[31680] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2943 Volume: 11
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Fri May 14 09:09:22 2010
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 06:09:05 -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, 14 May 2010 Volume: 11 Number: 2943
Today's topics:
Re: Debugging question: tracing the origin of an error. <derykus@gmail.com>
Re: Debugging question: tracing the origin of an error. <bugbear@trim_papermule.co.uk_trim>
Do successfull poll(), sysread(), syswrite() calls clea <alexander.farber@gmail.com>
Re: how do i find the max value out of an array? <john@castleamber.com>
Re: MinGW and Perl 5.12 - Windows 32 bits ActiveState <dilbert1999@gmail.com>
Re: MinGW and Perl 5.12 - Windows 32 bits ActiveState <bart.lateur@telenet.be>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@seesig.invalid
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 14:56:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: "C.DeRykus" <derykus@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Debugging question: tracing the origin of an error.
Message-Id: <ba4df145-b76e-4a09-bba5-54e34891b05f@z13g2000prh.googlegroups.com>
On May 13, 11:56=A0am, Ted Byers <r.ted.by...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 13, 2:03=A0pm, "C.DeRykus" <dery...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 13, 10:10=A0am, Ted Byers <r.ted.by...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I have done all the usual things (as specified in the FAQ), and more,
> > > but it isn't enough.
>
> > > Here is how my script starts:
>
> > > use strict;
> > > use warnings;
> > > use DBI;
> > > use DateTime::Format::MySQL;
> > > use Date::Manip;
> > > use DateTime::Format::DateManip;
>
> > > BEGIN {
> > > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 $SIG{__WARN__} =3D sub{ print STDERR "Perl: "=
, @_; };
> > > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 $SIG{__DIE__} =A0=3D sub{ print STDERR "Perl:=
", @_; exit 1};
>
> > > }
>
> > > $| =3D 1;
>
> > > In the body of the script, this script does very little except make a
> > > DB connection, place the values from the record set that results from
> > > a trivial select query into a variable, and then prints it. =A0Then a=
ll
> > > handles are closed and the progrma ends. =A0The error actually arises
> > > after the last statement (and does not appear in ANY of my other
> > > scripts that use the packes listed above).
>
> > > Here is the error statement I get:
>
> > > Perl: Can't call method "FETCH" on an undefined value at C:/Perl/site=
/
> > > lib/Win32/TieRegistry.pm line 1485, <DATA> line 335 during global
> > > destruction.
>
> > > At no time have I made direct use of the file mentioned, so it must b=
e
> > > something one of the above packages has done. =A0However, there is no
> > > information provided as to what happened that led to this error. =A0I=
t
> > > does not even say what object is being destructed or what package
> > > created, or failed to create, it.
>
> > > How can I modify the signal handling I set up above so that I can get
> > > this information?
>
> > Here's an purported cure:
>
> > =A0 =A0END { $^W =3D 0; }
>
>
> Alas, the purported cure "END { $^W =3D 0; }" doesn't work in this
> instance (unless I used it incorrectly). =A0In any event, do you know
> how that purported cure is supposed to work?
I thought I recalled seeing the error/cure once before.
But, here's a thread that suggests just wrapping the
disconnect. Their error output is virtually the same:
{ $^W =3D 0; $dbh->disconnect }
perl case.pl
DBI::db=3DHASH(0x8f68e40) trace level set to 9 in
...
<- DESTROY=3D undef at unknown location!
(in cleanup) Can't call method "FETCH" on an
undefined value at
C:/opt/perl/site/lib/Win32/TieRegistry.pm
line 1486 during global destruction.
>
> I am using ActiveSate's perl (v5.10.0) on Windows, and have examined
> each of the tools I thought might have something useful, but either
> they didn't have something that would answer my question or I didn't
> understand the documentation.
>
> Almost a decade ago, I wrote a C++ template class that I used to wrap
> all exception classes and, using RTTI, I made exceptions traceable,
> including not only the line and file of the source code where the
> exception arose but also the class affected and all functions applied
> to it from the time an instance of the class was created to the time
> the exception was produced; and this in addition to a simple call
> stack. =A0This proved priceless in debugging my own code (and
> identifying cases where I was hit by a bug in one or another of the
> libraries I used, so I could focus on finding a work-around rather
> than seeking a bug that didn't exist in my code). =A0But, it was =A0usefu=
l
> only when I could compile it into my code which normally meant my own
> code only. =A0Alas, it relied on compiler specific macros in addition to
> a couple of my own, and the language has changed since I did that.
>
> Anyway, in addition to making this specific error go away, what I
> really need is something I can include at the top of my script and
> have it produce info about any object the script makes (whether
> explicitly or indirectly as part of the internals of a package that
> had been included), and what happens to it, but prints this info only
> if that object is involved in an error: basically a perl equivalent of
> the traceable exceptions I'd made in C++ so very long ago. =A0
> ...
