[8982] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2599 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Thu May 14 18:10:49 1998
Date: Thu, 14 May 98 15:00:32 -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, 14 May 1998 Volume: 8 Number: 2599
Today's topics:
Re: Digit matching regex (Craig Berry)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (Michael J Gebis)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <igor.k@usa.net>
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <igor.k@usa.net>
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (John Porter)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (Dave Till)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (Greg Bacon)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (Brad Murray)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <upsetter@shore.net>
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. (Greg Bacon)
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line. <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Grieving our dying community (Chip Salzenberg)
Re: How can you break out of a 'while... ' loop in a fu (Ilya Zakharevich)
Re: How can you break out of a 'while... ' loop in a fu (John Porter)
Re: how to ignore new line characters in textarea - in <Rosie@dozyrosy.demon.co.uk>
Re: localized ctime? <jhi@alpha.hut.fi>
Re: Matching the last character in a scalar (Craig Berry)
Module version of exceptions.pl <achoy@us.oracle.com>
New Math Modules <aqumsieh@matrox.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 20:19:05 GMT
From: cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry)
Subject: Re: Digit matching regex
Message-Id: <6jfjjp$7iu$2@marina.cinenet.net>
A.H. Roberts (CBS5AHR@leeds.ac.uk) wrote:
: I am trying to write a condition that matches ONLY digits.
:
: /\d+/ recognizes any string with at least one digit, so e.g. 3llama is
: matched.
Yep.
: /[^a-zA-Z]+/ does exactly the same thing.
Nope. For example:
'?' =~ /\d+/; # False
'?' =~ /[^a-zA-Z]+/ # True
: What should the regex be?
! /\D/ # No non-digits.
/^\d+$/ # One or more digits, nothing else.
The only operational difference between these is that the first returns
true for an empty string, while the second returns false.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 20:10:21 GMT
From: gebis@albrecht.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael J Gebis)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfj3d$k3k@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>
gebis@albrecht.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael J Gebis) writes:
[A bunch of stuff that was much more hostile that I ever intended.]
Last night, I decided, "Okay, I'm a proactive type of guy. Let me
listen to the other side."
The problem we are having is that many Win users are asking dumb
questions (which directly impacts me by clogging the newsgroup) and
are writing a lot of ugly, uninformed code (which is bad for the
universe in general.)
My previous course of action was to hope that a good IDE could bring
the documentation home to Win users in a way they would be more likely
to use. (Sticklers for details will note that the act of hoping isn't
really all that pro_active_. I agree, but...) I'm being told that
such an IDE would be not only useless, but a step in the wrong
direction.
Okay, sure, I can accept that for now. So what is the right course of
action? What's a proactive type of guy like myself supposed to do? I
suppose that the moderated newsgroup will reduce my immediate problem
(a noisy newsgroup) but won't address the karmic damage being done by
the ugly, uninformed code being written. That isn't good for anybody.
I sincerely hope the answer isn't "randomly snipe the clueless to
discourage them," because I've tried that, and it doesn't feel right
(or seem to be working.) I also hope the answer isn't, "let ignorance
fester," because that doesn't feel right either, and it's not very
proactive.
Like I said before, I think I've been edging up on hostile in some of
my posts, and I'd like to apologize to the newsgroup in general for
that. I'm genuinely interested in a response to my question: What
can I do to help?
--
Mike Gebis gebis@ecn.purdue.edu mgebis@eternal.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:37:01 -0700
From: "Igor Krivokon" <igor.k@usa.net>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfkfc$57n$1@news.ncal.verio.com>
Ilya Zakharevich wrote in message <6jfia2$2d2$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>...
>
>P.S. Since there are so many good CGI programmers around, cannot we
>indeed cook a system which access local Perl documentation via CGI,
>and has good indices, hierarchical table-of-context, and good search?
>(I have no idea how CGI works, so forgive me if I write a complete
>nonsense.)
Probably, that's good idea, but then one needs http server running locally.
