Need for Case-Sensitive File System?
Hi Friends, I've been developing in Perl on OS X ever since the OS X Public Beta. Somewhere along the line I came to believe that I should set up my system with the boot drive formatted as Max OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled). Emphasis here on Case-sensitive. My question is: Is this practice (still) needed? Background -- I started doing this after some discussions on this list several years ago; the issue was that some Perl modules assume(d) file-system case-sensitivity. For example, here's a quote from a message by Ari Kahn on Mar 8 2002: ... difficulties when installing a software package that was designed for a case-sensitive system. For example, libwww-perl by default installs an HTTP script called HEAD, which is used to make an HTTP HEAD request. If this is installed to /usr/bin, it can overwrite the BSD built-in /usr/bin/head command, used for reading the beginnings of files. To prevent this kind of collision when using HFS+, it's necessary to configure CPAN.pm to install modules to a private directory. I didn't choose the recommended solution at the time of always installing CPAN modules in a private directory. Instead, every time I formatted a new boot drive, I made it case-sensitive. Over the years this has caused a few difficulties, particularly with some commercial software such as Quark Xpress refusing to install, but I only use case-sensitive formatting on my dev machine, so it's not usually a problem. I am about to set up a Mac Mini OS X 10.7 server as a new dev machine, and am wondering whether I still need to re-format as case-sensitive before proceeding. I'd like to avoid the limitations of case-sensitivity if possible. If I format as case-INsensitive, will CPAN now help me do the right thing? Thanks. - Bruce _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
Re: Can't Update CPAN, Can't Install DBD::mysql
On 2011-09-28, Lola Lee Beno wrote: Looks like I need to install make. This means, I need to get XCode so I can install make, right? Other than the huge download of a bunch of XCode stuff you might never use, that's probably the best way to install make. - Bruce _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
SQLite over MySQL?
Hey John (or anyone else), On 2011-06-17, John Delacour wrote: I'm afraid I can't advise since I can't stand MySQL and find life much easier with SQLite. This aroused my curiosity because I have to switch some Perl programs written long ago with various flat-file data tables accessed via howe-brew parsing to something more transferable. None of my uses has more than a few hundred thousand records, and most have far fewer. Would you care to say a bit more about your preference? Do you use the Perl DBI with SQLite? If something that reflects your views can be read elsewhere, please point. CAUTION: I'm not interested in enflaming a huge debate about the merits and demerits of these and other database systems, their developers, companies that own them, etc. Just a bit of practical curiosity... Thanks. - Bruce _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
Re: Ann: CamelBones 1.1.0
On 2009-11-23 at 11:08 AM, sherm.pend...@gmail.com (Sherm Pendley) wrote: http://www.camelbones.org/node/4 The requested URL /CamelBones/1.1/CamelBones-1.1.dmg was not found on this server. The link worked when I changed it to: /CamelBones/1.1/CamelBones-1.1.0.dmg Note the zero. - Bruce _bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz_ca_
Re: Proposed Mac::Pasteboard
On Jan 27, 2008, at 10:53 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 27, 10:49 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chas. Owens) wrote: On Jan 26, 2008 10:46 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 22, 2:31 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brian D Foy) wrote: [[ This message was both posted and mailed: see the To, Cc, and Newsgroups headers for details. ]] In article 012120080315.17779.47940E4B0005B034457322007507440B0B9A0300979D9D0E [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there a module that will let one manipulate a Mac OS X pasteboard? There does not seem to be anything on CPAN that strikes me as being for that purpose. I'd like to have such a thing, although you should call it Mac::Clipboard :) I dithered about this. The arguments as I see them are: For Mac::Clipboard 1) That's what most people call the thing. For Mac::Pasteboard 1) It's what the Apple documentation calls it. 2) There's a lot more to it than (e.g.) Win32::Clipboard. For one thing, there's more than one of them -- in fact, as many as you like. Each can have multiple data items, with data in multiple flavors. snip Why choose? Write Mac::Pasteboard with all of the bells and whistles and then write Mac::Clipboard using Mac::Pasteboard to expose only the clipboard. In the SEE ALSO section you can reference Mac::Pasteboard and people who need the advanced functionality can find it. Interesting thought. The straightforward implementation would be to have Mac::Clipboard depend on Mac::Pasteboard (since there's no simplified clipboard interface that I have found). But it seems un- parsimonious to me to use namespace for maybe a dozen lines of Perl, [snip] Maybe that's not a bad thing. And it wouldn't really limit the potential of the namespace. Starting with your Mac::Clipboard (which would inherit from Mac::Pasteboard) we might see: Mac::Clipboard::Persistent - provide the ability to cache the clipboard; M::C::History - store clipboard values cumulatively with meta-data (time-stamp, ...); M::C::Multiple - provide multiple clipboards a la some GUI apps M::C::Calculate - provide a stack for calculations with multiple copied values ... All of these would work in the functionality-space of The Clipboard, which isn't quite the same as accessing other features of the Pasteboard, from the user's POV. Regardless of the name, thanks for alerting me and others to the interesting capabilities of the OS X Pasteboard. Best, - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CamelBones: Will hack for food!
On 5/9/07 Jeremiah Foster wrote: I have blogged a bit about Camel Bones here on O'Reilly. Please comment if you would so that the python person who commented is not the sole comment. Nothing personal against python but it sucks. But let's not turn this into a battle in the best language wars. All tools to all people, as needed, where useful! Best, - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CamelBones: Will hack for food!
