[6649] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 274 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Thu Apr 10 20:17:17 1997
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 97 17:00:31 -0700
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Thu, 10 Apr 1997 Volume: 8 Number: 274
Today's topics:
Re: "Dummies" book any good? (rga)
[Q] Unpack or split? <Michael.S.Kerry@hrb.com>
[Win32] Help with NetAdmin module <robc@imsi.com>
can't use "x" as action in perl debugger <psrc@exmachina.com>
Re: can't use "x" as action in perl debugger (Ilya Zakharevich)
Circumventing garbage collection <zt_taylor@pnl.gov>
Re: File handles in Perl...(akench@cvimail.cv.com) (Andrew M. Langmead)
Re: Newbe problems with Perl for NT: system commands gordon.leslie.mcdorman@sap-ag.de
Re: Parser gets confused with '@' in strings (Will Morse)
perl and multithreading <scottg@fusionmm.com>
Perl NT problems (Yuri Shtil)
Re: Perl NT problems (Nathan V. Patwardhan)
Perl on a PC <rufus@tesser.com>
perl parsing slashing question (Jon Nathan)
Re: perl parsing slashing question (Eric Bohlman)
PERL, Purveyor, and MS Web Personal Servers. <cardoso@unb.ca>
Perl5 sin function has dain bramage ?!?!?!?!? <topper@panix.com>
Regular expression help roehnelt@csulb.edu
Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and <amullhau@ix.netcom.com>
Re: Running Perl script w/i Unix Shell Script (Abigail)
Re: splitting and reading data in an elm mailbox (Bennett Todd)
Text Parser/Searcher <jayne@msp.sc.ti.com>
Re: Text Parser/Searcher (Eric D. Friedman)
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) <dean@cyberzone-inc.com>
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) (Timothy Watson)
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) (Tom Wheeley)
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) (Tom Wheeley)
Re: Who makes more $$ - Windows vs. Unix programmers? (Peter Seebach)
Re: why can't arg 1 to shift be split? (Eric Bohlman)
Re: win32 perl problem <brinthl@ch.etn.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 23:36:30 GMT
From: rga@io.com (rga)
Subject: Re: "Dummies" book any good?
Message-Id: <334d77f2.1384017@news.io.com>
anthony@outshine.com (Anthony Boyd) wrote:
> I bought "Teach Yourself Perl In 21 >Days" and couldn't get past chapter 5.
What I like about this book is that it provides ample
beginners information, explainations of everything, yet is still quite
comprehensive in covering perl.
As they state in the forward, it is digested MUCH easier if
the reader has past experience with some form of programming.
Haven't seen the book originally in question,
No doubt is does the job.
However, I found "Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days" to be just
the ticket.
BTW, I wasn't on day "five" until my second week <grin>
Sincerely, RGA
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 18:20:43 -0400
From: "Michael S. Kerry" <Michael.S.Kerry@hrb.com>
Subject: [Q] Unpack or split?
Message-Id: <334D67BB.6217@hrb.com>
Here's a newbie question, but at least it's quick...
I have fixed-length record data like the following:
12345 78901 3456 8 abcdefghijkl
(a 5-digit number, a space, another 5-digit #, a space, a 4-digit #, a
space, a 1-digit #, a space, a 12-character (unquoted) string).
The numeric fields are pre-padded with zeros (if necessary) to maintain
the record positioning (i.e., the forth value is always in position 18).
What is the best (easiest? most reliable?) way to parse this record into
the 5 fields (4 numeric, one string)? Unpack or split? The string might
contain spaces (usually does, in fact...).
Thanks.
-MK
--
Michael S. Kerry | "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
msk@icf.hrb.com | -The Mad Hatter
Raytheon E-Systems | "Because the notes for which they are noted are
Linthicum, MD USA | not noted for being musical notes." -Sam Loyd
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 16:57:59 -0400
From: Robert Carbone <robc@imsi.com>
Subject: [Win32] Help with NetAdmin module
Message-Id: <334D5457.8AD@imsi.com>
I am trying to use the
NetAdmin::GroupIsMember
and it does not seem to be working. If the method is broken
please let me know, and more importantley, if someone has a working
NetAdmin.pm please let me know.