Igor Krivokon
<igor.k@usa.net>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:48:58 -0700
From: "Igor Krivokon" <igor.k@usa.net>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfl5p$5f8$1@news.ncal.verio.com>
Chip Salzenberg wrote in message <6jfi93$1j6$1@cyprus.atlantic.net>...
>According to fsg@gallo.ultranet.com:
>>mwmaurer@mtu.edu (Mark Maurer) writes:
>>>A LOT of people flat out do not use [wizards].
>>
>>I haven't met a programmer yet who doesn't use them whenever available.
>
>(Chip raises his hand)
Oh, really? You have never used CPAN.pm or Makefile.PL, right?
Igor Krivokon
<igor.k@usa.net>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 20:45:21 GMT
From: jdporter@min.net (John Porter)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <MPG.fc5238628b5869b9896c7@news.min.net>
On Thu, 14 May 1998 13:37:01 -0700,
in article <6jfkfc$57n$1@news.ncal.verio.com>,
igor.k@usa.net (Igor Krivokon) wrote:
> Ilya Zakharevich wrote in message <6jfia2$2d2$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>...
> >
> >P.S. Since there are so many good CGI programmers around, cannot we
> >indeed cook a system which access local Perl documentation via CGI,
> >and has good indices, hierarchical table-of-context, and good search?
>
> Probably, that's good idea, but then one needs http server running locally.
No sweat -- HTTP::Daemon. Every script can be a http server.
John Porter
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 16:54:48 -0400
From: davet@angel.uunet.ca (Dave Till)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jflmo$j33@angel.uunet.ca>
In article <6jfh3v$3c$1@pace1.cts.mtu.edu>,
Mark Maurer <mwmaurer@mtu.edu> wrote:
>IMO, wizards DO dumb-down programming. To many people are just a couple of
>mouse clicks away from creating something, and saying that they "programmed"
>it, when in reality they couldn't create hello world in said language if
>given a text editor and a compiler. You and I and many others may know that
>there is nothing magical about wizards, but there are too many people out
>there that they are magical. All IMO, of course...
To a certain extent, I buy this whole wizards-are-bad argument, mostly
because some enthusiastic wizard marketers claim that they can basically
eliminate the need to program. Whereas, in the real world, end-users
always wind up demanding some bell or whistle that the wizard can't
automatically generate, or the wizard has some sort of bizarre bug that
its user isn't informed enough to work around. The problem here is not
with the wizard but with the unrealistic expectations of what it can do.
But I can't help but think that such useful tools as high-level programming
languages and compilers are basically just wizards - they're just smarter
and more effective wizards. There's a whole lot of Perl programmers out
there who can't program in their target machine's assembly
language, manage registers effectively, or construct their own stacks
or activation records - are these people too dumb to be useful programmers?
And isn't the whole purpose of Perl modules to automatically perform tasks
so that we Perl users don't need to think about doing them ourselves?
Ditto for Perl library functions? How many of us can handle raw I/O,
for example?
If we take this to its logical extreme, the only real programmers in
the world are the ones who can write microcode. Or play fun games
with oscilloscopes. (I know a few electrical engineers who would
agree with this argument. :-))
[Interestingly enough, the author of the "dumbing down" article
herself wrote, in a different article on that site, about how she
herself was falling into the same trap. The problem is that there
is too much out there for one brain to hold. It's a big field.]
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:19:24 GMT
From: gbacon@cs.uah.edu (Greg Bacon)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfn4s$kpg$5@info.uah.edu>
In article <6jf7ci$1eb$1@gallo.ultranet.com>,
fsg@gallo.ultranet.com writes:
: gbacon@cs.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
: > [...]
: >You're putting words in my mouth. IDEs are crutches. IDEs are evil
: >implements for locking users into a specific software line from a
: >specific vendor. I don't usually find software that impedes my freedom
: >useful.
:
: You're confusing objective reality with that-which-you-believe. This
: is pretty common in smart CS college students.
:
: IDEs are tools that perform a certain function. They have no inbuilt
: intent. Many people's needs are completely filled by IDEs. The fact
: that this frustrates and angers and disappoints you is in no way contrary
: to that reality.