On 5/9/07 Jeremiah Foster wrote: Wed, May 09, 2007 at 08:55:54AM -0700: Bruce Van Allen mangled some bits into this alignment: On 5/9/07 Jeremiah Foster wrote: I have blogged a bit about Camel Bones here on O'Reilly. Please comment if you would so that the python person who commented is not the sole comment. Nothing personal against python but it sucks. But let's not turn this into a battle in the best language wars. All tools to all people, as needed, where useful! Absolutely Bruce. I didn't mean to turn this into a language war. Just trying to be funny and glib. I apologize. Accepted. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Speaking of support for Camel Bones
On 5/8/07 Tim Bunce wrote: On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 05:38:42PM -0400, Sherm Pendley wrote: On May 8, 2007, at 5:23 PM, Bruce Van Allen wrote: I think we can confidently answer the Benefits to the Perl Community issue. That's my biggest concern. CB is mostly of use to the subset of the community who are using Macs, and need to write GUI apps. My concern is whether that's a big enough subset to warrant a grant. Don't just think about the Benefits to the Perl _Developer_ Community. Also think in terms of increasing the size of the Perl _User_ Community by enabling quality Mac apps to be implemented in/with perl. Tim. Exactly. I don't have an actual count, but what comes to mind is the huge number of people now dipping their toes into SQL and programmable database systems simply because of the (L)AMP connection of mySQL and PHP. Appreciate what they're missing (besides being limited to a Web framework): CB + DBI = the real thing. And there would be plenty of other growth vectors opened up. But moving past the why, some work needs to be done before the sales pitch/evangelism. Sherm will need to write a proposal and submit it to the Perl Foundation. The rest of this message has my suggestions for how this could happen. The next deadline for submissions is June 8, 2007. Per TPF guidelines, the proposal needs to include some things that have to be thought through and written out: - Synopsis A short description. - Benefits to the Perl Community - Deliverables Quantifiable results e.g. Improve X modules in ways Y and Z, Write 3 articles for X website. - Project Details A more detailed description. Additional non-trivial items are a schedule for the project and a description of Sherm's background and qualifications to do the project. A quick look at recently funded TPF grants suggests that this might take a total of 2500 to 4000 words -- the length of a serious journal article. To do this in one month, it would be handy to have some milestones that give Sherm a timeline for writing, and provide those of us who want to help a structure for some parallel processing. 1. Project Definition. To start, the project will need to be defined; in my view this should be the realistic next set of steps in CB's development. The rest of the proposal follows from the project definition. - Sherm's part: I imagine Sherm has next steps in mind, so the task now would be for him to write out a description and circulate it. - Our part: We can help if he needs encouragement to think big or if he needs to choose what to take _off_ the plate for now. 2. Outlines, lists, or blurts for the sections listed above. This is just to get started; the point is to see what needs to be said and where it should be said in the sections of the proposal. - Sherm's part: Sherm should do this in whatever way he's most comfortable putting ideas into words. Concreteness and clarity more important than golden sentences. Ask for support where you have gaps. - Our part: Review and especially check for what's missing/incomplete in the _ideas_ for each section. Conceive of examples. Check references. 3. Writing Writing is re-writing. - Sherm's part: Develop drafts. Write to an audience that is both demanding of you and also believes in you. - Our part: review drafts, feed back quickly, stay on topic. 4. Proposal Composition The written pieces need to be strung together in order and printed out in a format different from the previous composition, so the emerging proposal may be read with fresh eyes. - Sherm's part: Piece it together, send it out, and then take a break. - Our part: Read, review, encourage, stay on topic. 5. Credentials This is a part that is important but outside the particulars of the proposed project, namely Sherm's qualifications. - Sherm's part: circulate something. Don't be modest, don't BS. - Our part: Read and review; also write our own brief and focused support notes/letters. 6. Project Schedule Budget The proposal will need a schedule for the project that makes sense, and a budget for Sherm's time that is credible. At this starting point (May 9), I think attention should be on conceiving a sufficiently large project to move CB forward -- but I don't know what that is, or how long it would take. Looking at past TPF grants will give some context for this. But focus on the project for now, and come back to this after progress on the above steps. OK, those are enough milestones for now. All meant in the spirit of creating a framework, nothing rigid or right about it. How about some dates? 1. Project Definition. Mon, May 14. 2. Outlines, lists, or blurts for the sections listed above. Fri May 18. 3. Writing Fri May 25 4. Proposal Composition Tues May 29 5. Credentials Fri June 1 6. Project Schedule Budget Fri June 1 These dates are arbitrary, but if we get those things done, the remaining week up to the Fri June 8 deadline should be sufficient for final editing
Re: CamelBones: Will hack for food!
On 5/9/07 Peter N Lewis wrote: Perhaps folks have some ideas for apps that could be written in CamelBones? Something that would presumably use some of the vast CPAN facilities to make something cool with minimal programming effort. Mine would not be as flashy as games, but I'm working toward two related CB goals: - a GUI for a bunch of data-handling and text processing stuff that I now do in Perl using cli or BBEdit worksheets and then import to Filemaker for some outputs and also for lookups and data input by non-technical users; and - a spreadsheet GUI that is nothing but a means of accessing and displaying the cells of a table, no built-in functions, with an API capable of accepting libraries of whatever Perl code I need to use (math, text, network) for operations by cell, row, column, sub-table. Adelante! - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Speaking of support for Camel Bones
On 5/7/07 Chris Nandor wrote: Have you considered a Perl Foundation Grant? On 5/7/07 Tim Bunce wrote: Seconded, FWIW. On 5/8/07 Tom Yarrish wrote: This just came through on my RSS reader. http://news.perl-foundation.org/2007/05/calls_for_proposals.html Let's get behind this. Sherm could do some work that moves CB forward, maybe the .scriptingbridge metadata. I can't send money right now -- I freelance and am also currently in a trough. But I've done lots of editing and grant-writing, so if you need that kind of help to tighten up a proposal, let me know. Also, I notice that the Perl Foundation guidelines don't mention letters of support, but if Sherm submits a proposal, letters to vouch for him CB would probably help (now Chris, don't auto-bury them ;-). I think we can confidently answer the Benefits to the Perl Community issue. Maybe Apple could make a grant to TPF -- tax-deductible 'n' all -- designated for this project... Best, - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Regex and Mac vs UNIX line endings
Peter gave some good examples, so I shortened this to supplement his suggestions. I prefer to determine what the end-of-line (eol) character is using something less slippery than \r and \n. In Perl, \n is the native eol for the OS that Perl is executing under, so it could any of the \n, \r, \r\n, etc., constructs. Instead, use the octal characters, which for this are: Mac CR (Carriage Return) \015 UNIX, Linux, VMSLF (Line Feed)\012 Win CRLF \015\012 BTW, many apps in Mac OS X (Excel, Filemaker Pro) continue to use the eol used in OS 9 and before (CR), not the UNIX eol (LF). Here's my favorite way to get the eol and convert it to native, no matter what's in the original file (at least in the popular OSes): $text =~ s/(\015?\012|\015)/\n/gs; You could also specify what you want, if that isn't simply the native eol: my $new_eol = \015; # or \012 or \015\012 $text =~ s/(\015?\012|\015)/$new_eol/gs; If the file is large, then you may need to use a heuristic (that is, test some of the text trying to detect a pattern), as Doug suggests, testing the first x characters of the file to find one of the above eol constructs, and then seeing whether it shows up again, and then backing up and processing the whole file. Or use the look-ahead/behind approaches that Peter suggests. 1; - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: When does a hash of lists get defined?
On 4/5/06 Stewart Leicester wrote:
Bruce Van Allen wrote:
Both
defined $phash{D}[3]
and
exists $phash{D}[3]
autovivify $phash{D}.
- Bruce
'defined' will autovivify, 'exists' will not. I'll leave it up to
Doug to decide if knowing that helps.
Oh? Try this:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my %hash= (
A = [qw/a0 a1 a2/],
);
# $hash{A}
if (defined $hash{A}[2]) {
print OK \$hash{A}[2] defined\n
}
if (exists $hash{A}[2]) {
print OK \$hash{A}[2] exists\n
}
# test defined() on $hash{B}
if (defined $hash{B}[2]) {
print OK \$hash{B}[2] defined\n
} elsif (exists $hash{B}) {
print OK \$hash{B} exists: autovivified from defined()\n
}
# test exists() on $hash{D}
if (exists $hash{D}[2]) {
print OK \$hash{D}[2] exists\n
} elsif (exists $hash{D}) {
print OK \$hash{D} exists: autovivified from exists()\n
}
__END__
prints:
OK $hash{A}[2] defined
OK $hash{A}[2] exists
OK $hash{B} exists: autovivified from defined()
OK $hash{D} exists: autovivified from exists()
The autovivification is happening when the values are dereferenced.
The expression
exists $hash{D}[2]
is testing the existence of the third element in the array ref
ostensibly stored in $hash{D}, so $hash{D} gets autovivified to allow
the test.
1;
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: When does a hash of lists get defined?
On 4/4/06 Doug McNutt wrote:
While messing with CGI POSTed data I got trapped by this one.
Version 5.8.1-RC3 for Mac OS 10.3.9
It appears that the hash element D gets defined in the process of
testing to see if an element in the associated string is defined. The
last if below takes the else route.
Is that normal? Does it somehow make sense?
