[8543] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2160 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Mon Mar 23 02:07:45 1998
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 23:00:27 -0800
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Sun, 22 Mar 1998 Volume: 8 Number: 2160
Today's topics:
Re: "Newbie" Crib Notes <gwynne@utkux.utk.edu>
Re: "Newbie" Crib Notes (John)
Re: "Premature End of Script Headers" (Eric Weiss)
Re: Another novice needing RegExpr help.... <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Re: Another novice needing RegExpr help.... (David Oswald)
Calling all Newbies <doug@ccinet.com>
Re: Calling all Newbies <bcoleman@mindspring.com>
CGI.pm and file-upload.cgi <glchy@csah.com>
Creating a unique id number? (Leonard Miller)
Re: Creating a unique id number? (Mike Linksvayer)
DBM Files across fork <boris@cs.jhu.edu>
Re: Die won't die! pleez help dennis_marti@yahoo.com
Disabling ^C Interrupt <cmihaly@fa.disney.com>
getting random elements from a simple array <michael@datahost.com>
Re: help needed for a regexp (Abigail)
Re: help needed for a regexp (David Oswald)
Re: how to know the version of the perl <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
if/then lookup kscope@the-city.com
Re: Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl? (Abigail)
Re: Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl? <bcoleman@mindspring.com>
Re: Newbie: What to do with WORDSLIST? <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Re: The Answer to "Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies t <NerveGas@see_signature.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 19:03:03 -0500
From: "Bob Gwynne" <gwynne@utkux.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: "Newbie" Crib Notes
Message-Id: <6f48sp$dn$1@gaia.ns.utk.edu>
So! Abigail can whine about newbies asking questions that anyone with an IQ
above 60 can see the answer to or find in the FAQ right before their very
eyes. However, if the newbies try to help themselves, she jumps on them like
a courgar, screaming and tearing at their throats. Instead, she should be
happy that people are trying to help each other. But nooooooo.
BTW: that's "from whom," not "who". Error: Incorrect syntax.
Bob Gwynne
>
>WAIT A MINUTE!
>
>*I* wrote that.
>
>You can't just take someone's work, stuff it in a collection and pass
>it off as "your gift to newbies".
>
>That is illegal.
>
>You didn't even bother to mention you stole it somewhere, let alone
>from who.
>
>I don't mind people quoting me, provided they use proper attributions
>*and* don't stuff it in a collection of abominable quality.
>
>I want you to take my work out of your collection, and never, ever
>put anything by me in it again.
>
>
>Abigail
>--
>perl -pwle '$_ .= reverse'
------------------------------
Date: 23 Mar 1998 05:29:01 GMT
From: falstaff@lennon.postino.com (John)
Subject: Re: "Newbie" Crib Notes
Message-Id: <6f4rut$bv$1@joplin.postino.com>
Bob Gwynne (gwynne@utkux.utk.edu) wrote:
: So! Abigail can whine about newbies asking questions that anyone with an IQ
: above 60 can see the answer to or find in the FAQ right before their very
: eyes. However, if the newbies try to help themselves, she jumps on them like
: a courgar, screaming and tearing at their throats. Instead, she should be
: happy that people are trying to help each other. But nooooooo.
: BTW: that's "from whom," not "who". Error: Incorrect syntax.
: Bob Gwynne
If all the women in NZ are as anal as our Abbey, it goes a good
way to explaining why the blokes prefer sheep.
--
Falstaff
batcher hendrix times user 0.040 system 0.070 elapsed 0.077
batche
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 19:36:24 -0500
From: eweiss@winchendon.com (Eric Weiss)
Subject: Re: "Premature End of Script Headers"
Message-Id: <MPG.f7f7893f05693f89896cd@news.dgsys.com>
My ISP expired the previous posts on this, but I had a
similar problem with a \0 in the file name. Maybe this
is your problem.
Eric
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 22:47:01 -0500
From: Ronald J Kimball <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
To: stephenb@scribendum.win-uk.net
Subject: Re: Another novice needing RegExpr help....