You're confusing Platonic forms with our imperfect reality. This is
pretty common among people who need a platform from which to hurl
insults at CS college students. In an ideal world, IDEs would be there
strictly as an aid for software development and programmers would be
able to use one IDE as easily as the next. Surely your position is not
that Microsoft, Borland, etc. do not wish to capture a user base with
their very different implementations.
: >I certainly don't. However, who am I to tell anyone how they should
: >invest their time and talents?
:
: It's ironic that you ask that question after filling up the newsgroup
: with endless posts about how IDEs suck, lose32 users suck, and so on.
The concept of an IDE is nice if you're into buttons and mouse pointing
and lots of windows. Two xterms are nice if you're not. I never said
that each and every user of a non-Unix platform sucks either. If you
inferred this from my words, perhaps you should seek help for your
self-deprecation problem.
: I suppose I shouldn't make fun of you, but honestly, you're right --
: you really aren't qualified to tell people how they invest their time
: and talents,
Why must you repeat what I've already said? You seem to have an idea
who does possess such qualifications, so perhaps you'd like to share
with us your personal list.
: and you really ought to stop embarrassing Perl by simultaneously
: holding yourself out as a spokesman for Perl and denigrating the largest
: segment of its userbase.
My legs are important to me. However, if I develop, say, malignant skin
cancer in a leg, I would find it necessary to subject that leg to
unpleasant treatments. Without those unpleasant treatments, I may have
to cut the leg off altogether for fear of damage to the rest of my body.
Since you are now our moral and spiritual leader, please tell us how we
are to resolve the problem of the huge band of Win32 Marauders ruining
our potluck dinner? Before you go accusing me of speaking for others,
realize that my opinion is the result of my own observation as well as
the observations of other regular participants in this newsgroup.
As far as being Perl's spokesman, we both know fully well that I could
never claim such a title. I can speak for myself, however, and say that
I've long admired your work and vision, especially with respect to Perl.
However, ask any regular participant here whether I'm being
unreasonable. I seriously doubt that they'll side with you.
Greg
--
open(G,"|gzip -dc");$_=<<EOF;s/[0-9a-f]+/print G pack("h*",$&)/eg
f1b88000b620f22320303fa2d2e21584ccbcf29c84d2258084
d2ac158c84c4ece4d22d1000118a8d5491000000
EOF
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 13:19:24 -0700
From: murrayb@vansel.alcatel.com (Brad Murray)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfjkc$3h9@cadre2.vansel.alcatel.com>
Keywords: If you're happy and you know it, clunk your chains.
It seems Marek Jedlinski suggested...
>If your emacs setup has hooks for running perl, accessing docs without
>leaving the editor, viewing program output (both STDIN and STDERR) without
>leaving the editor, etc., then I humbly submit you are, effectively, using
>a (home-grown instance of an) IDE.
My emacs setup does not. It could, but I haven't found that much
configuration to be necessary. The tools at hand and a good command
line suffice. And allow me to be more creative.
>> [my ramblings about pipes deleted]
>Naturally. Perhaps a well-designed IDE would let you do this without
>exiting it or switching to another terminal screen.
So at what point does this IDE become redundant because you are doing
work already available via the operating system? It sounds like in order
to meet my needs it would have to do all the things that a basic
operating system and toolset can do already. What do I gain? More
colours or more buttons?
>What's the *principle* that prevents an IDE from being as open-ended,
>customizable and flexible as a good text editor can be?
A good text editor is not sufficient for development.
>What's wrong with an editor that will, when you place the cursor on a
>keyword and hit a key, pop up syntax help for that keyword? Or an editor
>that would open a file referenced in "use" or "require" without you having
>to type the full name of that file? That's part of what IDEs are for.
Nothing if you have the RAM to kill for such things. I don't believe it
would be useful and I think it's a waste of energy. If it attracts non-
programmers to Perl I think it may even qualify as misguided or destructive.