%phash = (); foreach $jill (A, B, C)
{ for ($lynn = 0; $lynn3; $lynn++) { $phash{$jill}[$lynn] =
$jill$lynn; print \$phash{$jill}[$lynn] = $phash{$jill}[$lynn]\n;
}
}
if (! defined $phash{D})
{ print \$phash{D} is undefined, We expected that.\n;
}
if (! defined $phash{D}[3])
It happened right here.
See perldoc perlref, especially autovivification.
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: When does a hash of lists get defined?
On 4/4/06 Stewart Leicester wrote:
if (! defined $phash{D})
{
print \$phash{D} is undefined, We expected that.\n;
}
Instead of
defined $phash{D}
use
exists $phash{D}
Actually, those mean different things. Neither autovivifies, which was
what Doug was seeking to understand.
Both
defined $phash{D}[3]
and
exists $phash{D}[3]
autovivify $phash{D}.
1;
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Formatting uploaded images
On 2/17/06 John Horner wrote: Nobody's yet mentioned the Image::Size module? If installing a module is hard, then it doesn't seem sensible to advise using a different module! There is an *enormous* difference between installing ImageMagick (which isn't a module, although you get a perl module with it) and installing Image::Size. I just installed Image::Size with cpan -- blink and you missed it. And its dependencies seem to be in the standard distibution, so you use cpan to get it, then upload it to web space provided by your ISP; just use lib '...' appropriately in your script. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: return status code from sendmail in macosx
On 1/18/06 Riccardo Perotti wrote: Hi all: I have a typical mail cgi script written in perl and can't figure out why I don`t get an error when the message is not sent. ... The problem is that it does not die even though the message is not sent. I've tried checking $? (child error) but nothing (it is '0'). I have read the sendmail and postfix man pages to no avail. ... What is it that I'm missing? Is there another way of checking for sendmail's success from your script? I'm not sure what the problem is, but when my mail scripts don't work, I find the undeliverable messages in ~/mbox. Might be some hints there. HTH - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CamelBones on Intel
On 11/10/05 Sherm Pendley wrote: To the future and beyond! Is that from a movie, tv show, book, etc.? It sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it... it's been bugging me for days... ;-) To infinity and beyond! was from Toy Story. Best, - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CamelBones on Intel
On 11/10/05 Bruce Van Allen wrote: On 11/10/05 Sherm Pendley wrote: To the future and beyond! Is that from a movie, tv show, book, etc.? It sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it... it's been bugging me for days... ;-) To infinity and beyond! was from Toy Story. And let me add that I genuinely think my variation belongs to you (Sherm) and Camelbones -- both because you've bridged to the new Mac chipset, and also in the bigger sense that Camelbones provides a path to the future for Perl programmers to do cool things with Cocoa and OS X. To the future and beyond! - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CamelBones on Intel
On 11/4/05 Sherm Pendley wrote: Here's some good news. I just heard from someone who's been helping me test CamelBones on Intel, ... And here's what he had to say about it: I spent a few minutes clicking around in this latest version on my Intel box with no apparent failures of any kind. It also appeared identical to the same version on my PPC machine. I'll be rolling a new release package soon - probably later tonight - but in the meantime I wanted to share the good news. To the future and beyond! - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: ActiveState is announcing support for Mac OS X
On 6/8/05 Sherm Pendley wrote: On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:38 AM, John Delacour wrote: To use the Perl that came with the OS, as Sherm recommends, is simply not satisfactory when important developments are happening within Perl. I recommended no such thing. I simply pointed out that a Windows user who wants to run a Perl script doesn't have the option of using the built-in Perl, because there is none. Mac OS X users *do* have that option, and for many it's a perfectly viable choice. In fact, it's a better choice for many who develop for deployment on others' machines. Proportionally, very few machines in the world have the latest Perl. For my own self-use stuff, John's point about new developments in Perl (like Unicode) is relevant. But I have scripts running in several clients' old boxes that do their jobs with no need to improve. And I still maintain some CGI scripts using Perl 4 at some ISPs who keep the older Perl (alongside newer) as a legacy courtesy to longtime customers. In this case 'maintain' means Don't cost them any money unless it directly benefits productivity. With OS X, many Mac owners might want my data utilities to work without having to upgrade their Perl beyond the system install, and to keep working without my help when they upgrade to Ocelot or Cheshire Cat or whatever in a few years. It's just a reality. Arguing about whether I would/could/should try to persuade these folks to upgrade their Perl is non-productive :-) - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Tiger version - Please stop
On 2005-04-11 various people addressed the question: Does anyone know when Tiger itself will be shipping? Will those suffering from can't-wait-for-the-next thing please not infect this list? Thanks, - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: ANN: ShuX 3.0-beta1
On 2005-03-18 Sherm Pendley wrote: On Mar 18, 2005, at 5:02 PM, john horner wrote: Downloaded, installed, didn't work, ran the Terminal command, works just fine I'm beginning to wonder if *anyone* is still using the Perl that came with Panther. ;-) Worked out of the box over here -- but I'm fortunate to have left Apple's 5.8.1 install as my default Perl. Sherm, this is sweet, both as Shuck reduX and as demonstration of the usefulness of CamelBones. Up 'til now, I was only thinking of using CB as a way to provide a rich GUI for the stuff I run in my own machine for my own work. That's plenty, about half of my use of Perl, so I planned to build my next local app using CB. No doubt you planned this all along, but you've just taken it a big step further, and I can now imagine handing my tools to non-programmers. This changes everything. Thanks! - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Any GUI tools that can set execute bit?
On 2005-03-03 Tommy Nordgren wrote: Are there any Graphical User Interface Tools that can set the executable bits in the file info on disk? Home is not where you are born, but where your heart finds peace - Tommy Nordgren, The dying old crone I suggest SuperGetInfo from Barebones Software (www.barebones.com). But I will NOT debate, advocate, challenge, argue, disparage, promote, one-up, put down, ... 1; - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Variables in external file
On 2005-02-18 Mark Wheeler wrote:
Ok... I made the changes, but still no luck. Here is the script as it
is, now.
--
test.cgi
--
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
our @list;
require 'variables.conf';
foreach (@list) {
print;
}
exit;
---
variables.conf
---
$list[0] = '0';
$list[1] = '1';
$list[2] = '2';
$list[3] = '3';
$list[4] = '4';
1;
---
What am I missing here? Thanks for your help.
That works here. What errors or warnings are you getting? Did you get
rid of the my @list; declaration in the require()ed file
(variables.conf)? Permissions OK?
If you're running an earlier version of Perl, instead of
our @list;
write this:
use vars qw/@list/;
before the require() statement.
In the bigger picture, yes, storing Perl code and data structures in
separate files is a widespread practice, rightly so as part of Perl's
easy extensibility.
For a learning path that gives the most solid foundation to this
practice, consider starting now with always running your scripts in
taint mode. What you read in from external files is not secure in many
situations, especially networks -- e.g., the Internet.
Some common script operations, such as open()ing a file with a path
stored in an external config file, could cause severe security issues.
If you incorporate the simple steps required to untaint external data
from the beginning, your programs will more strongly handle increased
complexity and public exposure.
And you will avoid the stress of combing back through a program you need
to make secure, trying to find the elusive points where the -T switch
tenaciously challenges you, an enterprise in which you may risk losing
your appreciation of logically organized electron flows.
HTH
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: TextWrangler
On 2005-01-21 John Horner wrote: At 9:34 PM -0800 20/1/05, Chris Nandor wrote: it handles all the same Perl stuff as its bigger sibling: syntax coloring, running scripts, filters, debugging, viewing POD, etc. How does BBEdit view POD? I never knew about that. Open a Perl script or module in BBE or TW, and check the #! menu. This might require that your settings recognize Perl files by .pl, .pm, .plx, etc., under Preferences - Languages. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Options for control of output in Terminal?