Message-Id: <3515DB37.716ECE24@coos.dartmouth.edu>
[posted and mailed]
stephen benson wrote:
>
> while ($line = <TESTFILE>) {
> if ($line =~ /<strong>(WW Notes* to).*(\d*\.\d+)<\/strong>/s) {
You're never going to match over multiple lines as long as you're reading in
and matching against one line at a time.
Perhaps you want to read in the entire file and iterate over a global match.
BTW, you'll want to change '.*' to '.*?', using the non-greedy quantifier.
--
_ / ' _ / - aka - rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu
( /)//)//)(//)/( Ronald J. Kimball chipmunk@m-net.arbornet.org
/ http://www.ziplink.net/~rjk/
"It's funny 'cause it's true ... and vice versa."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 04:29:26 GMT
From: doswald@xmission.com (David Oswald)
Subject: Re: Another novice needing RegExpr help....
Message-Id: <3515e129.160766691@news.xmission.com>
On Sun, 22 Mar 1998 15:29:40 GMT, stephenb@scribendum.win-uk.net
(stephen benson) wrote:
>I'm trying to build a script which scans html to find files included
>by FrontPage, deletes them and replaces the deleted text with the
>title of, and a link to, the ex-included file. I'm doing it bit by
>bit, with some success, but trying to extract text split over lines is
>eluding me... why does this script match lines 45 and 75, but not
>58/59
>
>This is the script:
>
>>open(TESTFILE, "testPN_n.html") or die "Can't open testfile: $!\n";
>>while ($line = <TESTFILE>) {
>> if ($line =~ /(WW.*Notes*.*to.*\d*\.\d+)\s*.*/s) {
RE Analysis:
Match: 'WW'
Match: Any amount of anything at all or nothing until 'N' is reached.
Match the characters (in this order): 'Note'
Match: Any amount or none of 's'
Match: Any amount of anything at all or nothing until 't' is reached.
Match: 't' and 'o'
Match: Any amount of anything or none at all until a digit.
Match: Any digit or nothing at all.
Match: '.'
Match: Any amount of digits with a minimum of one.
Load entire match so far into $1
Match: whitespace (any type) any amount including none at all.
Match: anything at all or nothing if nothing's left.
Permit the "anything at all" matches to include '\n' so that matches
of the metacharacter '.' will produce a match of absolutely anything
including newlines.
So the minimal 'thing' that could be matched is:
WWNoteto.0
('0' could be any digit)
The maximum match could conceivably be an entire string; however big
it is as long as it had 'WW' 'Note' 'to' '.' and '(digit)' anywhere in
it in that order. The only things that wouldn't match are strings
that don't contain those necessary components in that order. However,
you permit just about anything to appear between those components, and
slurp in everything after those components in the string if the
components are matched. It just might be incredibly out of control,
but of course the design of a RE is often also balanced with context;
perhaps what you're matching is already in a predictable format and
the fact that this RE matches such a broad range of strings isn't of
concern.
Dave
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 20:00:47 GMT
From: "Doug Evans" <doug@ccinet.com>
Subject: Calling all Newbies
Message-Id: <P5eR.285$eq6.623286@katana>
Hi,
I would like to propose, that we "Newbies" set up a mail list, designed to
help each other. I am "all the way up" to p. 25, of Learning Perl on Win32
systems-:), and have already run into a number of problems. By the way,
virtually every question that I have asked, on this newsgroup, was answered,
or led me to the answer, to my problem.
It seemed's to me, that if we formed a list, we could create a usable faq,
based on our experiences, as newbies, struggling to learn, that would serve
as a learning tool, for future newbies.
Any takers?
Doug Evans
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 23:51:09 +0400
From: "Ben Coleman" <bcoleman@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Calling all Newbies
Message-Id: <jbetmeeclyebflu.pminews@user-37kbtln.dialup.mindspring.com>
On Sun, 22 Mar 1998 20:00:47 GMT, Doug Evans wrote:
>I would like to propose, that we "Newbies" set up a mail list, designed to
>help each other. I am "all the way up" to p. 25, of Learning Perl on Win32
>systems-:)
For Win32 users, this already effectively exists on the
Perl-Win32-Users mailing list sponsored by ActiveState.com(see
http://www.activestate.com). The list seems, for the moment, to be
less sensitive about FAQs than clpm(perhaps because it's younger than
clpm?).
