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writing to log file

by Sun751 (Beadle)
on Jul 28, 2009 at 09:55 UTC ( [id://783805]=perlquestion: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Sun751 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a question regarding log file,
I am working on a script which basically run system command to achieve some goal and in whole process I am suppose to run more than 25 command one by one in respective order at a time,
So rather than having noisy output on the screen
1. I am planning to redirect all the output system generated output to log file,
2. After every successful execution of command I am planning to write in the log file “respective command is success”
3. If the execution fail write to log file.
And I have done following while I am in testing phase,
`(echo $command; $command )>> "$log" 2>&1`;

As I am doing this for first time and I don’t have much experience, I am looking forward for suggestion!!!!
Please
Cheers

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: writing to log file
by ELISHEVA (Prior) on Jul 28, 2009 at 10:32 UTC

    Sun751 given that this is your 40th SOPW question, I think it is time to push you a bit. Learning that you discover for yourself will stick with you in a way that no other kind of learning can.

    You seem to have an idea of how to do each part of the program you want, so I'm guessing that the real question here is: "how do I structure a larger program so that it runs through several commands?" Instead of answering that question I'm going to throw a few quests back at you. I'd like to see what you come up with as a program once you have fulfilled these quests.

    1. Quest: write a short script that takes the content of $ARGV[0] and prints it out to a log file. If you aren't sure what $ARGV[0] is, search for @ARGV in perlvar. When this command is done, you should be able to type perl logit.pm ps and see the output of the ps command in your log file.
    2. Quest: rewrite your script so that $ARGV[0] is passed to a subroutine that takes a single parameter. Your entire script should look like this:
      use strict; use warnings; sub run_and_log { my ($cmd) = @_; #your code here } run_and_log($ARGV[0]);
    3. Quest: rewrite your subroutine so that it can take an array reference containing a list of commands. Your script should look something like this.
      use strict; use warnings; sub run_and_log { my $aCmds = $_[0]; # things to do before doing any command # hint - if you can do it for the first command and then # treat it as already done for each of the rest, it # belongs here - example: you only need to open the log # file once for the first command. All the rest of the # commands can reuse the LOG file handle foreach my $cmd (@$aCmds) { #things that need to be redone for each command } # things to do after all commands are done # hint: these are usually cleanup tasks: e.g. closing # file handles or printing the total number of successful # or unsuccessful commands } run_and_log(\@ARGV);
    4. Quest:. Rewrite your script so that $ARGV[0] contains the name of a file. This file stores a list of commands, one per line. The array reference passed to run_and_log stores lines read in from this file. For help on creating the array, look at How can I read in an entire file all at once.

    If you have questions along the way, I strongly suggest you ask them on this thread. The same goes for when you complete each quest. If you post the results as a new node on this thread, we will be happy to give you feedback. We can give you much better help if we can see the context of your questions.

    Also, try not to worry too much if you are using the fastest or most idiomatic or smartest way. For these quests the goal is to learn how to structure a program so that it does what you want.

    Best and good luck, beth

    Update: added additional quest (specify commands in a file rather than via the command line).

    Update: fixed error in for loop of code skeleton for quest 3

Re: writing to log file
by mzedeler (Pilgrim) on Jul 28, 2009 at 10:41 UTC

    The description that you have provided fits nicely with what a normal script would do. Can you please explain why you are reinventing scripting (see reinventing the square wheel)? What is it that a plain bash/perl/bat script doesn't do that you need?

Re: writing to log file
by LesleyB (Friar) on Jul 28, 2009 at 10:18 UTC

    You'll want to read about the system command : system and perhaps reconsider your log file format to include the date and time at the beginning of each line. Read the sprintf command documentation too.

Re: writing to log file
by ssandv (Hermit) on Jul 28, 2009 at 15:31 UTC
    I'm confused by the lack of a question mark in your question. It would be easier to answer whatever your question is if you actually ask it.

    (And, use 3-argument open unless you can guarantee you will never have pathological $log filenames...)
Re: writing to log file
by nimdokk (Vicar) on Jul 28, 2009 at 17:47 UTC
    You might also take a look at re-directing STDOUT and STDERR. In addition, make sure you are properly capturing return codes to know if something was successful or not. I would suggest reading about STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR in the fine manual :-)

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