in reply to I'm struggling with a function, and hoping for some insight -- not strictly Perl

What part of it is giving you trouble? I don't quite understand all of it myself, but I can see right off the top that the missing letters from the $w array(?) correspond to the the missing numerals in that 'I', 'O', 'S' and 'Z' could be confused for the numerals '1', '0', '5' and '2'.

This leads me to think this is some form of CAPTCHA field.

It helps to remember that the primary goal is to drain the swamp even when you are hip-deep in alligators.
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Re^2: I'm struggling with a function, and hoping for some insight -- not strictly Perl
by taint (Chaplain) on May 18, 2014 at 08:46 UTC
    Hello, boftx! How's the weather down in TX?
    Hey. Your answer makes me feel better, that I can't quite follow it. :)
    Good guess. But not quite. It's actually a number validation; which you pretty much guessed. But it's not for CAPTCHA, it's a SERIAL number. :) No. I'm NOT attempting to thwart some PAY-FOR application. I found a link to an application I thought I'd (and others might) like to use. Problem was, the site, and application had apparently been abandoned. So, after much detective work. I was able to get ahold of the author, and inquired as to what it would take to continue development on the application. He said I could have it, but on the condition that it was AS-IS, and WITHOUT ANY support from him.
    Apparently he'd used it for income, but got a real mucky-muck job, and position in a big mucky-muck firm. So had no more interest, or time for it.
    Well I accepted his offer, and have been working with it since.

    I simply nuked the serial function(s). But they seemed so clever (to me, anyway) that I thought it'd be well worth the effort to understand it better.

    So here I am, asking/begging. :)

    Thanks for the reply, boftx!

    --Chris

    ¡λɐp ʇɑəɹ⅁ ɐ əʌɐɥ puɐ ʻꜱdləɥ ꜱᴉɥʇ ədoH

      More on topic, I'm not a big fan of having validation like that on the client side (assuming it is client-side since it is js.) I'd much rather see it done server-side through an AJAX call if you don't want to cycle through a page reload. Can you move it there and write it in Perl? (For those who are picky, "Perl" is the language, "perl" is the program.)

      It helps to remember that the primary goal is to drain the swamp even when you are hip-deep in alligators.

      Sorry I couldn't help more, maybe a couple more shots of Scotch will help me.

      BTW, I'm back in Vegas. Apparently $work thinks I'm good enough that they want me to be happy and will let me work remote from home. :)

      It helps to remember that the primary goal is to drain the swamp even when you are hip-deep in alligators.
        Ahh. Good news. No?
        So I guess it you're new handle will be boflv?

        ¡λɐp ʇɑəɹ⅁ ɐ əʌɐɥ puɐ ʻꜱdləɥ ꜱᴉɥʇ ədoH