On 2004-11-22 Dan Buettner wrote:
Ideally, I'd like to have the window have a fixed display (no
scrolling) and always output the information from a specific thread in
a specific position. In other words, Thread 1 gets the first 2 lines,
Thread 2 gets lines 3 and 4, etc.
Maybe you could extrapolate from this, a simplified version of a
subroutine in my own local ::Utils module. The subroutine make_counter()
takes two arguments, a fixed initial part, here called $label, and a
starting number. It returns a closure that you use inside your loop.
Note the $|++, which assures immediate output (to the terminal screen).
For your use, what you especially want to get from this example is the
use of the Perl character \b, which outside of regular expressions
means backspace. The point is to print \b the same number of times
as the number of characters you want to back up before printing the
updated output. I believe you should be able to stack fixed and varying
lines with a little practice...
#!/usr/bin/perl
# trivial_count.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
$|++;
my $max = $ARGV[0] || 1;
print Searching...\n;
my $counter = make_counter(Here's how many I've found: );
for (1..$max) {
print $counter-()
}
print \n;
sub make_counter {
my ($label,$start) = @_;
$label ||= 'Count:';
my $count = $start ||= 1;
my $flag= 1;
return sub {
$flag ?
$flag-- $label . $count :
\b x length($count) . ++$count;
}
}
__END__
bva$ perl /Volumes/Programming/trivial_count.pl 678
Searching...
Here's how many I've found: 678
bva$
HTH
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Console.app tool
On 2004-10-13 Bill Stephenson wrote: On Sep 9, 2004, at 2:06 PM, Sherm Pendley wrote: I can configure Console.app to automagically pop itself to the front of the window stack whenever anything gets appended to Apache's (or some other) error log. Hey Sherm, I've been thinking about that since you mentioned it and I really want that feature in my toolbox Can you make a CamelBones app that let's you turn it on an off? A pull down list of log files to select from would be cool too. I'd gladly make another little donation for a cool little tool that had a button to make my Console.app do that. Bill ??? Mine's called Console.app. (Panther) Open it (it's probably in your Utilities subdirectory of Applications). At the left edge, pull the little dimple to the right and you'll see a hierachical list of logs beyond counting. Pick one or more and open windows for them. Let's say console.log and var/log/httpd/error_log. Then go to Preferences and check the boxes under When an open log is updated Put your windows in th Dock or hide Console.app. Make an error, or go to Terminal.app and restart Apache, and watch. Or did you mean something different? - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CPAN Question
On 5/29/04 Timothy Bailey wrote: On Thu, 27 May 2004 20:24:28 -0700, someone going by the name of Bruce Van Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED] spoke: You can also download it from Apple. You have to join as a developer, but that's no big deal. Then just make sure you get the Developer Tools appropriate for your version of OS X. I downloaded the December 2002 version, and installed it. I am still That's old. Did you say you have OS X 10.2? (Trying install Bundle::libnet, among other things, attempted an install of Perl 5.8.4 - I'm not certain if it was successful, but I Oh, there's a hint. There was a version of CPAN.pm in early Jaguar that would force an install of the latest Perl. Not what you want. I think the immediate solution was to install a newer CPAN (but not Bundle::CPAN). Search this list -- lots of talk over a year ago... Any other ideas? Do I blank out the ~/.cpan directory? How do I determine that the Developer Tools took? The errors seem to be slightly different now, but I'm not certain of the specifics. I've installed Dev Tools routinely since the Public Beta, so I don't know what it's like without them, but it seems like I first tested them using Terminal, running tools and Perl code from the command line... Could you reinstall your system, maybe upgraded to later Jaguar, and get a later version of the Developer Tools? And if you want a later version of Perl, DO NOT replace the system's Perl -- again, search this list for discussion. (I'm assuming you have a reason not to buy Panther, w/ Perl 5.8.1.) Then start fresh with cpan, beginning with its own config. HTH 1; - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: CPAN Question
On 5/27/04 Timothy Bailey wrote: Hmm, I did buy the computer used, and reinstalled the OS that came with it (10.2, two CDs), and I thought I had installed everything off of them. (Of course, this =is= my first experience with OSX.) Is there a third CD I should have gotten with Jaguar? Yes. With Jaguar it's called the Developer Tools Disk. It has its own installer, so you would have noticed. You can also download it from Apple. You have to join as a developer, but that's no big deal. Then just make sure you get the Developer Tools appropriate for your version of OS X. (With Panther, the Developer Tools became XTools.) Just install the whole thing. Then you'll be able to do the fun things discussed on this list. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: passing a function and then calling the function with parameters
Try this (working from your code as much as possible):
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
sub solve
# solves any given function
{
my ($funct) = @_;
return f(3) = . $funct-(3);
}
sub foo
# a function to solve
{
my ($x) = @_;
return This should print 6: . ($x + 3);
}
print Solving for foo:\n . solve(\foo) . \n;
# Solving for foo:
# f(3) = This should print 6: 6
__END__
The key difference is where you call the function inside solve(). The
construct $funct-(3) is what you want, de-referencing the code
reference and handing it the arg 3. You could do without the variable
$funct by just using $_[0]-(3) (no quotes).
The other changes I made were to take the print() statements out of the
subs, and instead returning the concatenated phrases. Otherwise, your
print statements will be output in the wrong order as the subs execute
from inside to out.
For general-purpose function solving, you might consider using eval(),
in case someone provides a function that blows up.
HTH
1;
On 5/19/04 Joseph Alotta wrote:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
sub solve
# solves any given function
{
my ($funct) = @_;
print f(3) = , @{$funct}(3), \n;
}
sub foo
# a function to solve
{
my ($x) = @_;
print This should print 6, $x + 3, \n;
}
print Solving for foo, solve(\foo), \n;
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Copying files
On 4/27/04 Mark Wheeler wrote: Yup. You're right. I missed that one. Here's what I did to simplify the testing of the script. copy(/Users/xx/Documents/db1.txt, /Users/xx/Documents/db1.txt.bak) or warn Can't copy file: $!; - I know the cron is firing off the request, because when first tried it, I got Permission Denied in my email box. So I changed the permission to 755 and it still doesn't copy the file. And I get nothing in my email box. I'm a little confused. What am I missing? Is that Permission Denied for execution of your script? Perhaps it's for writing the file. Check the write permissions of the /Users/xx/Documents directory. 1; - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Copying files
On 4/27/04 Mark Wheeler wrote: Good question. Here are the results. The permissions for the /Users/xx/Documents directory is: drwx-- 7 xx xx 238 27 Apr 15:08 Documents The permission for the /Users/xx/Library/Scripts directory is: drwxr-xr-x 3 xx xx 102 27 Apr 14:22 Scripts Does that look right? Or should the Documents directory be the same as Most likely your script is not running as owner, so you probably want drwxrwxrwx for the Documents directory ( chmod 0777, '/Users/xx/Documents' ). The Scripts directory is correct. On Apr 27, 2004, at 3:24 PM, Bruce Van Allen wrote: Is that Permission Denied for execution of your script? Perhaps it's for writing the file. Check the write permissions of the /Users/xx/Documents directory. 1; - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Copying files
On 4/27/04 Mark Wheeler wrote:
OK... I changed the permissions. Still no change. The file is not being
backed up.
