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

My script runs a command on a Linux system. For example: 
while ( my $user = <$fh> ) {
    chomp $user;
    my $out = $system->adduser( login => $user );
    if ( $out =~ /something/ ) {
        do this;
    }
}

[download]

Now, in my subroutine I want to run useradd $login and grab the output from the system. If the output is an error (e.g., user already exists), I want to return something like, "ERROR: $login already exists\n", or "ERROR: $login is not a valid UNIX username\n"... If it worked, it should return something like, "SUCCESS: $login added to system" Currently I am croaking if it's not a success, but that destroys my while loop.

Basically, what's the best way to return an error message from a subroutine, and a success message if it succeeds?

I've read the following:
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=113166
http://www.perl.com/pub/2002/11/14/exception.html

While interesting, I know Perl has changed a lot in the past few years, so trying to get an updated opinion on the matter. Thanks!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Question regarding handling exceptions in subroutine
by choroba (Cardinal) on May 12, 2013 at 10:05 UTC
    Please, be more specific. You want to return an error or success, but still continue the loop. That is not possible - once you return, the loop is done. Probably, you can return two array references: the first array would contain successful users, the second one the failed users.
    لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ
[reply]
      The loop is in script.pl and calls the subroutine from Script.pm. When I croak in Script.pm it makes script.pl exit, thus breaking the loop in script.pl. I'd rather have the subroutine in Script.pm return the error to a variable in script.pl. Hopefully that clears things up. I'm terrible at explaining things.
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[reply]

        The obvious answer is to remove the croak (or perhaps change it to a carp/warn).

        You can run a command in backticks to trap both the output and the status code it returns. So you should be able to do something like: 

        my $response=`useradd fred ....`;
#check the status code (0 = success)
if ($? >>8) {
  # we could not add the user
}

        [download]
        If you spot any bugs in my solutions, it's because I've deliberately left them in as an exercise for the reader! :-)
[reply]
[d/l]

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