On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 04:18:58PM -0500, Frank Newland wrote:
> Q:
> 1. Isn't CONTENTS a file handle to the uncompressed file?
No, it's a filehandle to the output of the compress command.
> 2. Why doesn't perl execute my while statement?
It does, but there's nothing to read, see below.
> 3. What should I do to print the contents of an archived file?
Probably use one of the Compress::* modules on CPAN.
> #!/usr/bin/perl
You forgot -w or use warnings.
> use strict ;
> open (CONTENTS, "compress -d archive.Z | " ) or die "In the
> rain....alone";
This is likely your problem. If your compress is anything like mine, -d
compresses the file inline; it transforms a compressed 'archive.Z' into an
uncompressed 'archive'. You need to use the -c option so compress writes
the uncompressed file to stdout.
You have some odd error messages here. If you like poetic messages you
should take a look at Damian Conway's Coy.pm, it makes haiku (well, sorta)
out of error messages. I'm assuming that these error messages aren't
actually being used for production code.
> while (<CONTENTS>) {
> chomp ;
> print ;
This is slightly wrong, unless you want absolutely no newlines in your
output. The chomp removes the trailing newline, but the print never adds
one back. You probably want:
print while <CONTENTS>;
> }
> close (CONTENTS) or die "like Arch Stanton..."
Michael
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Programmer, System Administrator www.gallanttech.com
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