Ben
--
Ben Coleman NJ8J | The attempt to legislatively
Internet: bcoleman@mindspring.com | micromanage equality results, at
http://bcoleman.home.mindspring.com/ | best, in equal misery for all.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 14:49:28 +0800
From: Gilles Chong <glchy@csah.com>
Subject: CGI.pm and file-upload.cgi
Message-Id: <351605F8.1DAB9113@csah.com>
Hi,
Im getting a funny prob with the CGI.pm perl lib. Didnt touch it but
somehow when running the file-upload.cgi script now, i come out with the
following error message in the logs:
Can't find string terminator "END_OF_AUTOLOAD" anywhere before EOF at
CGI.pm line 645.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at file-upload.cgi line 96.
Tried another copy of CGI.pm n it is still the same. The funny thing is
tt the script was working fine before. I just changed some directory
struc (not related to wat im doing with the perl script) n now it's no
longer running.
Ive even checked the line 645 in the CGI.pm n cant find anything wrong.
Line 96 in file-upload.cgi is using one of the modules in CGI.pm n i
guess tts why it is not compiling. Hence the problem should be with the
CGI.pm instead of the perl script itself.
Any idea? Pls email it to me.
Cheers
G.
--
Gilles Chong (glchy@csah.com, glchy@csa.com.sg)
Systems Engineer, Internet Division
CSA Holdings Ltd, Singapore.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 16:59:19 -0800
From: millers3@sonic.net (Leonard Miller)
Subject: Creating a unique id number?
Message-Id: <millers3-2203981659190001@d66.pm9.sonic.net>
I'm developing a script that will return a different form depending on the
results of the preceeding submission. I'd like to create a unique id
number that the user will get when they first submit and can be passed
along with the next submitted form. Is there any info on the web
regarding this? A book?
Thanks in advance,
-Leonard
------------------------------
Date: 22 Mar 1998 18:41:58 -0800
From: ml@gondwanaland.com (Mike Linksvayer)
Subject: Re: Creating a unique id number?
Message-Id: <6f4i5m$8ht$1@shell3.ba.best.com>
In article <millers3-2203981659190001@d66.pm9.sonic.net>,
Leonard Miller <millers3@sonic.net> wrote:
>I'm developing a script that will return a different form depending on the
>results of the preceeding submission. I'd like to create a unique id
>number that the user will get when they first submit and can be passed
>along with the next submitted form. Is there any info on the web
>regarding this? A book?
You could use the process id and timestamp.
my $id = $$.time;
--
Mike Linksvayer http://gondwanaland.com/ml/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 20:19:10 -0500
From: Boris Statnikov <boris@cs.jhu.edu>
Subject: DBM Files across fork
Message-Id: <3515B88D.7811E689@cs.jhu.edu>
I found that there are some problems using hashes opened with dbmopen
across a fork. The child cannot store anything into the file unless it
closes the dbmfile explicitly (just exiting doesn't do it). But even if
the child does close it explicitly, it cannot perform a delete. If you
know what's going on and can explain this behavior or point me to a
resource I'd appreciate it. This is a considerable difficulty for me.
Thanks in advance.
--
Boris
Too many cooks spoil the brouhaha.
Harvard Lampoon
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 22:20:57 -0600
From: dennis_marti@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Die won't die! pleez help
Message-Id: <6f4nrd$rl1$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
In article <35156300.57064D78@fccjmail.fccj.cc.fl.us>,
bill@astro.fccj.cc.fl.us wrote:
>
> Mark Polakow wrote:
>
> > One thing, my "die" isn't dying and I don't know why? as in
> > this statement:
> >
> > mkdir "$root/$dir/$xfile", 0777
> > or die "Unable to create $xfile in $dir, $!";
> >
> > I am using Perl on NT I don't know if this makes a difference or not?
What version of perl? When mkdir fails, the code above works (on Win95 with
5.004_02).
