Trapping error writing to DBM file

[wvdw]

Hi,

I have the following problem. I want to store text in a hash which is of course no problem as long as the key and/or value is not to big to fit into the hash.

When a value is to large to fit in the hash I get the following error:
dbm store returned -1, errno 28 etc.
I want to catch this error and act accordingly. Whatever I try the error keeps popping up on screen and I am not able to do anaything about it. (I can not test if the error occured).

How can I catch the error. (I do not want to test the length of the string before I'm storing it)

I hope somebody can help me.

Thanks.

 

[hmerrill]

Paste in a section of code that you are having trouble with, and I'm sure we can help you with error trapping.

Give some system details - what OS, version of Perl, are you using the DBI module? I have not used DBM, but I use other relational databases - hopefully I can help, or if not me then someone else here. There are a lot of very knowledgable people in this forum.
Hardy Merrill
Mission Critical Linux, Inc.

http://www.missioncriticallinux.com

 

[wvdw]

Hardy,

The OS we use is AIX (4.3 I think) and the perl version is 4 (I know it is old).

The peace of code is simple:

@array = "a lot of charachters (more than 1010)";
dbmopen(%somehash, "FILENAME", 0777) || die bla bla
$somehash{KEY} = "@array";

At this point the errormessages appears on standard error ( I think).
dbm store returned -1, errno 28 etc. in SCRIPTNAME on line 200
I tried catching the error like this:

@Output = $somehash{KEY} = "@array";
if ( grep (/errno/, @Output))

But the message still appears on screen so I can not handle the error the normal way.
I also tried to redirect standard error but no luck either.

Hope this is enough information.

Regards,


Walther

P.S. It is not possible to use a newer version of Perl so that is not a solution.

 

[MikeLacey]

Couple of approaches for you to try.

1 - Run the code in a eval block. Eval() will return undefined and set $@ if there is a syntax error or a runtime error, or a die statement is excuted in an eval block. (this is what I would do)

2 - Handle $SIG{_DIE_} but I don't remember what this did in Perl 4.... (use eval) Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Email welcome if you're in a hurry or something -- but post in tek-tips as well please, and I will post my reply here as well.

 

[wvdw]

Mike,

I tried the eval block already. No luck the error still appears.

I will look into the second option. But since I have never seen it before it will take some time.

thanks,


Walther

 

[MikeLacey]

Walther - an error in an eval() causes your script to stop? Really? Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Email welcome if you're in a hurry or something -- but post in tek-tips as well please, and I will post my reply here as well.