One more permission to check, which is whether the original file may be
read 'executed' by your script. Should be:
-rwxr-xr-x
How do I check to see if the script is even executing? Is
there a log I can look at? I haven't changed anything from the standard
install for 10.3. I'm the only person on the machine. Do I need to
activate perl like I need to when running apache?
Always test the result of actions taken in your script, especially
things that the operating system gets involved in, like filesystem
calls.
Get back to a simple starting point. Set aside the cron stuff for a
minute. Just see if you can execute the script from the command line, an
Apache CGI call, or perhaps a BBEdit shell worksheet. Also, try a script
that doesn't do anything to any files, like the classic:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
print Hello, World;
__END__
Now try to *open* your original file, testing for open()'s result.
If successful, then read and print out the first four lines of the file.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $file= '/Users/xx/Documents/file.txt';
open FILE, $file
or die Can't open $file:\n$!\n;
for (1..4) {
print FILE
}
close FILE;
__END__
Note that you don't need the '__END__'; I've put them above to make
clear where each little script ends.
In some situations, you'd even want to test the result of close(FILE).
You can access your various OS X logs with the Console app, the latest
(Panther) version of which is nice enough to already know where the logs
are.
But you can learn lots just by making use of die() and other Perl
functions and pragmas (plus your logged error messages will have more
info in them). In the words of programmer and regex adept Ronald J.
Kimball, Leave a useful error message when you die.
For myself, something short of Tim Leary's Why not? Why not! Why not.
will do. For my coding heirs, I promise
Can't open /Users/xx/Documents/file.txt:
No such file or directory
The No such file or directory, Permission denied, etc. messages come
from the system, expressed via the Perl special variable $!.
1;
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Copying files
On 4/27/04 Ken Williams wrote: On Apr 27, 2004, at 5:46 PM, Bruce Van Allen wrote: Most likely your script is not running as owner, so you probably want drwxrwxrwx for the Documents directory ( chmod 0777, '/Users/xx/Documents' ). That's a bad idea. I wouldn't want *my* Documents directory world-writable. Of course you're right. I wasn't thinking of it as THAT Documents directory, even though I reproduced the OP's path with '/Users' in it... The cron script is going to run as the user who sets it up, so it's not necessary either. Ah. Thanks. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Undefined subroutine main::sendmail
On 3/4/04 Baiss Eric Magnusson wrote: I went back and removed files and then tried a clean install of Mail-Sendmail-0.78.tar. [snipped description of errors] The errors most certainly relate to the way Base64 and QuotedPrint were installed, now if I can just find the versions of those modules to go with my current version of Sendmail. This is where you missed a key bit of advice -- have the CPAN do the installation for you. Many Perl modules have dependencies on other modules, which themselves may have dependencies. In your Terminal, type 'cpan' without the quotes. You'll get the CPAN shell, and the first time you'll be taken through its configuration. On Panther/darwin, you can safely accept the config defaults (when picking archive sites, stick to your own continent). At the cpan shell prompt, type 'h' (no quotes) to see the available commands. Here's what will work most times: 1. at the cpan shell prompt, type 'i' and the name of the module as a regular expression, and hit return (you'll get something like what follows here: cpan i /Mail::Sendmail/ Module Mail::Sendmail (M/MI/MIVKOVIC/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.tar.gz) Module Tindermail::Sendmail (Z/ZL/ZLIPTON/Devel-Tinderclient-1.2.zip) 2 items found OK, the first one looks like what we want. For more info, search on /Mail-Sendmail/ , which will match the filename of the archive. cpan i /Mail-Sendmail/ Distribution id = M/MI/MIVKOVIC/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.tar.gz CPAN_USERID MIVKOVIC (Milivoj Ivkovic [EMAIL PROTECTED]) CALLED_FOR M/MI/MIVKOVIC/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.tar.gz CONTAINSMODS Mail::Sendmail MD5_STATUS OK archived tar build_dir/Users/bva/.cpan/build/Mail-Sendmail-0.79 incommandcolor 0 install YES localfile /Users/bva/.cpan/sources/authors/id/M/MI/MIVKOVIC/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.tar .gz make YES make_testYES prereq_pm prereq_pm_detected 1 unwrappedYES writemakefile YES Yes, that's it. Now, copy the Distribution id, type 'install ' at the cpan prompt, paste in the id, and press return: cpan install M/MI/MIVKOVIC/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.tar.gz CPAN will do the necessary prerequisite (dependency) checks, downloads, unpacks, etc., for you. Just watch it go by. Then, when everything it needs is there, it will make, test, and install the module. If something isn't right, test, make, make test, or make install will fail and let you know what happened. Send THAT to this list for advice. At that point you and we will have a much better of solving any problems. I just did it on Panther 10.3.2. I allowed Mail::Sendmail to install without changing the test script, test.pl. Copying the sample in the README (also at http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Mail/Mail-Sendmail-0.79.readme), I wrote this script (substitute your own to, from, and smtp server.): #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Mail::Sendmail; my %mail = ( To = '[EMAIL PROTECTED]', From= '[EMAIL PROTECTED]', Message = This is a very short message, smtp= 'my.mail-smtp.server.com', ); sendmail(%mail) or die $Mail::Sendmail::error; print OK. Log says:\n, $Mail::Sendmail::log; __END__ Worked out of the box. ## OK. Log says: Mail::Sendmail v. 0.79 - Thu Mar 4 19:25:09 2004 Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 19:25:09 -0800 Server: my.mail-smtp.server.com Port: 25 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Sendmail Test To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Result: 250 2.0.0 i253PGnJ084630 Message accepted for delivery ## And I received the message a moment later. Give it a try. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Undefined subroutine main::sendmail
On 3/4/04 Bruce Van Allen wrote: In your Terminal, type 'cpan' without the quotes. You'll get the CPAN shell, and the first time you'll be taken through its configuration. On Sorry, less grief if you type 'sudo cpan' at your Terminal/command line prompt. Use your administrative password. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: error catching and hashes
On 1/10/04 wren argetlahm wrote:
--- Piers Cawley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
This is because 'return undef;' is good, but 'return;' is better. It
returns the correct, context dependent representation of false.
That seems to have fixed my problem, but I'm not sure why it works. My
error($error) is now something to the effect of {print shift;
return;}, but why does that return false?
See below. If the stuff about context isn't totally clear to you, that would be a good
area of Perl to study. That's what Piers was referring to above.
from perldoc -f return
return EXPR
return
Returns from a subroutine, eval, or do FILE
with the value given in EXPR. Evaluation of EXPR may be in list,
scalar, or void context, depending on how the return value will be
used, and the context may vary from one execution to the next (see
wantarray). If no EXPR is given, returns an empty list in list
context, the undefined value in scalar context, and (of course) nothing
at all in a void context.
(Note that in the absence of an explicit return, a subrou- tine,
eval, or do FILE will automatically return the value of the last
expression evaluated.)