> Or better still -
>
> $erc = mkdir("$root/$dir/$xfile", 0777) if (-d $dir);
> die "Unable to create $xfile in $dir, $!" if $erc;
Not really. The second if is backwards (mkdir is a function that returns 1 on
success and 0 on failure), and the first if should probably test for
"$root/$dir".
Dennis
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 17:31:50 -0800
From: Chris Mihaly <cmihaly@fa.disney.com>
Subject: Disabling ^C Interrupt
Message-Id: <3515BB86.ECBF4DAC@fa.disney.com>
I have a Perl application that performs a lot of pipes (of the form
IPC:open3() and open("-|"). I can disable/enable interrupts in the perl
process via the $SIG() mechanism, however the subshells still get
interrupted. Is there a way I can disable this so that the subshells
spawned by the perl app also have interrupts blocked. In several of my
perl apps, I want I need to trap the interrupt and perform recovery
operations. However, I need to disable interrupts during this recovery
phase since if they continue to press ^C they kill the operations in
this phase.
I haven't figured out how I can do this? Any ideas?
Thanks
Chris
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 23:03:30 -0800
From: Michael Stearns <michael@datahost.com>
Subject: getting random elements from a simple array
Message-Id: <35160942.5EDC@datahost.com>
I'd like to do something like this:
#!usr/local/bin/perl
$i=0;
while ($i<6) {
@array=("one","two","three","four");
srand; # not needed for 5.004 and later
$index = rand @array;
$element = $array[$index];
print "$element/n";
$i++;
}
The only problem is, I would like to loop through this several times and
generate several different random elements from the array. Each time I
run the script, I get the same element over and over again.
I found an entry in the faq, explaing this matter, but the link was
broken.
Does anyone have any suggestions for generating a set of different
random elements from an array.
Thanks,
Michael
------------------------------
Date: 23 Mar 1998 01:44:38 GMT
From: abigail@fnx.com (Abigail)
Subject: Re: help needed for a regexp
Message-Id: <6f4eq6$qas$1@client3.news.psi.net>
nick hill (nick.hill@virgin.net) wrote on MDCLXIV September MCMXCIII in
<URL: news:01bd55ae$48e6d600$8347a8c2@default>:
++ If I have the variable $line = "1234,nick,hill,company,3"
++ what regexp do I use to get the folowing result.
++
++ $line1 = 1234
++ $line2 = nick
++ $line3 = hill
++ $line4 = company
++ $line5 = 3
Well, there are various possibilities. First is to skip regexes
all together and just do:
($line1, $line2, $line3, $line4, $line5) = qw /1234 nick hill company 3/;
Another is:
($line1, $line2, $line3, $line4, $line5) =
$line =~ /(.{4})(?=.{20}$) .*
(.{4})(?=.{15}$) .*
(.{4})(?=.{10}$) .*
(.{7})(?=.{2}$) .*
(.{1})(?=.{0}$) .*/x;
Or:
($line1, $line2, $line3, $line4, $line5) =
$line =~ /(.*4).*(n.*k).*(h.*l).*(c.*y).*(.*3)/;
You have to be a bit specific on what you want instead of a simple
example. After, perhaps all you wanted was a split, but that's
in the manual, so you wouldn't have asked that here, would you?
Abigail
--
perl -wle 'print "Prime" if (1 x shift) !~ /^1?$|^(11+?)\1+$/'
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 04:48:02 GMT
From: doswald@xmission.com (David Oswald)
Subject: Re: help needed for a regexp
Message-Id: <3515e52f.161796836@news.xmission.com>
On 22 Mar 1998 16:17:40 GMT, "nick hill" <nick.hill@virgin.net> wrote:
>If I have the variable $line = "1234,nick,hill,company,3"
>what regexp do I use to get the folowing result.