If it does work as is please mail me an example of how it should be used
robc
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 18:51:47 -0400
From: Paul S R Chisholm <psrc@exmachina.com>
Subject: can't use "x" as action in perl debugger
Message-Id: <334D6F03.76BD@exmachina.com>
I've just started heavy use of the Perl 5 debugger ("perl -wd"). (I'm
very glad "-wd" works well in Perl 5; Perl 4's debugger generated a slew
of warnings that way.) In particular, I've really grown to love the "x"
command in the debugger, which prints data structures recursively. "x
@_" prints the argument list, for example. Very, very nice.
I'd decided to start using the "a" command (set an action when the
statement in question is called). Unfortunately, "a 320 x @_" (set an
action at line 320 to examine the argument list) doesn't work, because
the argument to x must be a Perl command, *not* a Perl debugger command.
(*sigh*)
Oh, well. It's better debugging support than I had when I first
programmed in C++ (many years ago). --PSRC
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 23:51:45 GMT
From: ilya@math.ohio-state.edu (Ilya Zakharevich)
Subject: Re: can't use "x" as action in perl debugger
Message-Id: <5ijueh$g35$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>
[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to Paul S R Chisholm
<psrc@exmachina.com>],
who wrote in article <334D6F03.76BD@exmachina.com>:
> I've just started heavy use of the Perl 5 debugger ("perl -wd"). (I'm
> very glad "-wd" works well in Perl 5; Perl 4's debugger generated a slew
> of warnings that way.) In particular, I've really grown to love the "x"
> command in the debugger, which prints data structures recursively. "x
> @_" prints the argument list, for example. Very, very nice.
>
> I'd decided to start using the "a" command (set an action when the
> statement in question is called). Unfortunately, "a 320 x @_" (set an
> action at line 320 to examine the argument list) doesn't work, because
> the argument to x must be a Perl command, *not* a Perl debugger command.
What is wrong with
a 320 main::dumpValue(\@_)
? Well, maybe it can go to a wrong filehandle if you do select() in
your program...
dumpvar.pl definitely needs an object-oriented rewrite...
Note also that you can set a `b 320' and do `{{ x @_', `{{ c' (with
new enough perl), but this might be hard to stop ;-).
Ilya
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:08:38 -0700
From: Z Todd Taylor <zt_taylor@pnl.gov>
Subject: Circumventing garbage collection
Message-Id: <334D64E6.38DD@pnl.gov>
Is it possible to circumvent perl's automatic garbage
collection? I'd like to avoid the time (and sometimes
paging) required by calling destructors and freeing
still-referenced objects when quitting from a program
with lots of such objects still around.
perlobj alludes to "destruct levels" and an environment
variable PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL but I can't find any
expanded discussion of them.
TIA.
--Todd
--
Z. Todd Taylor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
zt_taylor@pnl.gov
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 23:49:19 GMT
From: aml@world.std.com (Andrew M. Langmead)
Subject: Re: File handles in Perl...(akench@cvimail.cv.com)
Message-Id: <E8G4u7.JMG@world.std.com>
akench@cvimail.cv.com writes:
>I have lot of file and about 50+subroutines and
>the file handles may be have the same names too.
>Is there a way so that a file handle is local to
>a subroutine? Something paralle to : my $myvariable
>Or any easy solution other than changing all the
>filehandle names in all the files?
One option would be to use the FileHandle module. Then you get
filehandles that can be stored in scalar variables. These variables
can then be kept in variables localized with "my".
use FileHandle;
my $fh = new FileHandle, '>/tmp/a' or die "Can't create /tmp/a: $!\n";
$result = test();
print $fh "File /tmp/b contains $result\n";
exit;
sub test {
my $fh = new FileHandle, '/tmp/b' or die "Can't open /tmp/b: $!\n";
join '', <$fh>;
} # $fh goes out of scope, its destructor gets called and the file gets closed
Another option would be to use the local() operator and typeglobs to
make temporary aliases for the filehandle:
--
Andrew Langmead
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 21:53:48 GMT
From: gordon.leslie.mcdorman@sap-ag.de
Subject: Re: Newbe problems with Perl for NT: system commands
Message-Id: <uohbmy26r.fsf@P23874.i-have-a-misconfigured-system-so-shoot-me>
Andrew Sirulnik <nnysiu@ny.ubs.com> writes:
> Does anyone have any
> insight into why certain NT system commands might work, but others
> don't??
