Langa-
I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to copy my answer to the list
because I don't know who else out there might benefit from this information.
Everyone else-
Keep in mind, this is Win32::TieRegistry the way _I_ understand it.
If I am wrong in any way, don't get mad, correct me. I'd much rather be
corrected now than some other place down the road. That being said, here's
a slightly more detailed explanation of how to use Win32::TieRegistry. This
may be easier to read if you paste it into an editor that has syntax
highlighting, everything from the #'s on down.
############################################################
use strict; #always a good idea
use Win32::TieRegistry(Delimiter => "/");#So that we can use forward slashes
#A new Win32::TieRegistry object is automatically created
#called $Registry. $Registry is a hash reference[1]. Each
#key of the hash it points to is either another reference to
#another hash or a scalar which corresponds to a "value"(to
#use the Win32 registry term). This will make a little more
#sense after you've used it a while.
#Now that we've created the registry hashes, let's try
#working with what we've created. We can create a new
#object[1] that points to a specific part of the registry
#or we can just shoot for the part we want to change.
#For the purposes of making this easier to read, I'll make
#a new object.
my $IEKey = $Registry->{'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Internet
Explorer/Main/'};
#The arrow operator, the way it is used in this example, denotes that we are
#working with a hash reference, and not a key of %Registry. We now have
#an object that represents the exact key we want to work with. Now let's
#change the 'Start Page' value.
$IEKey->{'Start Page'} = "http://www.perl.org";;
#Viola! Your start page has changed. Now let's try creating a new key.
$Registry->{'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Perl Beginners/'} = {};
#We've created a new, empty key. Now let's set the default value.
$Registry->{'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Perl Beginners//'} = "Camel";
#Notice that since the default value does not have a name, there
#are TWO backslashes at the end of the key. With Win32::TieRegistry,
#If you want to resolve ambiguities about whether the item at the end
#is a registry key or registry value, you can (a)add a slash to the end
#to denote a key, or (b)add two slashes before the value, so our
#double-slash denotes a value with a zero-length name[2].
#For our next trick, lets create a new object for simplicity, and add
#a value to our new key.
my $BeginnerKey = $Registry->{'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Perl Beginners/'};
$BeginnerKey->{'TIMTOWTDI'} = "There Is More Than One Way To Do It";
#And for a variation on a theme, lets try a REG_DWORD value. This changes
#things a little because it is a binary value. We will have to specify
#both the value and the type like so, to avoid accidentally creating
#a string value.
$BeginnerKey->{'MyDWORD'} = ['0x0001',REG_DWORD];
#Finally, let's look at reading values. We are still treating each
#key as a hash reference, so we will have to dereference our hash to
#get the value.
my $KeyValue = $BeginnerKey->{'TIMTOWTDI'};
print "My new variable's value is: $KeyValue\n\n";
#That looks pretty clean, but what about getting all of the keys?
#If we dereference the hash, we can use the keys() function.
my @KeyArray = keys %{$BeginnerKey};
print "Here are the values in my registry key:\n";
foreach(@KeyArray){
if($_ eq '/'){
print " /(default)\n";
}else{
print " $_\n";
}
}
#There are more things you can do with this module, but I think that
#covers the basics. If you have any questions or comments, please post
#them back to the list and I'll try to answer them if I can.
#[1]Technically $Registry is a Win32::TieRegistry object. It is a tied
# hash that allows you to manipulate the hash and automagically
# cause changes to be made to the registry at the same time as changes
# are made to the hash. Just think of it as a hash reference if that
# seems confusing.
#[2]Win32::TieRegistry will cut you a little slack when it comes to
# calling keys and values, but it is always a good idea to add a slash
# to the end whenever you are working with a key. This reduces the
# possibility of accidentally creating a value when you meant to create
# a key, or vice versa.
#[3]Here's a link to a web page made from the POD documentation:
#
<http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/CodeDoc/libwin32/TieRegistry/TieRegistry.h
tml>
-----Original Message-----
From: Langa Kentane [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 8:13 AM
To: Timothy Johnson
Subject: RE: Writing to the Windows registry
Importance: Low
Hi Timothy,
Sorry to bug you but I am new to Perl and getting a little confused at this
point. What I want to do is set the IE start page using Perl for instance so
I would need to write http://someserver.domain.com/ to
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main], could you
perhaps give me an example of how I would do this.
Thanks in advance.
Langa
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