[9054] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2671 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Thu May 21 21:09:35 1998
Date: Thu, 21 May 98 18:00:34 -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, 21 May 1998 Volume: 8 Number: 2671
Today's topics:
Re: Clearly define "free software" <hp@pobox.com>
constants in perl? <dungan@flash.net>
Re: constants in perl? (Mike Stok)
Forking a job from a perl CGI (Boaz Yeger)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 23:17:13 GMT
From: robert havoc pennington <hp@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: Clearly define "free software"
Message-Id: <wsng1i38b9i.fsf@harper.uchicago.edu>
cls@seawood.org (Christopher Seawood) writes:
>
> Now that pretty much fits my definition of free software. However, GPL
> software does not fall under this heading, IMO. Why not? Because GPL
> software restricts what you can _use_ the software with. I am not free
> to _use_ (compile & link, in this case) GPL software with propreitary
> libraries. So according to the above definition, GPL software is not
> "free software as defined by the FSF".
>
You are free to compile and link with proprietary libraries, you just
can't distribute the result. So use is not limited. Distribution is,
however.
There is no doubt that the GPL imposes some restrictions. The issue is
whether they are more onerous than whatever benefits the restrictions
result in, unless you are one of these "a priori morality" kind of
people (in the beginning, God/Logic said "Software will be free"...)
:)
> If by "use", the FSF means something differently than compiling and
> linking, perhaps they should clearly state what they mean. Until such
> time, I will have to maintain that either
> 1) the definition of "free software as defined by the FSF" is ambigious
> (and for all practical purposes, useless)
> or
> 2) that software under the GPL is not "free software as defined by the FSF."
>
Obviously 2) is false, so it would be illogical to maintain that.
1) is not very ambiguous in common usage, and is applied with much
success by e.g. Debian and Red Hat and www.opensource.org. But perhaps
it could be clarified further.
> If someone can logically (as opposed to religiously) come up with another
> explanation, I'd like to hear it.
>
I'm sure you will be very objective when you decide what is "logical"
and what is "religious." ;-)
Havoc Pennington ==== http://pobox.com/~hp
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 06:59:25 -0600
From: "Andrew M. Dungan" <dungan@flash.net>
Subject: constants in perl?
Message-Id: <3564252C.F2315B69@flash.net>
does perl support constants?
I want to define something like:
const $pi=3.14;
can this be done in perl? if so, how?
thanks,
Andy
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 00:19:12 GMT
From: mike@stok.co.uk (Mike Stok)
Subject: Re: constants in perl?
Message-Id: <6k2ga0$8mt@news-central.tiac.net>
In article <3564252C.F2315B69@flash.net>,
Andrew M. Dungan <dungan@flash.net> wrote:
>does perl support constants?
>
>I want to define something like:
>
>const $pi=3.14;
>
>can this be done in perl? if so, how?
In recent versions of perl there's a pragmatic module called constant
whose documentation starts like this:
NAME
constant - Perl pragma to declare constants
SYNOPSIS
use constant BUFFER_SIZE => 4096;
use constant ONE_YEAR => 365.2425 * 24 * 60 * 60;
use constant PI => 4 * atan2 1, 1;
use constant DEBUGGING => 0;
use constant ORACLE => 'oracle@cs.indiana.edu';
use constant USERNAME => scalar getpwuid($<);
use constant USERINFO => getpwuid($<);
sub deg2rad { PI * $_[0] / 180 }
print "This line does nothing" unless DEBUGGING;
A quck way to tell if it's installed is:
perl -mbanana -e 1
which shouldn't complain if it can find the constant module.
perldoc constant
is a way to read the documentation.
Hope this helps,
Mike
--
mike@stok.co.uk | The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.
http://www.stok.co.uk/~mike/ | PGP fingerprint FE 56 4D 7D 42 1A 4A 9C
http://www.tiac.net/users/stok/ | 65 F3 3F 1D 27 22 B7 41
stok@colltech.com | Collective Technologies (work)
------------------------------
Date: 21 May 1998 22:19:49 GMT
From: byeger@cs.ucr.edu (Boaz Yeger)
Subject: Forking a job from a perl CGI
Message-Id: <6k29a5$b57$1@pravda.ucr.edu>
Hello,
I have a CGI script that need to exec a job which might run from 5 seconds and
up to a few hours. I tried:
system("program&"): Program die after about 10 seconds
fork; exec("program") (after closing stdout, stdin, stderr): Same as above
fork; exec("wrapper")
wrapper: fork; execl(program) (wrapper written in C): Same as above
I also tried to catch all signals (SIGHUP, SIGTERM, SIGPIPE), and to change
the process group number (using setpgrp() in C).
Any ideas how to solve the problem above?
Thanks,
Boaz
------------------------------
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 2671
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