Re: Help with .hts (sybase "html" files w/inline perl)

Depending on the number of .hts files that need to be converted, I'd go with either of the following:

one of the standard Perl templating solutions (and I'm not going to name them because the all have their pro's and con's, which I can't really apply because I don't know enough about your situation).
Write a custom mod_perl handler that mimics SybPerl that you're using now (a drop in replacement if you will). Taking out <SYB></SYB> sections out of HTML and evalling them is not such a big thing (apart from certain security implications, but those existed already in your current solution). And writing replacements for the ws_xxx functions shouldn't be such a big problem (with exception of ws_rpc probably, but that's because that accesses functionality that you won't find in MySQL).

If the number of .hts files in in the 10's or 20's, I would go for the first. If there are more than 100 .hts files to convert, I would probably go for the latter. If the number is inbetween, I wouldn't know.

One note of warning: Sybperl was basically Perl 4 if I remember correctly. You might encounter some odd problems when converting to a "recent" Perl.

Hope this helps.

Liz

Comment on Re: Help with .hts (sybase "html" files w/inline perl)

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Re: Re: Help with .hts (sybase "html" files w/inline perl) by herveus (Prior) on Sep 16, 2003 at 11:02 UTC
Howdy! Liz wrote: One note of warning: Sybperl was basically Perl 4 if I remember correctly. You might encounter some odd problems when converting to a "recent" Perl. "Sybperl" is the non-DBI Sybase-Perl interface mpeppler wrote (and which rocks!). The .hts stuff is "websql", something that Sybase marketed for a while that was Perl 5 based, but it included its own copy of Perl and it was a low-numbered Perl 5, as I recall. yours, Michael	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Help with .hts (sybase "html" files w/inline perl) by chrisgraber (Initiate) on Sep 16, 2003 at 17:34 UTC
The site has about 85 .hts files. The files access a database and text files. I know some of my options are listed above, but I don't have experience with mod_perl etc. I am a low level Perl coder so I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel! I'd like to be able to semi-seamlessly plop the code into new pages. I posted a sample (right click his link) file at http://www.cjgdev.com/sample_file.hts Do these files use the Sybperl you talked about? I see SYB tags in them. I.e. does Sybperl = SYB? Help! Chris	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Help with .hts (sybase "html" files w/inline perl) by herveus (Prior) on Sep 16, 2003 at 18:35 UTC
Howdy! That link was very difficult to read...however, I've dredged up more recollections from using WebSQL... WebSQL included Sybperl -- an old version of Sybperl at that. The code inside SYB tags is Perl code that may be using Sybperl stuff. One thing you won't see in the embedded code is setting up the database connection. WebSQL did some extra tricks to set up the connection and pass it in to the embedded code, keeping the user/password/server data in an external file, encrypted for some level of protection. You will need to modify your code to use something other than Sybperl for database access. DBI is strongly indicated. You may find yourself best served by setting up a template for accessing the MySQL database from the web page before trying to plop the usable parts of the Sybperl code in. You will have to rewrite pretty much all your data access parts. yours, Michael	[reply]