> $a = system("$command");
> print $a;
I think you may want something in the following format:
$a = `$command`; # Get result of command
print $a; # Print result
The return value of the system operator will be the result
code of the operation (non-zero for failure). Did you
notice zeros being printed after the commands which worked?
With backquotes, you get the output of the shell operation.
You may find cgi.pm helpful for some of what you're trying
to do.
Also chapter 14 of the Llama book would help.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 17:54:31 -0500
From: will@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Will Morse)
Subject: Re: Parser gets confused with '@' in strings
Message-Id: <5ijr37$i8r@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>
With perl 5, using @d in a " string returns the value of the list d.
I don't know why this didn't happen in perl 4.
print "\@d\n"; might work.
Note that:
print "@d\n" if @d = (1);
^
is assigning a value, not testing equality, which is of course ==.
It might help if you would explain what you are trying to do.
Will
In article <873et9cvtt.fsf@guppy.orem.iserver.com>,
Jamie Gritton <gritton@iserver.com> wrote:
> When the perl 5 parser complains about "literal @" in a string, it
>gets confused by "statement if expr" forms. The following should be
>perfectly legal (and does in fact work in perl 4):
>
>print "@d\n" if @d = (1);
>
> But the parser decides that @d is not yet defined and boots me out
>with:
>
>Literal @d now requires backslash at -e line 1, within string
>
> Note that these alternates work without a problem:
>
>@d = (); print "@d\n" if @d = (1);
>
>@d = (1) and print "@d\n";
>
>--
>James Gritton - gritton@iserver.com - I disclaim - "
--
# Copyright 1997 Will Morse. Internet repost/archive freely permitted.
# Hardcopy newspaper, magazine, etc. quoting requires permission.
#
# Gravity, # Will Morse
# not just a good idea, # Houston, Texas
# it's the law. # will@starbase.neosoft.com
#
# These are my views and do not necessarly reflect anyone else/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:34:35 -0600
From: Scott Gargash <scottg@fusionmm.com>
Subject: perl and multithreading
Message-Id: <334D5CEB.1634@fusionmm.com>
(I've been trying to keep from posting to Usenet because I've
been enjoying spam free email at work, but, sigh, all good things
must come to an end...)
Here's a brief description of the problem.
Users are writing lots of independent perl scripts that make requests
and get responses from hw/sw components via a socket. Eventually the
hw/sw will be integrated and it would be nice to test the integration
by running the independent scripts simultaneously, and if there are
errors to be able to debug the scripts while they are all running. This
requires all the different scripts to share a single socket while
running asynchronously. The scripts must run on NT perl as well as unix
perl, and NT perl has no fork.
In a nutshell, I'd like to be able to start 2 simultaneously but
independently running perl scripts while sharing certain variables
(the socket handle) between them. Also, certain operations like socket
accesses need to be atomic to prevent errors.
I see no way to make perl do this, at least out of the box.
The thought occurred to me that it's possible to replace the debugger
script with one of my own choosing. If my subroutine got called after
each line of perl, it should be possible to write my own thread
scheduler
(execute a line from script 1, then execute a line from script 2,
continuing in this manner until both scripts complete, with atomic
blocks to make things thread safe). This should work if it were possible
to maintain independent stacks for each script to do context switches.
Does anyone know if this is possible? Or does anyone have any
better ideas?
TIA,
Scott
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 22:04:43 GMT
From: shtil@netcom.com (Yuri Shtil)
Subject: Perl NT problems
Message-Id: <shtilE8Fzzv.6C0@netcom.com>
I have downloaded and installed the latest Perl for Windows NT (it is
something 004 as I recall).