>
>$line1 = 1234
>$line2 = nick
>$line3 = hill
>$line4 = company
>$line5 = 3
That depends on context and what exactly you're trying to match. Do
you wish to match the literals as quoted above? In that case here's
an RE that will do it for you:
/(1234),(nick),(hill),(company),(3)/
Then simply assign the products of the parenthesis to your $lineXX
scalars:
$line1 = $1;
$line2 = $2;
$line3 = $3;
$line4 = $4;
$line5 = $5;
But now lets examine it in a different context: One where you accept
four digits, followed by three alpha only words, followed by a single
digit:
/(\d{4}),([a-zA-Z]+),([a-zA-Z]+),([a-zA-Z]+),(\d)/
Again, you'll fill the appropriate $lineXX scalars with the
appropriate $1..$5 scalars.
But that's very strict. You may wish to match any number, followed by
any three words, followed by any number. How about this?
/(\d+),(\w+),(\w+),(\w+),(\d+)/
But now you're risking accepting numbers that are out of range, or
words like Alf123.
You may construct something more complex that will limit the numbers
to a range that you're desiring. You may also prefer the [a-zA-Z]
over \w. But you didn't mention what context this is all going to
occur within, so that's about as detailed an answer as can be given.
And what if your input has spaces preceeding each field? Also, should
you be anchoring the RE with a ^ and a $? ...just details you may
want to consider.
Good luck. I hope these examples help to get you started.
Dave
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 22:31:06 -0500
From: Ronald J Kimball <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Subject: Re: how to know the version of the perl
Message-Id: <3515D77B.B056CBFD@coos.dartmouth.edu>
Martin Vorlaender wrote:
>
> % /usr/local/bin/perl -V
>
> will tell you the version (and a lot of other things you never wanted to
> know).
Note: If instead you're told
Unrecognized switch: -V.
then you're probably running perl4.
--
_ / ' _ / - aka - rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu
( /)//)//)(//)/( Ronald J. Kimball chipmunk@m-net.arbornet.org
/ http://www.ziplink.net/~rjk/
"It's funny 'cause it's true ... and vice versa."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 00:11:10 -0600
From: kscope@the-city.com
Subject: if/then lookup
Message-Id: <6f4ua1$2tq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
on deadline and the sub routine isn't working. i'm working on a multi-page
form which writes to a tmp file each time submit is hit. at one point, i need
to open the tmp file and do an if/then routine, ie. if it finds the results of
a previous response such as 'illustration' it will then print out a new group
of form questions relating specifically to illustration. i'm using:
open (CART, "$cart_directory/$form_data{'cart_id'}.cart") || &CgiDie
("I am sorry, but I was unable to open the user cart, check paths.");
$response = 'illustration';
while (<CART>)
{
if (/$response/)
{
print qq~;
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
In terms of Illustration (creating graphics), would that include . . . <i>
(please mark all that apply)</i></font></p>
<p> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
<input type="checkbox" name="specific_task1" value="2d_illustration">
2D Illustration<br>
<input type="checkbox" name="specific_task2" value="3d_illustration">
3D Illustration</font></p>~;
last;
}
}
but it's printing the html whether it found 'illustration' or not. i'm in dire
need here - anybody see what i'm doing wrong?
thanks - jag
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
------------------------------
Date: 23 Mar 1998 01:30:06 GMT
From: abigail@fnx.com (Abigail)
Subject: Re: Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl?
Message-Id: <6f4duu$e9v$1@client2.news.psi.net>
Randal Schwartz (merlyn@stonehenge.com) wrote on MDCLXIV September
MCMXCIII in <URL: news:8ciup6qos3.fsf@gadget.cscaper.com>:
++
++ My bet: nearly every question will be about configuring Selena Sol and
++ Matt Wright's scripts and error 500 on web servers. And a bunch of
++ responses will all be along the order of "cargo cult programming",
++ like "/o on a regex speeds it up", "use cgi-lib.pl", "you have to
++ convert + to space!" and a bunch of other clueless responses and HTML
++ and MIME-formatted postings. I'll give the group 3 months.
You forgot the "Is perl Y2K compliant?" questions.
Abigail
--
perl -pwle '$_ .= reverse'
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 00:00:40 +0400
From: "Ben Coleman" <bcoleman@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl?
