Re: [MacPerl] Is binmode needed in MacPerl?

[daniel@icorp.net (Daniel Hedrick)]

At 7:26 PM 9/27/96, Jamie McCarthy wrote:
>Here's the actual code I use [for outputing raw binaries to stdout];
>
>sub print_file_raw
>{
>   if (-r $fpath and $size = -s $fpath) {
>         #
>         # shove another header in there, just for fun -
>         # some browsers make use of this
>         #
>      $ct .= "\nContent-length: $size";
>   }
>   if (!open(FPATH, $fpath)) {
>      &print_file_cant_open();
>   } else {
>      &print_content_type($ct);
>      while (read(FPATH, $buffer, 16384)) {
>         print $buffer;
>      }
>   }
>}
>
>sub print_content_type
>{
>   local($ct) = @_;
>   $ct = "text/html" if !$ct;
>   print "Content-type: $ct\n\n";
>}

Okay - this gives me a chance to ask another question... I'm having a bit
of a rough time grasping calling subs and how values are passed and then
returned to/from the subroutine. In the case above, there are no locals,
but shouldn't $fpath, $size, and $ct be passed to the subroutine? Would it
be called like so:

#begin
$fpath = ":images:pic.gif";
$ct = "image/gif";
$size = 12345;

&print_file_raw($fpath, $ct, $size);
#end

?? - I'm also trying to write a subroutine that takes a long string, and
returns it split up into a hash. The way I want to call it is:

%form = &splitter($longthing);

If you haven't guessed, this is going to be used to split a CGI post into a
hash. Everything I've seen just calls the subroutine, and the subroutine
itself returns the %FORM stuff - I'd rather assign it in the main section
of the program, where I can make the subroutine more portable, by being
able to interchange above with something like

%order = &splitter($submission);

The perlsub manpage doesn't make much sense on this part.

>Reading to and printing from a buffer of fixed size will give more
>predictable results than "while ($image=<GIF>)".

Is there any particular reason you used a 16k buffer? Was this just what
worked best for your apps or is this an unwritten rule somewhere? It makes
sense to use a buffer, but I'm still pretty much a newbie to Perl (and
programming in general) so I use the path of least resistance -- which
often turns out to also be the path of most confusion, problems, and bugs,
I've learned ;->

I appreciate your help with this, Jamie. I'm slowly learning that Perl is
amazingly powerful for even the simplest of jobs, both on Mac and Unix
machines. Now, I know this is a bit off-topic, but does anybody know a good
scriptable graphics pkg. Something that I can feed some simple data and
have it create a graphic (a graph/chart, really) for the mac? Please reply
via e-mail to keep the list free of more of my rantings ;->


[Daniel]

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Hedrick                                 mailto:daniel@icorp.net
ICorp                                            http://www.icorp.net/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sometimes the things I say represent ICorp, sometimes they don't...