(END)
1;
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: File Writing and CGI
OK, one more thing to add to the tutorial the OP just got on CGI scripting: In the CGI execution context (webserver), it's best to put your output last. As soon as you do this: print Content-type: text/html\n\n; print ... ; don't rely on the webserver to do much more for you after it's done printing the http output. My experience across about many different commercial and institutional web servers leads me to at minimum wrap up all system-related actions -- like file ops -- before printing output. And the best approach is: output last. Otherwise, I find webservers inconsistent as far as when they to let go of a CGI process. Perhaps someone who knows more about Apache or IIS could comment. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: File Writing and CGI
On 11/21/03 Chris Devers wrote: On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Bruce Van Allen wrote: My experience across about many different commercial and institutional web servers leads me to at minimum wrap up all system-related actions like file ops -- before printing output. And the best approach is: output last. Otherwise, I find webservers inconsistent as far as when they to let go of a CGI process. Perhaps someone who knows more about Apache or IIS could comment. I thought it was considered best to try to send back data early often, and to flush output by setting $| to 1 -- the idea being that a script that takes a long time to produce results might lead to timeout errors if the web client gives up, but if you keep sending back data as it becomes available then the client will tend to keep the connection open. Have I had this wrong? Well, that's all correct. Is it better to save up all output for the end? Most of my web apps have 100% dynamic output, and the main way I cope with timeout issues is to keep things fast. It could be that my experience is from particular combinations of web server, web browser, and my scripts' operations. Or maybe I've drawn a wrong conclusion. To be more specific, I noticed inconsistencies with some web apps that logged state activity; if I waited to write to the logs after all http output was printed, my tests seemed to show that not every action was properly logged; if the actions were logged before final http output, no problems. If my logging routines involved time-consuming things like looking up and manipulating data, especially over a network, things would get worse. I always $|++, use strict, check return values, and I test relentlessly. The inconsistent results lead me to conclude that factors outside my control were causing the web server to sometimes drop or ignore the trailing parts of my scripts after printing output. Inconsistent means I don't see the pattern, not that there isn't one. Thinking about it, another reason I habitually delay printing even http headers is that a script's result state might be expressed as a redirect, an image, or as plain text, rather than html. OTOH, a quick look shows that I have a bunch of CGIs deployed whose first action is to print the usual Content-type: text/html\n\n line, long before doing anything with the input or any data, which follows the standard CGI advice. So, no, Chris, you're not wrong. But my what works practice is to do as much as possible before output. Maybe it's more correct to say before final output but I don't know how the webserver would know that a script has no more output. Is it because the client breaks the connection once it gets the html output? Again, perhaps someone who understand more about how Apache (or IIS) controls CGI execution could comment. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: A Wheeler by anyother name...
On Saturday, March 15, 2003, at 12:25 PM, Chris Nandor wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote: You don't make fun of a man's name. Period. That is your opinion, it is not a rule, and stating it as a rule doesn't make it one. Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on us, no matter how much you Isn't it a matter of respect for others? I can imagine a context where that name would be fine -- like a humorous skit about prominent figures in the open source movement. But in OP's message, with no clear context to shape our understanding of the distorted name, we wonder, what does the OP mean by that? Was that like writing Micro$oft? The Perl community, which, like the open source community, depends on mutual respect, has gone through some argumentation before about this subject. The conclusion, I thought, was the same as in many other communities: out of respect for others, whether they be prominent publishers, accomplished programmers, earnest novices, cloaked gamers, or even clueless FAQ-ignorers, one addresses and refers to people as they name themselves. - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Form feed
Thanks Matt and drieux for the background and leads for exploring this further, especially along the lines of translating to Postscript, an area I was already wanting to learn more about. On Wednesday, February 19, 2003, at 10:06 AM, Matthew Langford wrote: The problem may not be with Perl's \f. Print to a file, and see if \f produces 0x0C characters in the file. If it does, perl is fine. As my experiments confirmed (earlier msg), Perl in all my installations (MacPerl, 5.6.0, 5.6.1, 5.8.0) does indeed output \f correctly. Also, using Perl formats gave me linebreaks the last time I needed them, so this question isn't as pressing for me as it was for the OP, who sought to avoid using formats. The problem was somewhere in the next steps down the way toward the printer: OS X, lpr, CUPS, filters, etc. When I found that lpr under darwin didn't implement some documented switches options, that seemed like the culprit. Matthew: It seems you are expecting \f to be universally recognized by printer drivers, and converted to whatever the printer actually uses to end one page and start another. ... [but] you cannot expect line printer control codes in ASCII to work in a modern, multi-language, batch-printing environment. Ah. My interest in this question lies in the need by some of my clients (such as political campaigns) for printed outputs long with the data enrichment and analysis I provide: things like mailing labels, precinct sheets, and phone lists. My practice has been to do most of my data work using Perl, and then at the end import the data into a commercial program like FileMaker for greater control than Perl formats provide over print layout and typography. Data search and retrieval, counts, and tasks like address normalization are way easier and faster with my Perl tools than with FileMaker, Access, etc. So I'd love to handle my own output via Perl as well. Anyone care to recommend their favorite Postscript-related modules? - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: Form feed
I was hoping someone could offer some useful advice here. I've just begun fiddling with lpr recently, and am still very ignorant, so after the OP's first query, I immediately tried to print something with a form feed on my laser printer Speedy (OS X 10.2.4, Perl 5.6.1): #!/usr/bin/perl -w open LPR, |lpr -P Speedy /dev/null 21 or die Can't open printer: $!; print LPR $_ . \n for qw/AAA BBB CCC DDD/; print LPR \f; print LPR EEE, \n; close LPR __END__ Speedy prints everything on one page: AAA BBB CCC DDD -- what happened to form feed? EEE I also tried the -p and -l (ell, not one) switches, and watched the process using Print Center. With -p (pretty print header) I saw a message flash by saying nstextopdf pretty print not supported, and then the above printed (on one page). With -l, a message flashed by saying Sending print file, 21 bytes, but *nothing* printed. If printed to STDOUT, the rectangle junk character printed for the \f is correctly identified by BBEdit as a form feed. So this question is not about whether I (or the OP) can get something to print -- it's specifically about lpr printing a form feed, known as \f in Perl. As the above shows, \n prints newlines. I also tested \t, and get tabs just fine. Secondarily, at least for me, is there more to know about darwin's lpr here? Thanks. On Monday, February 17, 2003, at 07:59 AM, drieux wrote: On Sunday, Feb 16, 2003, at 14:52 US/Pacific, Tom McDonough wrote: On 2/15/03 21:56, drieux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday, Feb 15, 2003, at 14:40 US/Pacific, Tom McDonough wrote: I'm trying to force a form feed using perl 5.6 and os x.2 without using the format command. LPR is the line printer and it is OPEN. My program is printing continuous lines and I want to control the page break. I presume that you are using a printer with a tractor feed? As opposed to the laser-printer style? yes? and that it is locally attached? Have you pulled out the manual for it, as to what it uses for 'control sequences'. you may want to read man printcap Since what you want to ship to the printer, if it is defined in the 'ff' argument, is what you will need to ship to the printer to make it follow instructions. I think what the '\f' is talking about is the 8-bit pattern 007 or the sixteen bit pattern 017... - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Problems installing Event.pm
Has anyone successfully installed Event.pm on darwin's Perl? I have OS
X 10.2.4, with Perl 5.6.1 replacing Apple's install of 5.6.0. I need
Event for Net::Z3950.
Poking around, I've found that Event.pm has problems installing on
Windows.
The installation (via CPAN; also tried via CPANPLUS) fails for me
because all tests return 'dubious' ('dyld: /usr/bin/perl Undefined
symbols:
_PERL_UNUSED_VAR'), and then it sighs, 'alas--no output ever seen'.
Not at all clear to me whether this would be due to my system's config,
intricacies I haven't learned with CPAN, or some obtuseness of Event.pm
itself (or its tests).
Any suggestions?
