print "$array[\"$current\"]";
[download]

  print "$array[$current]";
[download]

  print $array[$current];
[download]

The longer fix is to find one of the recipes for scanning mailbox files. The Perl Cookbook is an essential reference to have within reach when you're doing tasks like this.

thank you
I changed the script like you said. Looks better,
but i still get the errors. the mail que has
one mail in it and here is the out put of the script...

root ns2 perl_scratch--->./mail.pl
Linux ns2.taproot.bz 2.4.18-3 #1 Thu Apr 18 07:32:41 EDT 2002 i686 unknown
8:46pm up 33 min, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Sat Jan 11 20:46:21 MST 2003
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./mail.pl line 15.
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./mail.pl line 15.
Use of uninitialized value in string at ./mail.pl line 15.

as i mentioned before i belive the problem is
line 15 trying to call vars from @array that dont exist.
Im just not sure on how to fix it. Or if my logic to start
with is sound.

Thanks for the tip,
jd

$file = "ex1.pl";

open(MAIL, "$file") || die "cant open spool\n";
@array = <MAIL>;
close (MAIL);

foreach $line_num (0 .. $#array) {
    chomp($array[$line_num]);#prepare for m//
    if ($array[$line_num] =~ /^\s*$/) {#a blank line
        foreach (1 .. 3) {
            print $array[$line_num + $_];#remember those are not chomp
+'d
        }
        last;#without this you will see the warning about uninitialize
+d values you saw
    }
}
[download]

print "$array[\"$current\"]";
[download]

print $array[$current] if $array[$current];
[download]

-enlil

I like this idea, and acutaaly tried it earlier. The thing
is that the blank lines in my mail spool test true. I dont
know if there is a unseen crl-left or what. When i use perl
to search for \n or \n\n it doesent find any. So i dont
know how to test for the blank line...thats why i do ...

if($array !~ /A-Za-z0-9/){

because

if($array){

finds truth in the blank lines ??
any ideas?

Thaks Again,
jd

...the blank lines in my mail spool test true...

In order to see if a line is "blank" in the sense that it contains nothing, or contains only whitespace, do this:

if ( $array =~ /^\s*$/ ) { # true if line is empty or whitespace only
    ....
}
[download]

But looking at the whole problem... It will probably be easier if you can add a little bit to the script that creates the email in the first place, so that it causes the body of the message to begin with a constant, recognizable line that never occurs in the mail header (and is unlikely to be found in other, unrelated email messages that might happen to get sent to this mailbox); this way, you don't have to worry about making sure you can parse a whole mailbox file correctly. In other words, something like this to create the message:

(echo SYSDATAMSG; uname -a; uptime; date) | mail -s uptime time@taproo
+t.bz
[download]

Now, when you process the contents of your mailbox, just look for the string "SYSDATAMSG", read the next three lines for those outputs (and make sure you document your code to specify how the messages are supposed to be created):

open(MAIL, "$file") || die "cant open spool\n";
my @mail_lines = <MAIL>;
close (MAIL);

while ( @mail_lines ) {
    $_ = shift @mail_lines;
    if ( /^SYSDATAMSG$/ ) { # next three lines are needed
        $uname_data = shift @mail_lines;
        $uptime_data = shift @mail_lines;
        $time_stamp = shift @mail_lines;
        # (maybe you want to do things with those lines before/besides
+ printing)
        print $uname_data, $uptime_data, $time_stamp;
    }
}
[download]

Note that I'm opting to use a "while" loop, and taking stuff off the array until it's empty (so I don't have to count array indexes).

Blank lines evaluate to true because in your case the blank line string is actually a string containing one character: the newline character.

When Perl reads in line-at-a-time mode (actually record-at-a-time mode) it reads up to and including the newline character (the default record separator). You can use chomp to remove the record separator:

@array = map { chomp; $_ } <MAIL>;

A handy way to check that a line is not blank is to check if it contains a non-whitespace character (newline is a whitespace character):

if($line =~ /\S/) { # line is not blank

Or to test for blank:

if($line !~ /\S/) { # line is blank

There's no need to anchor the regex with ^ and/or $ since we want it to match (and stop searching) on the first non-whitespace character it finds.

  #!/usr/bin/perl -w
  use strict;

  my $mailspoolfile = "/var/spool/mail/mohadib";

  open MAIL, "< $mailspoolfile" or 
    die "Error opening $mailspoolfile: $!\n";

  # first, get (and discard) the headers,
  # which are in the first "paragraph":
  my $headers = do { local $/ = ""; <MAIL> };

  # now read the remaining lines as normal.
  my( $uname, $uptime, $date ) = <MAIL>;
  close MAIL;

  # don't forget to chomp!
  chomp $uname, $uptime, $date;

  # now you can print them if you want:
  print <<EOF;
  uname: $uname
  uptime: $uptime
  date: $date
  EOF
[download]

jdporter
The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.