reading from file - change value of variable - save it , help needed!

Question

reading from file - change value of variable - save it , help needed!

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management)

(OP)

2 Aug 00 11:48

Hi,

All of this is rather new to me although I think I have overwon the first step and I’m starting to like this. What I’m trying to do is executing a cgi script which should read a datafile and only add 1 to the value of the corresponding variable in the datafile that was send with the form!

If I’m right the script underneath should read in the all variables from the datafile:

$variables_file = “../data_file”;

sub variables_read {
# read in the data file
open (VARIABLES_FILE, "< $variables_file") or &error("Could not open data file at line ", __LINE__);
@variables_data = <VARIABLES_FILE>;
chomp @variables_data;
close VARIABLES_FILE;
}

The next steps are:
1. identify the corresponding variable and add 1 to it’s value.
2. save it into the datafile.

This is a bit to much for me right now. Is there somebody who can help me with it.

raoul

MikeLacey (MIS) · Answer 1 · 2000-08-02 12:29:53

What you'd like to do is a bit fiddly with text files...

The line:

@variables_data = <VARIABLES_FILE>;

will actually read every line in the file and stash them into your array (@variables_data)

you might have wanted to do this - but you're calling chomp on the next line which implies you meant to just get a single line from the file, rather than the whole lot

how many lines in the file?

is it only one variable per line? if it is then you might want to think about using a DBM file - with these it's quite easy to read and write single records at a time

Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Cargill's Corporate Web Site

**Guest** (visitor) · Answer 2 · 2000-08-02 13:53:19

How's this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# cgi library
use CGI_Lite;
my $cgi=new CGI_Lite;
my %in=$cgi->parse_form_data;

# get input variable
my $var = $in{'VAR'};

my $file = “../data_file”;

# open and read file into array @data
open (FILE, "$file") ¦¦ die;
my @data = <FILE>;

# loop through array looking for your var
foreach my $x (@data)
{
  #if it matches your var, increment the counter
  if ($data[$x] =~ /^($var)=(\d*)$/)
  {
    # increment it!
    my $num = $2;  $num++;
    $data[$x] = "$var=$num";
  }
}

# finally print the array back to the file and close it
print FILE @data;
close (FILE);

This assumes that your data file looks something like this:
ducks=4
devils=10
rangers=8

where there is a variable, then an equal sign, then a number.  And each variable-number pair are on a single line (ie newline \n separated).

Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.
http://www.oac-design.com

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 3 · 2000-08-02 15:25:23

Yes Mike you're right but I have to start somewhere and from other scripts I new this would at least read the data file. That's why I am (was) stucked with the next part.

Tom this is exactly what the data file should look like and I will try the script you made. This is extremely helpful and a good way to learn more! Thanks a lot!

Raoul

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 4 · 2000-08-02 16:31:57

Hi again,

Tom, I tried your script but it causes an internal error.

I changed some things

like: 'my $in' instead of 'my %in'

and

“../data_file.txt”; instead of “../data_file”;

without success!

chmodded it 755 and the folder with datafile and datafile itself 777.

Any idea what is going wrong?

Raoul

**Guest** (visitor) · Answer 5 · 2000-08-02 20:24:35

Well, first you should look at your error_log and see what it's telling you is wrong. I wrote this off of the top of my head, so there may be some syntax errors. At a glance it looks right though. Do you have CGI_Lite installed?

perl -MCPAN -eshell
>install CGI_Lite

Does the text file exist and does it have permissions set correctly?

BTW, when you implement this, you should add file locking in if this has the possibility of being accessed by more than one person at the same time.

Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.
http://www.oac-design.com

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 6 · 2000-08-04 03:03:05

Didn't get it work yet, just one question. The modifications I made, are those correct. Or is the original script correct?

**Guest** (visitor) · Answer 7 · 2000-08-04 06:46:20

%in is an associative array (or hash). It must use the %

Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.
http://www.oac-design.com

MikeLacey (MIS) · Answer 8 · 2000-08-07 07:50:49

rtb1,

If you subsistute this line from Tom's (rather good) script

my $var = $in{'VAR'};

with

my $var = 'ducks';

the script will run without any dependance upon CGI-Lite as long you have your data-file set up correctly. (as tom describes)

This approach is fine for smallish datafiles, few hundred records or so. Any more than that and you want to start looking at DBM files (which are dead easy and look a lot like Tom's code - just will run faster and you don't need to read and write the whole file when you change something)

Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Cargill's Corporate Web Site

**Guest** (visitor) · Answer 9 · 2000-08-07 16:35:26

Looking back over it again, I'm not sure if that foreach statement is right. Try replacing

foreach my $x (@data)

with this

for (my $x=0; $x<@data; $x++)

Or you could always use DBI with an RDMS ;)

Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.
http://www.oac-design.com

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 10 · 2000-08-08 07:21:12

Thanks again for all your help, I'm going to try both your modifications.

btw. probably it will run over a couple of hundred records,
but let's start to get this working first,

Raoul

rtb1 (IS/IT--Management) · Answer 11 · 2000-08-08 07:45:42

I'm sure it is me as I still can't get it work, (sorry about this).

Just to minimise possible errors from my side:

Was I right to change:

my $file = “../data_file”;

into

my $file = “../data_file.txt”;

and can I check this script from the browser or should I always pass a variable when running this script?

Raoul

btw I chmodded both the datafolder and the datafile 777 and the path is set correctly so I guess this should be fine.

**Guest** (visitor) · Answer 12 · 2000-08-08 17:04:03

You can name the data file whatever you want.

You should always pass a variable, otherwise it won't know what to increment. You can do this on the command line or in the query string like this thescript.pl?VAR=ducks. BTW, the script won't work as is (it won't increment anything) unless the datafile exists and it has data in it. You'd have to add a few lines to the script if you wanted to be able to make up new variables as you went along and have them added to the data file.

Sincerely,

Tom Anderson
CEO, Order amid Chaos, Inc.
http://www.oac-design.com

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reading from file - change value of variable - save it , help needed!