If this new cure doesn't work, you might try one of DBI's
higher trace settings too as they demo in the thread.
--
Charles DeRykus
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 09:04:18 +0100
From: bugbear <bugbear@trim_papermule.co.uk_trim>
Subject: Re: Debugging question: tracing the origin of an error.
Message-Id: <lLidnT3c-p6fmXDWnZ2dnUVZ7rwAAAAA@brightview.co.uk>
Ted Byers wrote:
> I have done all the usual things (as specified in the FAQ), and more,
> but it isn't enough.
>
> Here is how my script starts:
>
> use strict;
> use warnings;
> use DBI;
> use DateTime::Format::MySQL;
> use Date::Manip;
> use DateTime::Format::DateManip;
>
> BEGIN {
> $SIG{__WARN__} = sub{ print STDERR "Perl: ", @_; };
> $SIG{__DIE__} = sub{ print STDERR "Perl: ", @_; exit 1};
> }
>
> $| = 1;
>
> In the body of the script, this script does very little except make a
> DB connection, place the values from the record set that results from
> a trivial select query into a variable, and then prints it. Then all
> handles are closed and the progrma ends. The error actually arises
> after the last statement (and does not appear in ANY of my other
> scripts that use the packes listed above).
>
> Here is the error statement I get:
>
> Perl: Can't call method "FETCH" on an undefined value at C:/Perl/site/
> lib/Win32/TieRegistry.pm line 1485, <DATA> line 335 during global
> destruction.
>
> At no time have I made direct use of the file mentioned, so it must be
> something one of the above packages has done. However, there is no
> information provided as to what happened that led to this error. It
> does not even say what object is being destructed or what package
> created, or failed to create, it.
>
> How can I modify the signal handling I set up above so that I can get
> this information?
The perl debugger might well be worth a try.
Disclaimer - I hardly ever use it!
BugBear
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 04:53:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "A. Farber" <alexander.farber@gmail.com>
Subject: Do successfull poll(), sysread(), syswrite() calls clear %!
Message-Id: <25091144-ff12-4812-ac21-ee42b88617f9@b7g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
Hello,
I have a multiplayer game (at preferans.de)
as a non-forking server in Perl (v5.10.0 under
OpenBSD 4.5) and it runs mostly okay with
average of 10 connected users and uses 0.2% CPU.
However once in a week the perl process would
"spin up" up to 98% CPU and would stop responding.
It is difficult to find the reason for this and
I can't reproduce it while testing myself.
I've made the listening TCP socket
non-blocking to prevent DOS attacks and
the main loop in my server looks like this:
sub prepare {
my $pkg = shift;
for my $child (values %Kids) {
my $fh = $child->{FH};
# the outgoing buffer is not empty - add POLLOUT
if (length $child->{RESPONSE} != 0) {
$Poll->mask($fh => POLLIN|POLLERR|POLLHUP|
POLLOUT);
} else {
$Poll->mask($fh => POLLIN|POLLERR|POLLHUP);
}
}
}
sub loop {
my $pkg = shift;
LOOP:
while (not $Quit) {
$pkg->prepare();
if ($Poll->poll(TIMEOUT) < 0) {
warn "poll error: $!\n";
next LOOP;
}
# add the new client
if ($Poll->events($tcpSocket) & POLLIN) {
$pkg->add($tcpSocket);
}
for my $child (values %Kids) {
my $fh = $child->{FH};
my $mask = $Poll->events($fh);
if ($mask & (POLLERR|POLLHUP)) {
$child->remove();
next LOOP;
} elsif ($mask & POLLOUT) {
unless ($child->write()) {
$child->remove();
next LOOP;
}
} elsif ($mask & POLLIN) {
unless ($child->read()) {
$child->remove();
next LOOP;
}
}
}
}
}
The client sockets are non-blocking too
and I try to ignore (i.e. retry sysread/write)
on signals and would-block situations:
sub write {
my $child = shift;
my $fh = $child->{FH};
my $len = bytes::length $child->{RESPONSE};
my $nbytes;
$nbytes = $fh->syswrite($child->{RESPONSE}, $len);
unless (defined $nbytes) {
# would block - retry later
return 1 if $!{EAGAIN} || $!{EWOULDBLOCK};
# interrupted by signal - retry later
return 1 if $!{EINTR};
# connection interrupted
return 0;
}
# connection closed
return 0 if 0 == $nbytes;
substr $child->{RESPONSE}, 0, $nbytes, '';
return 1;
}
I wonder, if this retrying (as shown above)
is the real reason for the "spin-ups" somehow?
Should I maybe clear $!{EINTR} etc.
manually whenever $nbytes is undefined?
