I hate having to send the same parameters to a script but there are times when you need to vary from your defaults. I came up with this code (using CGI to handle parameter parsing) with the help of a www.perlguru.com user: mhx. You can define a default for your parameters and if the user supplies a value under the same argument name, the users value is used; otherwise your default is used. Insert into your own code if you need this sort of capability. P.S I could only get 'join "&" => @ARGV' to work this way for @ARGV handling even though CGI shuold deal with it directly. Enjoy!
#!/usr/bin/perl

# define script defaults (change these to suit your needs or supply th
+em in your script calls)
my %defaults =     (    foo            =>        "bar",
                        bar            =>    "foo",
                        ...            =>    ...,
);

# to handle parameter passing
use CGI;

# get the script parameters; 1st from the ARGV array (in the case of S
+SI calls) then the QUERY_STRING
if (@ARGV) { $input = new CGI ( join "&" => @ARGV ); } else { $input =
+ new CGI; }

# set the values for parameters omitted by user to the %defaults value
+s
for ( keys %defaults ) { $input->param(-name=>$_,-value=>$defaults{$_}
+) unless $input->param($_); }

#########
# the rest of your program here
#########

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: script call over-ridable defaults
by particle (Vicar) on Mar 11, 2002 at 16:42 UTC
    instead, i'd use something like this, as is referenced (sort of) in the CGI documentation:

    #!/usr/local/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
$|++;

use CGI;

my %defaults = (
    foo => "bar",
    bar => "baz",
);

my $input = CGI->new();            # gimme CGI!
$input->use_named_parameters(1);   # tell CGI to add dashes
# remember to untaint @ARGV here!!!
$input->param( %defaults, @ARGV ); # assign params after untainting
# more code...

    [download]
    don't be so trusting of @ARGV. make sure it is untainted before you use it!

    ~Particle ;Þ

[reply]
[d/l]

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