- Bruce
__bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: dmg of perl 5.8.0 on Mac OS X
Hey Nat -- Thanks. Downloaded and installed just fine on my t?rusty G4-350, OS X 10.2.3. I've been under a major deadline until last week, so I've just been watching everyone's travails with upgrading their OS X Perl installation. I took the risk of upgrading to Jaguar when it came out, but decided to wait on messing with Perl, even though I'd been running 5.6.1 pre-jag. This week I had just replaced my system Perl with 5.6.1 when you posted this. So now I have both 'good' versions of Perl available. For now 5.8.0 is just for fun and my own local tools -- my applications are on too many machines with older distributions -- pre-millennial, even... After all the comments about downloading and wget/curl problems, I just wanted to let you know that, at least for one person, it worked out of the box, er, dmg. Did notice the DB_File version is: # /usr/local/perl5-8/Library/Perl/5.8.0/darwin/DB_File.pm # last modified 22nd October 2002 # version 1.806 Typo in your announcement? On Wednesday, February 5, 2003, at 05:03 PM, Nathan Torkington wrote: It installs Perl, Berkeley DB 4.1.25, DB_File 1.42 and Time::HiRes 1.42 into /usr/local/perl5-8. You'll need to add Thanks! - Bruce __bruce__van_allen__santa_cruz__ca__
Re: OT praise for the cookbook
At 1:31 PM -0500 11/27/02, Dan Sugalski wrote: At 12:59 PM -0500 11/27/02, Chris Devers wrote: On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Nathan Torkington wrote: \ I've been working with other editors at O'Reilly to free up my time so that I can work on the second edition. Tom's been doing a lot of the Cool. It may be silly to ask, but has there been any thought as to how the release of a Perl Cookbook second edition will coincide with Perl6? I don't think you want to wait that long. The cookbook for perl 6 would likely lag behind perl 6's first major release by at least 18 months--it's tough to document useful best practices for a language that's not out yet! new version of the book would be nice -- if by the time Cookbook2 is ready it looks like Perl6 will be right behind it, I'm not sure that I personally would get a copy because I'd be worried about its shelf life. I think we're safe there. Could be wrong, but I think we're safe. At 12:41 PM -0700 11/27/02, Nathan Torkington wrote: Yes. We're not holding up any of the revisions to our Perl books for Perl 6. As we've all learned over the past years, it's impossible to predict the pace... I'd go further than that: it's not even about Larry's pace or the eventual release date. predictions assertion_factor=strong certainty_factor=.001 Anyone reading this thread might want to keep in mind that Perl 5.x will be out there for *years* after Perl 6 is released. Language upgrades just aren't like getting the latest upgrade of BBEdit or your fave OS software. There are Perl 4 programs still doing heavy lifting today all over the world, both on and off the Internet. Many installations of v. 5.x are still below 5.6.1, much less 5.8. Yes, the proportions are shifting, especially with ActiveState's excellent packaging of Perl for Win32, and Apple's mass distribution of Perl in Mac OS X. And this is a good argument, Nat Tom, for including sections specific to Mac and Windows: much of the growth in usage of Perl will be in those worlds. (My own request would be the converse: ample treatment of cross-platform issues. I avoid platform-unique stuff because I prefer my code to work wherever it lands.) Despite what I expect will be a brilliant set of transition utilities for converting code to Perl 6 :-), very few sys admins will agree to switch; instead, at best, they'll install Perl 6 *and* maintain 5.x. So very few networked machines will be exclusively Perl 6. Mac OS X uses Perl for some of its internal ops, so that distribution won't change precipitously. This leaves local installations on developers' machines. In my work today, even Perl 5.8 is irrelevant, because most of my software is deployed on other companies' machines, so I haven't bothered with installing it in my own (OS X) system. /predictions Anyway, I heartily agree that the Cookbook is very valuable. Go Nat and Tom!! Ask us for help as you proceed! 1; -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Console problem
At 10:02 PM -0400 10/23/02, Sherm Pendley wrote: Here's a tip: If you're doing web development, Console.app is insanely great. Start it up, open the /var/log/httpd/error_log file, and then hide the app. Whenever an error is logged, Console.app automatically unhides itself to show you the error. This was working fine for me (and it *is* insanely great) until a few days ago. Now what shows up in Console is the system log. When I try to open the httpd logs, they're greyed out in the Console Open dialog; most other logs seem accessible.[1] The only thing I can think of that might have changed something was that I innocently tried out the latest BBEdit shell worksheet's sample to build Chimera. After a long process, the build failed, and I deleted the directory I'd created for it. Might be irrelevant, but I have no other leads.[2] I've gone back to Terminal.app, using % tail -f -n20 /var/log/httpd/error_log This works fine, and is almost as handy as using the Console, but the latter's ability to jump to the front when an error happens is ideal. Any thoughts? Notes: [1] Looking at the files, [Franklin:var/log/httpd] bva% ls -l total 24176 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel411816 Nov 25 21:28 access_log -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 11963403 Nov 26 09:39 error_log [2] The worksheet has this: BBEdit worksheet quote ### # You can also batch operations together. # # Build a copy of Chimera: cd ~/Projects setenv CVSROOT :pserver:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/cvsroot cvs login # when prompted for the password, select 'anonymous' and press Command+Return to send it cvs co mozilla/client.mk cd mozilla make -w -f client.mk cd embedding/config make cd ../../.. cvs co mozilla/chimera cd mozilla/chimera pbxbuild -buildstyle Deployment install ### End BBEdit worksheet quote ### -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: dos2unix... and other
At 1:01 PM -0500 2002-10-07, Puneet Kishor wrote: s/ +/ /g; seems to work just as well. Which begs the question... why even have \s? maybe because tmtowtdi?! \s stands for white space: [ \t\n\r\f]. HTH 1; -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: dos2unix... and other
At 1:23 PM -0500 2002-10-07, Puneet Kishor wrote: Bruce Van Allen wrote: At 1:01 PM -0500 2002-10-07, Puneet Kishor wrote: s/ +/ /g; seems to work just as well. Which begs the question... why even have \s? maybe because tmtowtdi?! \s stands for white space: [ \t\n\r\f]. yes, I know that ;-) which is why I am asking why do we even need \s since simply seems to work just as well. I mean, it is kinda hard to put a tab or a newline or a carriage return, etc., in a regexp... but a space is easy... Hmmm? doesn't match \t, \r, \n, or \f. Or are you talking about using '\s' in the replacement expression, i.e., B in s/A/B/? If so, '\s' is just 'backslash s'. 1; -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: question on ssh and peeve on editors
At 9:01 PM -0500 2002-10-03, Puneet Kishor wrote: I have Golive 5, but didn't invest in 6 because I discovered it didn't do anything for Perl. Is the SDK GL6 specific? I have no idea what knowledge it On Thursday, October 3, 2002, at 01:18 PM, Troy Davis wrote: I use GoLive to create websites. But I use BBEdit to work with perl. The two can co-exist, but you're right in that they're not very good roommates. I'd love to see a module to replace the php dynamic database stuff with perl... Puneet: The reason I need something like Dreamweaver or Golive is because I don't want to use my finite braincells remembering syntax for silly html for making tables, frames, hex colors, and other such stupidities. Doing that nonsense visually makes developing web apps tolerable. Even more so when you have to go back and edit some convoluted frames and/or tables code. Perhaps because I taught HTML for five years in the early days, and insisted that my students work without visual HTML composers (which were terrible, besides), I never adopted GL, DW, etc into my own workflow. When my projects have web output, all the HTML is generated by my software, i.e., Perl. Maybe this doesn't get at the problem you're trying to solve, but with a modest investment of time you could equip yourself with Perl tools to do everything you need, including eliminating the tedium of composing in raw HTML. There are several versatile HTML-generating modules on the CPAN, and most use some form of templating. I've built my own templating and output module, so I can't make a recommendation, but others on this list would happily. A complete web application development library could be assembled from a set of well-maintained Perl modules from CPAN. Your module would 'use' or 'require' DBI.pm, CGI.pm, File::Spec, etc, collecting these powers together to be harnessed in your own methods. That wisdom aside, Puneet's posts suggest interest in a programming challenge to learn from, which was the impulse I followed... For my projects, I have to be able to send output in many formats, often not HTML, not even network-related (database, spreadsheet, page layout, postscript). So I wrote a templating module that can dispatch methods from external libraries in response to whatever string of tokens it's fed. For HTML output, I have a module whose methods dress up the data they're passed in the HTML format evoked by the token; if an output method fails, the token is output as an HTML comment. Thus the only place in my programs that any HTML appears is in the methods (subroutines) specifically employed to produce output in this format. Program control, state transitions, database operations, math, date-time calcs, image generation, and so on, have none. This is where I see the dividing line between logic and presentation. It's a thinko to look at the code and the template as representing that distinction. Speaking of templates, I have HTML templates of all types and sizes: one-line dynamic input widgets; whole 'pages' with headers n' everything; standard input forms; sub-templates nested within master templates; dynamic style sheets... The output from my html-generating methods is also beautiful :-) That is, it's just the way I like it: correct HTML usage, easy to scan if I view source, follows my prefs for indentation, capitalization, etc. I also have templates for use during development, e.g., to throw the necessary data and control buttons onscreen, but without the ultimate art and typography. Sometimes all it takes is a style sheet to spruce it up. Forgive me for going on if you know all this, but let me add one more thing about Perl-generated HTML: it has two distinct uses: direct dynamic output, which the web server returns to the client; and output to file, for web resources that update on a time period or upon some event other than an http request. The latter is, in effect, what the visual editors do: output to a file to be used as static HTML. Why not build your own? 1; -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: [OT] how to use a constant in regex?
