stew said:
(e-mail address removed) (James Willmore) wrote:
What happened when you ran the script at the command line?
I've never run a perl script at the command line.
Because I've never had to. Why would I want to?
[snip]
If I run it from the command line it can't find the input file as the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
this is probably important and shouldn't be ignored, see below...
file is relative to the web server. This is all about reading and
writing files afterall.
Wow, you have managed to ignore James Willmore's advice and (I think)
answer your own question in one stroke
When you read/write files you
need to be specific(physical vs. relative path) - the fact that its a
CGI script is irrelevant. And since this the problem *seems* to be
related to reading and writing files, try the following:
use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI;
# use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';
my $cgi = CGI->new;
print $cgi->header, $cgi->start_html('test page');
print $cgi->p('blah blah blah');
# open(FH, 'c:/NONEXISTENT_TEXT_FILE') or die $!;
# print while (<FH>);
# close(FH) or die $!;
open(FH, 'c:/FILE') or die $!; # make sure 'FILE' exists!!
print while (<FH>);
close(FH) or die $!;
__END__
First, run the script as is and make sure that you substitute 'c:/FILE'
with a file that exists on your system using the *full/absolute* path -
the 'blah blah blah' is displayed as are the file contents.
Second, uncomment the three lines from where you try to open
'c:/NONEXISTENT_TEXT_FILE' (assuming the file doesn't actually exist).
The 'blah blah blah' is displayed, which could lead you to think that
the script is working, but the contents of the file that does exist are
not. This simulates what happened when you ran your script from the
command line - couldn't open the file.
Do you see what's happening? No *syntax* error, but everything *after*
the first open() is ignored because the script dies. Actually, even if
you don't bother to check the return value of open(), everything would
still be ignored. I would guess the 'Done! message/page that referred to
in your original post comes after your attempts to read/write the XML
file(s)?
[snip]
If something is broke it gives me the error by passing me the
headers. Will Carp give me any errors that I don't already receive
(given that I'm not adding debug messages into the script)?
Yes, it would have been easier just to do it this way. Uncomment the
'use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser';' line and see what happens.
Even if this doesn't exactly solve your problem hopefully, at least, you
can see how valuable running your script from the command line and
CGI::Carp are.
You probably could have spared yourself a lot of grief if you had posted
some code. And, more unfortunately, you have managed to alienate a lot
of people in the group who could provide you with a lot of *good* advice
- that's too bad
HTH - keith