>Or, I can use an IDE and achieve the above with a single keypress. What's
>wrong with it as long as I control the keypress? Of course, the single
>keypress will do more than that: it will let me keep and reuse the program
>output "window" (however that "window" might be implemented in an IDE of
>your choice), it will also intercept STDERR output, which the simple
>command-line redirection won't, and perhaps it will even parse the compiler
>error messages and jump to the first line flagged for an error. Exactly
>what kind of a problem do you have with an application that will do that?
I see nothing gained beyond doing my editing in one window of my OS, and
my other work in other shell window(s). Therefore, the application seems
like it is redundant with the capacity of any operating system beyond CP/M
or DOS 3.3, except that it might appear prettier to some. I don't see the
added value if it is as extensible as you imagine, and if it is not it will
be hobbling. Why bother?
I guess the fundamental difference is that I do not perceive that the bulk
of my time in development is spent rooting through documentation or trying
to locate the line in my code referenced by a compiler error. In fact,
this time is trivial and further has the beneficial side effect of containing
more information than I need. When I do go to the manuals (my preference
is paper over online, but I use both) to solve a problem, I often find my
visit teaches me something else as well. With perfect context sensitivity
would I get this? When I look at error output, I look at it all so that I
have context for solving the error, so simply jumping to the line doesn't
add much value. If all I ever got were errors from missing semi-colons
or unmatched parentheses I suppose it might be handy, but those are hardly
the bulk of the problems to solve in most development.
What I'm driving at is that real work demands real involvment in the code
and the documentation, and not superficial automated attention. At least
this seems to be the case with Perl. It's too rich and dangerous to
trivialise development within it. At least for me: your mileage may vary.
The bottome line is, I wouldn't pay a nickel for a perl IDE. Others might.
--
Brad Murray "The fall of modern man will be preceded by the
Software Analyst de-evolution of communications to the days of
Alcatel Canada oral tradition." --Tom Christiansen paraphrased
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:27:27 GMT
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfnjv$o5i$1@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
gebis@albrecht.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael J Gebis) writes:
:Last night, I decided, "Okay, I'm a proactive type of guy. Let me
:listen to the other side."
:Okay, sure, I can accept that for now. So what is the right course of
:action? What's a proactive type of guy like myself supposed to do?
Just make the PoB Perl installation kit include a GUI popup called perl
help or something. Apparently the Prisoners of Bill can't grok
% perl -v
This is perl, version 5.004_04 built for i686-linux
(with 1 registered patch, see perl -V for more detail)
Copyright 1987-1998, Larry Wall
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic
License or the GNU General Public License, which may be found in
the Perl 5.0 source kit.
Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be
found on this system using `man perl' or `perldoc perl'. If you have
access to the Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.com/,
the Perl Home Page.
--tom
--
X-Windows: You'll envy the dead.
--Jamie Zawinski
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:26:53 GMT
From: Art Cohen <upsetter@shore.net>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfnit$l01@fridge.shore.net>
Greg Bacon <gbacon@cs.uah.edu> wrote:
: The concept of an IDE is nice if you're into buttons and mouse pointing
: and lots of windows. Two xterms are nice if you're not. I never said
: that each and every user of a non-Unix platform sucks either. '
Just the vast majority? Or was "the unappreciative, unthinking, and,
hence, unworthy clueless droves of lose32 users" intended as a compliment?
--Art
National Ska/Reggae Calendar: www.ziplink.net/~upsetter/ska/calendar.html
Boston Ska Home Page: www.ziplink.net/~upsetter/ska/index.html
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:42:23 GMT
From: gbacon@cs.uah.edu (Greg Bacon)
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfog0$kpg$6@info.uah.edu>
In article <6jf698$1ca$1@gallo.ultranet.com>,
fsg@gallo.ultranet.com writes:
: gbacon@cs.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
: >You exhibit a fundamental failure to understand what Perl is all about.
:
: Tell us, wise gbacon@cs.uah.edu, what Perl is all about.
Four letters: DWIM. Perl is about making the programmer's life easy.
Like Unix, Perl was built for programmers by programmers. I'm not
claiming to speak for Larry, mind you, but I'd be surprised if his
answer is much different.
