possible AGI::get_data() extension

[Staffan Ulfberg]

Hello,

I'd like to propose two changes to the AGI::get_data function.  I hope
everyone agrees on the following patch:

--- AGI.pm        Wed Mar 23 00:41:57 2005
+++ AGI.pm.orig   Thu Aug  7 20:04:01 2003
@@ -340,7 +340,7 @@
 
        return -1 if (!defined($filename));
        $ret = $self->execute("GET DATA $filename $timeout $maxdigits");
-       $self->callback($ret) if ((defined $ret) && $ret == -1);
+       $self->callback($ret) if ($ret == -1);
 
        return $ret;
 }

What it does is to get rid of a warning if you use -w in the perl
script that calls the agi.

The other proposal is more of an idea, actually.  Some comments would
be great:

I recently wrote an AGI script where I wanted to differentiate between
the user typing '#' and a timeout where the user had entered nothing.
It turns out that the AGI::get_data function can not differnetiate
between the two cases, so I ended up with this code:

sub extendedGetData {
    my $agi = shift;
    my $streamfile = shift;
    my $timeout = shift;
    my $digits = shift;

    my $data = $agi->get_data($streamfile, $timeout, $digits);
    $data = "" if !defined $data;
    
    if (wantarray) {
        my $timeout = $agi->_lastresponse =~ /\(timeout\)/;
        return ($data, $timeout);
    } else {
        return $data;
    }
}

Except the fact that an empty string is returned instead of undef,
this is functionally equivalent to AGI::get_data when used in a scalar
context.  (There's also a syntactic difference in that $agi is passed
as the first parameter.)  It is also possible to write

  ($vote, $timeout) = extendedGetData($AGI, "whats-your-vote", 0, 3);

to get a boolean $timeout flag that tells if the prompt timed out or
if the user ended with a # sign.  (The prompt says "Enter your vote,
or press pound to go back to the main menu.")  It is now possible to
check

        ($vote eq "" && !$timeout)

to determine if the user typed '#' before a timeout occurred.  If the
entered string is "" while there was a timeout, the prompt would be
repeated.

I believe that the important change, that is, being able to determine
if a timeout occurs, could be incorporated into the get_data function
without altering the current behavior, since the function is probably
always used in a scalar context currently.  The proposed patch,
including both changes, is this:

--- AGI.pm.orig Wed Jun 15 21:43:40 2005
+++ AGI.pm      Wed Jun 15 21:47:09 2005
@@ -340,9 +340,14 @@
 
        return -1 if (!defined($filename));
        $ret = $self->execute("GET DATA $filename $timeout $maxdigits");
-       $self->callback($ret) if ($ret == -1);
+       $self->callback($ret) if ((defined $ret) && $ret == -1);
 
-       return $ret;
+       if (wantarray) {
+           my $timeout = $self->_lastresponse =~ /\(timeout\)/;
+           return ($ret, $timeout);
+       } else {
+           return $ret;
+       }
 }
 
 =item $AGI->set_callerid($number)


Comments?

Staffan