At 1:20 PM -0400 2002-08-30, Warren Pollans wrote:
Hi Folks,
This is not OSX-related, but I'm hoping that some OSXer could point
me in the right direction. This has to have a RTFM answer but I
haven't been able to find the FM to R.
With Perl, there is always its own internal documentation, in this
case the POD of constant.pm.
However, :-), a quick scan didn't confirm that this was where I
learned the answer to your question, which is to de-reference a
reference to the constant (!!).
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use constant FS = '##';
my $x = 'sadfjsfh##fskdjfa;s##dfjhasfjh';
$x =~ s/${ \FS }/ZZ/g; # or ${ \FS() }
# ^^ ^ ^
print 1:$x\n;
__END__
I can't figure out how to use a constant in a regular expression
without having to assign it to a variable first. Here's what I mean:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use constant FS = '##';
my $x = 'sadfjsfh##fskdjfa;s##dfjhasfjh';
my $y = FS;
$x =~ s/FS/ZZ/g;
print 1:$x\n;
$x =~ s/FS()/ZZ/g;
print 2:$x\n;
$x =~ s/$y/ZZ/g;
print 3:$x\n;
print FS,\n;
print FS(),\n;
Output is:
1:sadfjsfh##fskdjfa;s##dfjhasfjh
2:sadfjsfh##fskdjfa;s##dfjhasfjh
3:sadfjsfhZZfskdjfa;sZZdfjhasfjh
##
##
Thanks,
Warren
--
- Bruce
__bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: Dumb Bunny Future Time Problem
on 2002-06-26, drieux wrote: Well here is the problem in more unpleasantry. I do the make dist load the *.gz it up to the server then download it - and let the StuffIt unwrap it - and i have a folder on my desktop - I use a terminal to go in and check the date stamps - they are - on average about 7 hours into the future from when the date stamps are on Just a thought: what time zone are you in? Is 7 hours the differential between your local time and GMT? Might be something to poke into... the folder I would generate by hand from the tarball with zcat *.gz | tar -xf - This is only a problem when we are doing 'hot turn arounds' where I code up a fix - and hurl it It really does not matter today that the time stamps will be off on yesterday's tarball but today's tarball will unwrap with the same problem. HTH 1;
Re: Time::HiRes
At 11:43 AM -0700 2002-04-24, drieux wrote: volks, I am just starting on with the process of use Benchmark; and have stumbled myself into the problem that I need to run 'Time::HiRes' like resolutions to get a better sub-second resolution to resolve the delta's - does anyone know of any problems with doing the Time::HiRes on an old G4 running OSX? Another approach might be to increase the number of repetitions performed by Benchmark. A factor of 10^3 raises milliseconds to seconds, etc. Sub-seconds would be important in high-volume applications, so more repetitions might be more realistic anyway... -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
good practice in list civility
At 1:01 AM -0400 4/16/02, Chris Devers wrote: On Mon, 15 Apr 2002, Puneet Kishor wrote: sorry guys, maybe I'll lurk, maybe I'll leave, maybe I'll go back to my No no no, please don't leave. Please accept my deep sincere apologies for what I wrote. Chris Devers May I say that: 1. Chris' comments were inappropriate, and those he named should not feel that he represents a majority, or even substantial portion, of the subscribers to this list. 2. Chris has promptly and forthrightly apologized; any further discussion that does not acknowledge this would seem inappropriate. 3. Of the several hundred posts to this list so far in 2002, all but a few have been constructive and useful to some subscribers. 4. While Chris has learned a particular lesson in list civility, others in this thread might learn the lesson that they were rudely treated just for joining in the conversation -- but I wish they would consider a different lesson: that focused questions lead to more interesting answers and wider participation. 5. As I read the thoughtful posts in this thread I found myself growing impatient. The original question was so broad that it lost its anchor almost immediately. This is the only problem with the early posts; the mistake in the later posts was to not see that a very small number of folks were taking a lot of air time circling around a vague topic. 6. These mistakes don't reflect the ideas or programming skills of the posters. 7. Mistakes were made, and when we want to learn, mistakes are our friends. Cheers, -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: DropScript
At 4:25 PM -0600 12/1/01, Joshua Kaufman wrote:
Thanks for the help. Now I can see the errors that the script is
generating, but I'm still not sure how to access argv from my perl
script. For example, if I want to assign the contents of argv to
@some_array how do I do that?
Tantalizingly, if i just write:
code
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
open LOG, log.txt or die can't open the logfile $!;
foreach my $file (@ARGV) {
print LOG $file\n;
}
/code
then I get (just) one of the files, but this leads me to believe
that I don't need to create my own array. Any help is appreciated.
@ARGV _is_ an array, and it can be copied to another array:
@some_array = @ARGV;
Just to check: are you dropping multiple files on the droplet in one
'drop', or are you dropping each file one at a time?
If the latter, study the open() command; as written, each time your
script is called, it writes over what was already there.
Otherwise, what are the errors you see? Maybe there's a hint there.
HTH
1;
--
- Bruce
__bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
Re: IP Address with DHCP
At 10:00 PM -0400 8/23/01, Sean P. Scanlon wrote: en1 or en0 is the name of the interface. if you have only one ethernet card, you will get an error trying to get the ip address of the second (non-existent) interface. Thanks for the info. So I can explore this further, I assume since it's used here on the command line, that this is a UNIX construct, independent of OS X (and also Perl), yes? -- - Bruce __bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__