The fact of the matter is that Perl takes care of the tedious so the
programmer can concentrate on the fun parts of programming. Here's an
excerpt from Tom Limoncelli's excellent article "Read This Before You
Write a Newsreader, News Transport System, etc.":
Here's another example: TMNN was an attempt to make an entirely new
netnews system where things would be a lot more hypertext'ish.
Rather than just add these brilliant ideas to a newsreader (or to C
News and modify a newsreader to take advantage of the new data), the
author tried to re-invent the entire newstransport. The project was
never completed. I'm sure the author didn't get to spend much time
on that part that really interested him either.
I like Perl because when I use it, I don't have to worry about writing
linked list code or hash tables or worry about weird I/O conditions or
about portability to different OSen. I can even use Perl/Tk to produce
a graphical front-end that will run untouched on tons of platforms.
The post to which I followup up said something about Perl's behavior not
making sense. In watching perlbug traffic, when people complain that
Perl's behavior doesn't make sense, it's a case of one of the following
situations, sorted from lowest to highest probability:
1. a bug in perl
2. a bizarre case that hadn't been considered before (design flaw)
3. the behavior is well-loved and -used by much existing code, and
changing the behavior would result in loud complaining and great
contempt
: >The difference between Perl and Visual Doomaflotchy 9000 is that Perl
: >decreases the pulled hair volume of programmers as opposed to leading
: >nonprogrammers to believe that they can program too.
:
: False. Perl is a great language for nonprogrammers and programmers
: alike. Like any language, it has features for both ease of use and
: hardcore coding. The fact that it's implemented both ends of the
: equation so well at the same time is what's tripping you up.
If Perl is so great for nonprogrammers, why are so many nonprogrammers
inundating our newsgroup with FAQs and other questions that are answered
trivially with perhaps ten seconds of investigation on one's own?
: For someone who screams so loudly, obnoxiously, and vituperatively
: about how great it is to know Perl and how much it sucks to be just
: another stupid user, you sure do seem to be reading a lot of news
: articles that raise your blood pressure. Masochism, stupidity,
: or rank hypocrisy?
None of the above. I haven't yet found the software that can read the
articles beforehand to let me know which ones I ought to ignore
altogether. If you have code that can process natural language, please
share it with us.
Not everyone is meant to be a programmer, but there's nothing wrong with
not being one. Being a programmer requires gifts that not everyone
possesses. I don't know of many specialties that just your average
person can claim. Not being a trained physician, I suspect physicians
everywhere would be outraged if I attempted to practice their craft
untrained. Why does everyone think programming is a special case among
professions?
: 1. Perl is designed as a glue language to help people. It's a positivist
: thing that makes everyone's work easier. It is not designed as a negative
: thing that fights against people. Part of the community of Perl involves
: giving selflessly.
How am I missing this point? I've never claimed that any of these are
not the case or that any of these shouldn't be the case. Please provide
examples if you disagree.
: 2. You're posting your ranting diatribe to millions of people, most of
: whom will likely think that you are an egotistical prat who has great
: difficulty putting together coherent, logical thoughts. It would be much
: better for all concerned if, when you became angry at the thought of
: other people learning how to program by using a helpful tool, you simply
: went home and punched a pillow, or talked it over with a friend.
I don't have any problem whatsoever with anyone learning to program. If
anything, this world needs all the clueful programmers it can get.
However, no one can become a programmer overnight, and it is that
attitude which I resist. If this lacks logic and coherence, please
demonstrate otherwise, and I will instantly cease my ranting.
Greg
--
open(G,"|gzip -dc");$_=<<EOF;s/[0-9a-f]+/print G pack("h*",$&)/eg
f1b88000b620f22320303fa2d2e21584ccbcf29c84d2258084
d2ac158c84c4ece4d22d1000118a8d5491000000
EOF
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:33:25 GMT
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfnv5$o5i$3@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, fsg@gallo.ultranet.com writes:
:For instance, there is a large
:segment of people for whom using computers is not the overriding life goal.