I am confused because it does not seem to work. For examplethe command:
perl -e 'print "foo\n"' fails with error message like:
cannot see "'" before EOF (I have the exact message on an another site).
Also I tried to use the registry package and it failed miserably on the very
first call to $LOCAL_MACHINE->open with an error when trying to goto to a
nonexisting label.
Does anybody have ahy idea ?
I suspect I did something wrong , but WHAT ???
Yuri Shtil
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 23:47:10 GMT
From: nvp@shore.net (Nathan V. Patwardhan)
Subject: Re: Perl NT problems
Message-Id: <5iju5u$kec@fridge-nf0.shore.net>
Yuri Shtil (shtil@netcom.com) wrote:
: perl -e 'print "foo\n"' fails with error message like:
I noticed the same thing ... just now.
Although assignment seems to work, like: perl -e '$var="foo";'
outputting fails. Hmm.
This also fails: perl -e 'print("foo\n");'
This seems to work: perl -e "$val="foo"; print($val);"
Wild, wacky stuff.
--
Nathan V. Patwardhan
nvp@shore.net
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 22:25:50 GMT
From: "Robert Eaton" <rufus@tesser.com>
Subject: Perl on a PC
Message-Id: <01bc4605$fc0b21a0$9b9c2dc7@rufus>
I am getting ready to start programming in Perl on my PC. I would like the
programs to work on a Unix machine as well.
Could I possibly get some opinions on the best PC operating system and any
developement software for this task?
Thanks,
Robert Eaton.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 23:38:05 GMT
From: jn0729a@cage.cas.american.edu (Jon Nathan)
Subject: perl parsing slashing question
Message-Id: <5ijtkt$k33$1@paladin.american.edu>
sorry if this gets posted twice, but i don't think it got through the
first time. anyway, i am trying to write a simple perl script to
subsititute the string
> <
for all occurences of
>-<
in a file. it happens to be an html file i wrote in an ugly way, but
that's not important. my code thus far is
#!/usr/bin/perl
while(<>){
s/>-</> </g;
}
it seems to me that this should be enough - it runs and compiles (perl
-w) with no complaints. i can run it fix.pl test.html and it seems to
run but makes no changes to the file. is my problem that i'm not
\slashing out certain characters? i looked for a list of characters that
need to be \slashed out but i couldn't find one. is it this, or am i
doing something else fundamentally wrong? any help is appreciated.
thanks again.
--
Jon Nathan
jon@blading.com
www.csis.american.edu/~jn0729a
ps. i posted a few weeks ago about associative arrays in a script and
with the help of comp.lang.perl.misc - esp. steven farrell - got it to
run. thanks again
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 22:34:36 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: perl parsing slashing question
Message-Id: <ebohlmanE8G1Do.8t0@netcom.com>
David Alan Black (dblack@icarus.shu.edu) wrote:
: Perl doesn't do things to files unless you ask it to :-)
: Try:
: #!/usr/bin/perl -wip
: s/>-</> </g;
Or even better, so he'll get a better idea of the available command-line
options, #!/usr/bin/perl -whip
hehe
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 17:05:59 GMT
From: "John Cardoso" <cardoso@unb.ca>
Subject: PERL, Purveyor, and MS Web Personal Servers.
Message-Id: <01bc45da$64842460$075dca83@sagres.unb.ca>
I have tried to run a PERL script in windows 95 using two servers: Purveyor
for Win95 and MS Personal Web Server (also for Win95).
Both give me error 501 (equivalent to: service not implemented).
Why is this? Can't I run PERL scripts in these servers??????
Thanks,
John
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 19:15:09 -0400
From: "David J. Topper" <topper@panix.com>
Subject: Perl5 sin function has dain bramage ?!?!?!?!?
