324 Fix DynaLoader::dl_findfile() to locate .so files again
31214 Win32::GetLastError fails when first called
31211 Restore Windows NT support
31188 Problem killing a pseudo-forked child on Win32
29732 ANSIfy the PATH environment variable on Windows
27527,29868 win32_async_check() can loop indefinitely
26970 Make Passive mode the default for Net::FTP
26379 Fix alarm() for Windows 2003
24699 ICMP_UNREACHABLE handling in Net::Ping
Built under MSWin32
Compiled at Jul 31 2007 19:34:48
@INC:
C:/Perl/site/lib
C:/Perl/lib
.
------------------------------
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 V11 Issue 998
**************************************