:These people would like to use computers, perhaps, to help make their
:lives easier; but realistically, they don't want to know about backtracking.
Tell me again why these people are programming if they aren't
cut out for it? I don't consider ability to send mail equivalent
to programming, either. My dad can send mail, but she
can't program -- that's what Mom's around for. :-)
--tom
--
You have made an excellent hit on the UNIX.--More--
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 21:31:19 GMT
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Does Perl have a IDE?I don't like command line.
Message-Id: <6jfnr7$o5i$2@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
fsg@gallo.ultranet.com writes:
:Perl is a great language for nonprogrammers and programmers
:alike.
Oh don't be silly.
Programmers program.
Nonprogrammers don't program.
Perl is a programming language.
Consequently, Perl is not for nonprogrammers made.
A nonprogrammer who programs loses claim to that title.
--tom
--
I think I'm likely to be certified before Perl is... :-)
--Larry Wall in <1995Feb12.061604.6008@netlabs.com>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 20:00:36 GMT
From: chip@mail.atlantic.net (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Grieving our dying community
Message-Id: <6jfik6$1kg$1@cyprus.atlantic.net>
According to ronaldws@aol.com (RonaldWS):
>I have joined the Perl Institute but have not received any communication back
>from that organization.
I'm sorry ... we're understaffed (i.e. just me). Things happen but
more slowly than anyone would like. I'm realizing that I'll need to
corral volunteer help _first_ if I expect things to improve. :-,
--
Chip Salzenberg - a.k.a. - <chip@pobox.com>
"I brought the atom bomb. I think it's a good time to use it." //MST3K
-> Ask me about Perl training and consulting <-
Like Perl? Want to help out? The Perl Institute: www.perl.org
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 20:02:53 GMT
From: ilya@math.ohio-state.edu (Ilya Zakharevich)
Subject: Re: How can you break out of a 'while... ' loop in a function?
Message-Id: <6jfild$2sg$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>
[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to John Porter
<jdporter@min.net>],
who wrote in article <MPG.fc4b2ec7cf9d3139896bf@news.min.net>:
> > And with Gnuinfo and PDF sucking enormously, OS/2 online book not
> > allowing third party viewers/searchers (though this need comes pretty
> > rare), I just do not understand how people who did not learn from
> > Perl4 docs can do anything without a book.
>
> Whine whine.
Hmm, how much Perl-support software did you write? Cannot find you
indexed on CPAN.
> What format do you recommend for the online docs?
OS/2 online book, or whatever is close in functionality, of course!
> I think PDF would be nice, if only because Acroread is available for
> most major platforms.
PDF is mostly useless online, since unreadable (due to fixed
typesetting).
Ilya
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 20:55:13 GMT
From: jdporter@min.net (John Porter)
Subject: Re: How can you break out of a 'while... ' loop in a function?
Message-Id: <MPG.fc525d55aa516db9896c8@news.min.net>
On 14 May 1998 20:02:53 GMT,
in article <6jfild$2sg$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>,
ilya@math.ohio-state.edu (Ilya Zakharevich) wrote:
> [A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to John Porter
> <jdporter@min.net>],
> who wrote in article <MPG.fc4b2ec7cf9d3139896bf@news.min.net>:
> > > And with Gnuinfo and PDF sucking enormously, OS/2 online book not
> > > allowing third party viewers/searchers (though this need comes pretty
> > > rare), I just do not understand how people who did not learn from
> > > Perl4 docs can do anything without a book.
> >
> > Whine whine.
>
> Hmm, how much Perl-support software did you write? Cannot find you
> indexed on CPAN.
>
> > What format do you recommend for the online docs?
>
> OS/2 online book, or whatever is close in functionality, of course!
So, all I hear from you is whining about how perl docs are not made
available in a useable format, or nearly-useable, such as that OS/2
thing.
Maybe "OS/2 online book" is a starting point. Is the format
proprietary? Can you or someone give us a functional specification
from which to build a better, open-sourced rip-off (gnu-ish)?