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.94.970410191440.16253A-100000@panix2.panix.com>
I've been killing myself trying to figure out what values
I'm getting for the sin function. Here's my code:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5 -w
$pi = atan2(1,1) * 4;
$tpi = 2*$pi;
$sin2Pi = sin($tpi);
print "sin($tpi) = $sin2Pi\n";
$sin2Pi = sin(360);
print "sin($tpi) = $sin2Pi\n";
and my output is:
sin(6.28318530717959) = -2.44929359829471e-16
sin(360) = 0.958915723414307
What the hell is going on ?!?!?!?!?
Neither of these values are correct. But I don't
see anything that I'm doing that is wrong.
Advice / comments would be greatly appreciated.
DT
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:43:08 -0700
From: roehnelt@csulb.edu
Subject: Regular expression help
Message-Id: <334D6CF9.277A6A54@csulb.edu>
The end of this line ends with an _is_ I know the i stands for case
incensitive, but I couldn't find anything telling me what the s does.
while ( $content =~ s#<\s*img.*?alt\s*=\s*"(.*?)".*?>#$1#is ) {}
any help would be appreciated.
sean
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 19:40:10 -0400
From: "Andrew P. Mullhaupt" <amullhau@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)
Message-Id: <334D7A5A.7A94@ix.netcom.com>
Douglas Seay wrote:
>
> specification may have been created hand-in-hand with the tool, but I
> don't see how that makes them less of "languages". This m ight be
> ancient history, but was there a formal specification of COBOL, FORTRAN
> or APL before the first implementation?]
There was _very much_ a formal specification of APL before the first
implementation. In fact, APL was a _book_ for a while before Iverson
persuaded IBM to actually implement it. It's still a worthwhile read.
COBOL is another example of a _designed_ language.
Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 23:34:06 GMT
From: abigail@fnx.com (Abigail)
Subject: Re: Running Perl script w/i Unix Shell Script
Message-Id: <E8G44u.H7s@nonexistent.com>
On 10 Apr 1997 11:45:01 -0500, Jerry Sievers wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc
<URL: news:x7ybaqj08i.fsf@gsievers.xnet.com>:
++ david@temss2.main.temple.edu (David Tucker) writes:
++
++ > Can you run a perl script within a UNIX shell script without having
++ > to preface all Perl variables starting with a $ i.e. $a with
++ > a backslash i.e. \$a.
++ >
++ > Otherwise, the UNIX shell will interpret the variable within the
++ > shell context and give a "Variable syntax" error.
++ >
++ > Thanks in advance.
++
++ use single quotes like this.......
++
++ ----------------------------------------------------
++ #!/bin/sh
++
++ echo hello
++
++ perl -e '
++ $foo = "hello\n";
++ print $foo;
++ '
++ ----------------------------------------------------
Or just:
> perl
$foo = "hello\n";
print $foo;
__END__
hello
>
(And you can do ^D in stead of __END__)
Abigail
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 1997 16:58:01 GMT
From: bet@rahul.net (Bennett Todd)
Subject: Re: splitting and reading data in an elm mailbox
Message-Id: <slrn5knikp.huh.bet@waltz.rahul.net>
An elm mailbox is just a standard Unix-format mbox; messages are separated by
having each message begin with 'From '. So you can split it yourself; an mbox
splitter can be really straightforward; e.g.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use File::Basename;
my($progname) = basename $0;
my($fn)='00000';
while (<>) {
open STDOUT, '>' . ++$fn or die "$progname: open $fn: $!\n"
if /^From .* \d\d\d\d$/;
print;
}
I use that all the time; split with that quickie, hammer the individual files
as desired, then possibly cat 'em all back up into an mbox again. (Yes, I know
I've got a Year 10000 problem in there, but what can I say, I'll worry about
it when it gets here:-).
If you want to get more elaborate, there's a pretty sophisticated package in
<URL:http://perl.org/CPAN/modules/by-module/Mail/> called MailFolder; I've
used it for Q&D mbox folder pounding with great success. But if you have a BIG
mbox, it'll run way way slower than the above splitter.
-Bennett
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 17:11:59 -0500
From: Jayne Meiners <jayne@msp.sc.ti.com>
Subject: Text Parser/Searcher
Message-Id: <334D65AF.5E5D@msp.sc.ti.com>
Given a file name:
I need a script that can:
-- Find the needed fields in an ascii file
-- Output it in HTML format in a table.
