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

I have posted in the past about faxing from PERL, at the time I was looking for a piece to a puzzle,the puzzle being a document output management system I am working on. I wanted the whole system to be pure PERL but unfortunately, I could find no module or function that would suit my faxing needs quickly. To fax from the system now I am just calling efax or optio faxfx (yuck) from the program. Now that I have the fax function working (by calling external programs) I am toying with the idea of writing a faxing module. I would probably try to make it more as a front end for efax. My questions are:

1. Is this a waste of time?

2. What would be the benefits to writing a module as a front end to a c program, would there be any?

3. Is there a module already available capable of faxing that I somehow missed in my travels?

Any input appreciated as always -Aseidas

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Faxing from PERL again
by screamingeagle (Curate) on Jul 07, 2002 at 23:56 UTC
[reply]
Re: Faxing from PERL again
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jul 08, 2002 at 11:27 UTC
    Is this a waste of time?
    That's something only you can decide. You put time in it, you get something in return. If what you get in return is worth the time you put it in, it wasn't a waste of time; otherwise, it is. I don't know what you will get out of it, nor how much time you will need to spend. And even if I did know, it's just you who will decide whether it was worth the time or not.
    What would be the benefits to writing a module as a front end to a c program, would there be any?
    That would depend on the C program. If the program is as simple as 'program phone-number file', there would be little to no benefit, as one system() call would do. But if the C program has a large complicated interface, a front end may be useful.
    Is there a module already available capable of faxing that I somehow missed in my travels?
    Perhaps there is, but faxing isn't a portable operation. How to do it depends on the hardware you have, and the OS. Chances are that either such a module isn't available, or only for a OS/hardware combination you don't have.

    Abigail

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