Is anybody working on this problem, or are we doomed to hear
whining from here on? How easy is it for you/someone to convert
pod to "OS/2 online book" format? If easy, can you/someone make
the "OS/2 online book"-formated docs available on the CPAN each
time they're revised? Or are we going to hear whining about this
from here on out?
John Porter
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 20:41:39 +0100
From: Rosemary I H Powell <Rosie@dozyrosy.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: how to ignore new line characters in textarea - in forms
Message-Id: <Elb9DPAzdfW1EwOv@dozyrosy.demon.co.uk>
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.980511084652.21974E-
100000@user2.teleport.com>, Tom Phoenix <rootbeer@teleport.com> writes
>On Sun, 10 May 1998, Benjamin Holzman wrote:
>
>> my $text = $q->param('text');
>> $text =~ s/\n//g;
>
>Of course, this is less than perfect, since it tends to conjoin words at
>the end of one line and the start of the next. Cheers!
>
Well:
$text =~ s/\n/ /g;
instead??
Rosemary
Just Another Micro$oft Idiot
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Rosemary I.H.Powell EMail: Home: rosemary@dozyrosy.demon.co.uk |
| Work: r.i.h.powell@rl.ac.uk |
| http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/dozyrosy/ |
| http://www.dozyrosy.demon.co.uk/ |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1998 00:14:56 +0300
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@alpha.hut.fi>
Subject: Re: localized ctime?
Message-Id: <oeewwbo8shb.fsf@alpha.hut.fi>
Meelis Roos <mroos@ut.ee> writes:
>
> Can anybody tell me where can I find a ctime() that uses my locale
> settings?
Ummm, there's no ctime() in Perl. Maybe you meant localtime() in scalar
context?
If so, you can't. localtime() of Perl in scalar context _always_ uses
the "C locale" -like builtin format.
Instead, try
use locale;
use POSIX 'strftime';
You can use the strftime() to print out the format any way you like
(of course given your locale setup is helpful...)
man strftime to find out the format details.
> --
> Meelis Roos e-mail: mroos@ut.ee
> www: http://www.cs.ut.ee/~mroos/
--
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/~jhi/
# There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
# It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1998 20:12:33 GMT
From: cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry)
Subject: Re: Matching the last character in a scalar
Message-Id: <6jfj7h$7iu$1@marina.cinenet.net>
Hauk Langlo (hauk@forumnett.no) wrote:
: Right now I would like to check if a scalars last letter(s) match either
: "/" or ".txt". The ".txt" mach is not too much of a problem because such
: a match would in most cases be the end of the scalar anyway. I know how
: to detect a / , but I would like a true condition only if it is the
: last character. For experienced perl programers, this should be no
: problem at all. I would be very thankfull if you could bother to help me
: on this one. Thanks
$string =~ m!(?:/|\.txt)$!;
That is, match either '.txt' or '/' immediately followed by the end of
the string.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:47:01 -0700
From: Allen Choy <achoy@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Module version of exceptions.pl
Message-Id: <355B5845.62E8A2F9@us.oracle.com>
Is there a module version of exceptions.pl?
thanks--allen
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 16:20:47 -0400
From: Ala Qumsieh <aqumsieh@matrox.com>
Subject: New Math Modules
Message-Id: <355B521F.F2E90D9D@matrox.com>
Hi all,
I have developped a couple of modules that allow symbolic manipulation
of mathematical expressions. As long as you adhere to the convention I
use, the functions will work as you expect (and might save you some time
and effort in the process).
Some limitations apply, of course. For example, you can use only 1
variable and you have to be careful with using brackets. Currently, they
can't handle functions like sin, cos .. etc , but I will be working
toward that.
The modules allow simplifying a long expression, as well as integration
and differentiation.
If you think such modules would be useful, then let me know and I will
try to add them to the CPAN archive. (at this point I am not sure if
it's worth the hassle!)
ThanX all, happy Perling!
--
Ala Qumsieh | No .. not just another
ASIC Design Engineer | Perl Hacker!!!!!
Matrox Graphics Inc. |
Montreal, Quebec | (Not yet!)
------------------------------
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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