--
-Regards
Jayne Meiners
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 23:21:09 GMT
From: friedman@medusa.acs.uci.edu (Eric D. Friedman)
Subject: Re: Text Parser/Searcher
Message-Id: <5ijsl5$c9a@news.service.uci.edu>
[mailed, posted]
In article <334D65AF.5E5D@msp.sc.ti.com>,
Jayne Meiners <jayne@msp.sc.ti.com> wrote:
>Given a file name:
>
>I need a script that can:
>
>-- Find the needed fields in an ascii file
>-- Output it in HTML format in a table.
>--
Sounds reasonable. What have you done to accomplish this task? Read
any books? Examined the FAQ? Studied anyone's code? Written your
own?
I'm asking because I'm sure you didn't expect someone on Usenet to do
>your work< for you >for free<. Or did you? :-)
Sending this kind of message is an excellent way to get yourself
killfiled. Conversely, sending a message with your attempt at
a solution and some specific questions will, in all likelihood,
result in a generous outpouring of support. The choice, Jayne
Meiners, is yours.
Regards,
--
Eric D. Friedman
friedman@uci.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 17:26:35 -0400
From: "Dean Z. Douthat" <dean@cyberzone-inc.com>
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <334D5B0B.7D68@cyberzone-inc.com>
Darin Johnson wrote:
<snip>
> It's only free in terms of cost, not in terms of the product itself.
> It has license restrictions and source is not available (not even
> licensable).
<snip>
The basic functionality of IE comes from a library which is licensable,
but from Spyglass who owns it, not from Microsoft. Other software houses
also license Spyglass technology.
--
Dean Z. Douthat
Osiris Business Systems
PO Box 7571 Ann Arbor MI 48107-7571
(313)747-9170
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 22:43:14 GMT
From: tmwatson@umich.edu (Timothy Watson)
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <TMWATSON.97Apr10184314@lukyduk!.umich.edu>
In article <01bc45c0$691ee100$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com> "Tim
Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com> writes:
> Perl4 is 33800 LOC (including comments, blank lines, etc), and Perl5
> is 51718.
How about GRASS GIS (Geographical Information System) by the US Army
Corp of Engineers? That's HUGE.
-Tim Watson
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 97 21:41:15 GMT
From: tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk (Tom Wheeley)
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <860708475snz@tsys.demon.co.uk>
In article <5ij03s$509$5@news13.gte.net>
olmstj@phat-media.com "jason olmsted" writes:
>
>
> >"Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com> writes:
> >
> >> But I don't even need to go there. Name one freely available
> >> *significant* product that is *clearly* better than *any* commercial
> >> product, regardless of price. There are some good programs of limited
> >> size that are not worth a commercial entity rewriting (some may
> >> say Emacs, but I wouldn't...), but I mean products of significant
> >> size and complexity.
> >
> >TeX
>
> I don't share the belief, but a fair number of people believe
> Microsoft Internet Explorer is a superior product to Netscape
> Navigator.
>
> Mind you, these people must not care about security or platform
> consistency, but there it is, a "free" product that is on par with a
> commercial one (though who knows how much we'll pay for it in the end)
MSIE is ***not*** a free product. It is a commercial product dumped on the
market by Microsoft to attempt to gain control of how people see the
internet.
--
:sb)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 97 21:42:52 GMT
From: tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk (Tom Wheeley)
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <860708572snz@tsys.demon.co.uk>
In article <01bc45c0$691ee100$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>
tim@a-sis.com "Tim Behrendsen" writes:
> Douglas Seay <seay@absyss.fr> wrote in article <334BC773.570E@absyss.fr>...
> > Tim Behrendsen wrote:
> > > > Perl is free and
> > > > boy, is it handy.