Message-Id: <yugzeaxgwswtwpg.pminews@user-37kbtln.dialup.mindspring.com>
On 22 Mar 1998 22:29:00 +0200, Kai Henningsen wrote:
>Seriously, playing with a programming language to learn strikes me as one
>of the best possible ways to learn it.
Yes, but this is not quite the same as noodling around the menus on a
word processor. You have to do _some_ reading of the docs in order
to find out what elements of the language are available to play with.
Ben
--
Ben Coleman NJ8J | The attempt to legislatively
Internet: bcoleman@mindspring.com | micromanage equality results, at
http://bcoleman.home.mindspring.com/ | best, in equal misery for all.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 22:50:00 -0500
From: Ronald J Kimball <rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu>
To: Doug Evans <doug@ccinet.com>
Subject: Re: Newbie: What to do with WORDSLIST?
Message-Id: <3515DBEA.5713B0FA@coos.dartmouth.edu>
[posted and mailed]
Doug Evans wrote:
>
> The sub routine that I am having trouble with is...
>
> sub init_words {
> open (WORDSLIST, "wordslist") ||
> die "can't open wordslist:$!";
> [...]
> The question is where do I put the wordslist file, and what extension does
> it get?
'wordslist' should be in whatever the current working directory is when
init_words is called. Most likely whatever directory you are in when you
start the program.
'wordslist' should be named exactly that: no extension at all.
--
_ / ' _ / - aka - rjk@coos.dartmouth.edu
( /)//)//)(//)/( Ronald J. Kimball chipmunk@m-net.arbornet.org
/ http://www.ziplink.net/~rjk/
"It's funny 'cause it's true ... and vice versa."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 11:26:10 -0700
From: NerveGas <NerveGas@see_signature.com>
Subject: Re: The Answer to "Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl?"
Message-Id: <3512B4C2.3640@see_signature.com>
> Q: Is there a "Newsgroup" for Newbies to Perl?
>
> A: Yes. It's called comp.lang.perl.misc and you can find your answer
> via DejaNews (www.dejanews.com). I've only been programming perl for
> three years so I'm no expert.
I would have to agree, at least in part. I first posted when I had
been using Perl for all of 3 days, and everything went rather well.
> But, I do have some bizarre needs and
> I've yet to come across a question or problem that I have not been
> able to find an answer or a solution to with perldoc or in the Perl
> FAQ, Programming Perl, Mastering Regular Expressions, Advanced Perl
> Programming or, best of all, DejaNews.
>
> And, guess what? If you have a question that can not be answered by
> reading or using one of the above resources -- I guarantee you've
> got a question suitable for c.l.p.m.
Well, I would venture (IMHO) that the list is a little too extensive,
but in the right spirit. DejaNews would certainly be the best.
However, on the books, I would venture (IMHO) that requiring someone new
to Perl to purchase "Programming Perl", "Advanced Perl Programming" and
"Mastering Regular Expressions" before posting would be a little much,
but maybe I misunderstood you.
Just to get my opinion out, here's how I usually treat FAQ or other
questions:
1. If I am in a good mood, and have nothing better to do, I answer it
anyway. If I'm in a bad mood, or have little time, I just leave it
alone.
2. If I'm in a neutral mood, I'll simply post saying "This is covered
in the FAQ.", or if I'm feeling like cutting even more slack, giving
them the URL.
By doing this, I accomplish a couple of things:
1. I don't waste a lot of of time. many people complain about how much
of their time is wasted by off-topic questions, or questions covered in
the faq. Why? I would estimate that I waste a total of 2 minutes per
DAY by those questions, at the very most. If the subject looks
off-topic, I don't read it. Even if I do read the message, it only
takes me about 5 seconds to tell wether I want to reply or not. But, if
I were to compose one of the "You are a moron for being a newbie ans not
reading the FAQ" message, I would waste far more of my own time than the
original poster did.
2. It doesn't scare away new people, but rather helpfully shows them
where to get help.
3. Doesn't take a lot of bandwidth.
steve
--
----------------------------------------
Domain name for replying is "inconnect".
----------------------------------------
------------------------------
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>
Administrivia:
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 2160
**************************************