Another suspicious spot for me is the
main loop, where I remove clients while looping
(that's why I've added "next LOOP" everywhere)
Does anybody have any advices?
Regards
Alex
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 22:01:16 -0500
From: John Bokma <john@castleamber.com>
Subject: Re: how do i find the max value out of an array?
Message-Id: <87vdarxk3n.fsf@castleamber.com>
Xho Jingleheimerschmidt <xhoster@gmail.com> writes:
> John Bokma wrote:
>> Xho Jingleheimerschmidt <xhoster@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Jürgen Exner wrote:
>>>> "sopan.shewale@gmail.com" <sopan.shewale@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Once you have array, how about?
>>>>> my $max = (sort { $b <=> $a } @array)[0];
>>>> If you insist on being inefficient,
>>> We are discussing Perl, aren't we?
>>
>> Yup, and my experience is that good Perl runs fast enough.
>
> Well, that really depends on fast enough for what.
For the stuff I do with it, hence "my experience is". ;-). (Mostly
processing a lot of data)
> On occasion I've
> had to rewrite certain parts in C to get the required speed, but that
> is rare. And more to my point, my experience is that using sort is
> also fast enough, at least in the context where Perl itself is fast
> enough. I now use List::Util::max or min, but for stylistic reasons,
> not efficiency reasons.
Yup, that was more or less my point.
>> I suspect
>> Python to be a bit slower, but note that that's just a suspicion. On top
>> of that I don't care.
>
> Right.
No, really. For (most if not all of) my stuff the speed of Perl/Python
is more than enough. Perl is often able to surprise me in a very
pleasant wa,y speedwise :-).
--
John Bokma j3b
Hacking & Hiking in Mexico - http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 04:34:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dilbert <dilbert1999@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: MinGW and Perl 5.12 - Windows 32 bits ActiveState
Message-Id: <c6f38096-f4c9-4c37-96f0-da2f44431246@h9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>
On 13 mai, 20:17, Dilbert <dilbert1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17 avr, 10:36, sisyphus <sisyphus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > In short, for the moment at least, you'd be better off grabbing the
> > freely available "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2"
> > compiler and using it with the x64 ActivePerl builds
>
> I can't seem to get the Windows *.exe-files I need for 64 bits from
> MinGW, so I grabbed the freely available Microsoft Visual C++ 2008
> Compiler (*** a whopping 200 meg !!! ***).
>
> I am currently downloading (45%...) ...let's see how this works out...
I have downloaded and installed "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows
Server 2003 R2".
Apparently, I can now compile with Visual C++ 2008 ...
...but the linker complains with a message:
fatal error LNK1112: module machine type 'X86' conflicts with target
machine type 'x64'
I can't find any solution in Google.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 14:01:06 +0200
From: Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@telenet.be>
Subject: Re: MinGW and Perl 5.12 - Windows 32 bits ActiveState
Message-Id: <gqequ55mgcu0pac28q18e0jmvjfihtm8eb@4ax.com>
Dilbert wrote:
>I know, I can get MinGW64 at http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/ or I
>can grab the freely available "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows
>Server 2003 R2", but I like the "no brain, no pain" philosophy of a
>"ppm install MinGW". So I tried "ppm install MinGW" on Activestate
>Perl 5.12 - Windows 64 bits, but there is still no MinGW Package
>available for 64 bits on the Activestate repo.
>
>Then I tried "ppm install MinGW" on Perl 5.12 - Windows 32 bits, and
>guess what -- it worked.
>
>Hurray, the MinGW Package for Perl 5.12 (Windows 32 bits) is now
>available from the Activestate repo. -- *** A big thank you to all
>those who made this possible !!! *** -- I don't take MinGW for granted
>(next step for me is to test CPANPLUS with Activestate Perl 5.12 to
>install xs based modules under Windows)
If your Perl is 32 bits, then your modules should be built for 32 bits,
too.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 02:15:06 -0500
From: tadmc@seesig.invalid
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.9 $)
Message-Id: <YeidneLFXNXnZXHWnZ2dnUVZ_uidnZ2d@giganews.com>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.9 $)
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_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
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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
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wrote the quoted material. Never quote an entire article. Never
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Intersperse your comments *following* each section of quoted text to
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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.liamg\100cm.j.dat/"
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
------------------------------
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:
To submit articles to comp.lang.perl.announce, send your article to
clpa@perl.com.
Back issues are available via anonymous ftp from
ftp://cil-www.oce.orst.edu/pub/perl/old-digests.
#For other requests pertaining to the digest, send mail to
#perl-users-request@ruby.oce.orst.edu. Do not waste your time or mine
#sending perl questions to the -request address, I don't have time to
#answer them even if I did know the answer.
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End of Perl-Users Digest V11 Issue 2943
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