> > >
> > > Perl is the one good example that someone e-mailed to me, and there
> > > isn't a better commercial alternative that I know of. But while
> > > it's hugely useful, I also specified that it the product had to
> > > be sufficiently complex, and while it's not insignificantly
> > > complicated, it's not hugely complex either. I really not trying
> > > to trash Perl; it's a marvelous program. I'll even concede this
> > > point because it's so good.
> >
> > Excuse me, but "it's not hugely complex either"?
> >
> > What is the base line for "hugely complex" then?
>
> Well, hard to measure these things of course, but let's say above the
> 100K-200K lines of code range.
>
> Perl4 is 33800 LOC (including comments, blank lines, etc), and Perl5
> is 51718.
Therefore Perl is worse than Visual Basic because it's more elegantly
designed?
Virtually everything in Unix is designed to be small, because of the
paradigm of a toolset of small programs which can be joined together. Just
because every Windows program has to do everything because of the basic
unflexibility of the OS, doesn't mean that Windows programs are therefore
better.
--
:sb)
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 18:24:40 -0500
From: seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach)
Subject: Re: Who makes more $$ - Windows vs. Unix programmers?
Message-Id: <5ijsro$fct@solutions.solon.com>
In article <5ijdoe$oo8@mtinsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Craig Franck <clfranck@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>It is obvious that Linux is a pun on UNIX, and the down casing
>of the other letters looks more modern and reflective of what
>the name really is: UNIX + Linus = Linux. (But maybe I am just
>spreading more misinformation myself!)
Slightly. Unix should not be in all caps; that was a stupid marketing
idea. The Great Makers have expressed a preference for the capitalization
generally given a proper name, and, unless I'm discussing the trademarked
name, I tend to follow that.
For instance, I refer to Linux, NetBSD, and even Plan 9 as "Unix type
OS's", but UnixWare (note the capitalization) as a UNIX OS.
(It's worth noting that UnixWare is, in significant ways, less like Unix
than even Plan 9.)
-s
--
Copyright 1997 Peter Seebach - seebs at solon.com - C/Unix Wizard
I am not actually gladys@nancynet.com but junk mail is accepted there.
The *other* C FAQ, the hacker FAQ, et al. http://www.solon.com/~seebs
Unsolicited email (junk mail and ads) is unwelcome, and will be billed for.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 22:39:15 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: why can't arg 1 to shift be split?
Message-Id: <ebohlmanE8G1LF.965@netcom.com>
Mathew A. Hennessy (hennessy@cloud9.net) wrote:
: I want to do this:
: require perl5;
: $user_name=shift( (split(/:/,$htpasswd_line)) );
: However, I get this in reply:
: Type of arg 1 to shift must be array (not split) at build-user_info.pl
: line 35, near ") )"
: Execution of build-user_info.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
: And, this works, but is extremely inelegant (IMHO):
: require perl5;
: @crud=split(/:/,$htpasswd_line);
: $user_name=shift(@crud);
: Now, what I am interested in knowing is if split returns a
: "second-class" list of some kind.. Why can't I shift the list returned
: by split? I'm not used to Perl telling me I _must_ do _anything_..
split doesn't return an lvalue, so you can't assign to it, and shift
involves an assignment.
What's wrong with
$user_name=(split(/:/,$htpasswd_line))[0];
?
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 1997 21:30:40 GMT
From: "Lee Brinton" <brinthl@ch.etn.com>
Subject: Re: win32 perl problem
Message-Id: <01bc45f7$40b56680$bc1063a6@brinthl.bid.ch.etn.com>
What version of Perl for Win32 do you have? Run perl -v, there should be
a line like this
Perl for Win32 build xxx. If xxx is not 110 or 303 download one of these
versions from www.perl.hip.com or www.ActiveWare.com or CPAN.
--
H. Lee Brinton
brinthl@ch.etn.com
6xtippet@b4futures.net
I do not speak for Cutler-Hammer
Levi Stamper <stamper@cybercash.com> wrote in article
<334C8910.3297@cybercash.com>...
> I am using the w32 version of perl on NT4.0 (shipped with NT reskit),
> and can't get the simplest of things to work..
------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 97 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97)
Message-Id: <null>
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 274
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